Bible Text:

“These things I remember, as I pour out my soul; how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.”                                                                                     (Psalm 42:4)

A sign outside a church building once read, “When you were born, your parents brought you to church. When you were married, your wife brought you to church. When you die, six strong men will carry you into church. Why not try coming to church on your own sometime?” 

An honest question might be “Why should you?” Why should you come to church? What value does it have, what purpose? What is the worth of worship? 

We have at least three types of weekly worship here. Saturday evening we have a folk service that is more casual in style. Sunday morning we have the traditional United Methodist service, and Sunday night we have the contemporary service.  

We have had some conversation about other styles from time to time. Most of those styles revolve around music. What about a service built around Christian jazz? What about a service built around country music? We could then sing the great country song, “Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life.” By the way, do you know what you get when you play country music backwards? You get your dog back, you get your pickup truck back, and you get your wife back. 

We have talked about a Quaker service as another style. Bishop Joseph Sprague, whose book some of us are reading during this Lenten season, grew up as a Quaker. 

But what’s the purpose? What’s the purpose of any worship? All of worship? 

I saw a story of a retired school teacher and lifetime member of a Methodist church, by the name of Miss Agnes. Each week she would shake the pastor’s hand and praise the sermon. One week he jovially asked her a question about the sermon content. She failed the quiz. But not to let him have the last word, she said, “I guess I’m like a wicker basket. If you put me down in a well and bring me up, I don’t hold much water. But I feel a whole lot cleaner.” 

Is that the purpose of worship? To feel a whole lot cleaner? Perhaps you’ve heard the ecumenical definition that goes something like this: “Methodists pick people up out of the gutter, Baptists wash them off, Presbyterians teach them church order, Lutherans teach them liturgy, Episcopalians introduce them to society and Methodists pick them back up out of the gutter again.” 

What is the worth of worship? Recently a survey was to check on the value of worship from a representative sampling of people. This is part of what they asked: 

Is it authentic? People want to experience the presence of God. They are looking for clarity and guidance to know what is right, and power to do it. Does it echo with the notes of grace? People already know they are sinners. They don’t need to be convinced of that. What they need is affirmation of the reality and depth of God’s love for them.

Is the worship celebrative? Worship is meant to be an uplifting experience that enables people to leave the service strengthened and equipped for life. 

Three thousand years ago a devout Hebrew wrote these words that became one of our Psalms: “These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.” What about that statement? Does it inform what we are about today? 

WE ARE HERE TO REMEMBER OUR STORY 

First of all, the text reminds us that we are here to remember our story. The Old Testament people did that regularly. They listened to the story of their faith. It was carried on for them through what is called “oral tradition.” They remembered Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses. They remembered Rebecca, Sarah, Hannah, Ruth and Queen Esther. 

We have a sacred story given in the Scriptures. We gather to recall some part of that sacred story each week. 

The Bible may be a very old book, but it’s the only record we really have. The Bible is a record of 4000 years of interaction with God—listening, responding, or not responding. God reaching out to get our attention. God trying to claim and reclaim us. 

We are here to be reminded of a wondrous story—the greatest story ever told. We are here to remember our story. 

WE ARE HERE TO CONNECT WITH GOD 

We are also here in worship to connect with God. My prayer is that some of you feel that connection each week. Maybe it comes through the music. Maybe it happens through the prayers. Maybe it happens through the message. Maybe it happens just by being here. 

Long ago a friend of mine said that he felt close to God just by being in church on Sunday morning. He came to church with a very small number of people at the early worship hour in that congregation. But he almost never missed. The service helped him to connect with God. 

That doesn’t happen to everyone, every week. But it does happen to some people each week. This past week a new Requiem was composed and sung in memory of Mr. Fred Rogers. Fred Rogers viewed the space created between himself and his viewers to be “sacred” space. I think I like that. What happens in worship creates sacred space. It helps us connect with God. 

Our vision statement says we want people to connect with God and learn what it means to follow Jesus. The reality is that there is a lot of disconnect in our lives. 

Marcus Borg uses an interesting image for worship.[i] He says that in life there are regular or occasional “thin places” where God can break through. He uses a quote from Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, who said, “We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through all the time. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything. The only thing is that we don’t see it.”[ii] 

So much of my life and your life is “thick.” It becomes impenetrable at times. Worship creates a thin place. Again, maybe it’s the music, or the singing, or a communion service, or the message, or the reading from Scripture. 

Most of you know that our services are now on cable television every week. They are edited down to a half hour format and broadcast in Peters, Bethel Park, Upper St. Clair and now to 600,000 new viewers on Comcast Pittsburgh. A pastor, whose church broadcasts its service somewhere in southwestern Pennsylvania, told a story recently. He had buried a woman a week before from a family he had never met. He had received a phone call. The person on the other end of the line had said, “You don’t know me, but my family has been worshiping with you for the past year. My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer during that time and was bedridden. We would watch your program and worship together by the television, and came to feel we know you and belong to your congregation. My mother’s last request was that we contact you to preside over her funeral.” 

The pastor went on to describe how at the graveside with this poor family they had tearfully sung hymns and bid the woman farewell. He went on to say that it was one of the most powerful moments in his ministry. “You know,” he said, “for all the time and money we spent, for all the effort that went into those programs, for all the times the volunteers and I wanted to just quit, it was all worth it. If not a single person watched that show in all that time but that family, it was worth it.” 

That television broadcast became a thin place for that family. Connection may not happen every week. It may not happen to everyone every time. But it does happen. 

I walked out of worship last Sunday morning after our Choir Recognition Day, sensing that I had been in one of those thin places, and I was very grateful. 

WE ARE HERE TO BE CENTERED 

We are also here to be centered. Worship is a remembering function and a connecting function, but it also has a centering function. 

People have described to me what it is like to sit at an old-fashioned pottery wheel to make clay pottery. You take a lump of clay, and you put it on the spindle. The spindle begins to turn, and you gradually center the pottery, giving it a perfectly round shape. Increasingly it moves toward the perfect round that it needs to be. People who participate in this particular art form tell me that it also provides a kind of centering in one’s life. I believe that worship centers you and me. 

The world wants us to center on power, or sports, or upward mobility, or sexuality, or leisure. Worship calls us to the center—who is Jesus. Worship reminds me, “I belong to Christ.” 

There’s a story about two grandparents who took their granddaughter to church with them. Since Grandma sang in the choir, the little girl and her grandfather would sit in the congregation. The grandmother gave the little girl 50 cents to poke Grandpa every time Grandma signaled to her from the choir—because he had the propensity to fall asleep. Over and over in the service Grandma signaled to the little girl, but she made no move. 

After the service was over the grandmother asked the child, “Why didn’t you do what I asked you to do? I gave you 50 cents to keep Grandpa awake.”  

“I know,” the girl replied. “But Grandpa paid me a dollar to let him sleep.” 

Even if you doze off at times, worship still pushes you toward the center. 

WE ARE HERE TO CELEBRATE 

We are also here to celebrate. The Psalm talks about “glad shouts, songs of thanksgiving, keeping festival!” The Psalmist says, “I went with the great throng in procession.” That is certainly an image of celebration. 

Do you feel a sense of celebration here in worship as we gather? Do you know where I feel this most in my participation? This may seem a bit strange to you, but I feel the celebration mostly in the choir processional. As I walk down the aisle on Sunday morning singing the hymn and making eye contact with some of you, to me that is a wonderful moment of celebration. 

I’m not sure all of you will agree with me about this. However, I’m convinced that worship is meant to be celebration. Every weekend and every service is a celebration. Even during Lent—a more solemn time by nature—every Saturday and Sunday is a celebration. This is a celebration of grace, a celebration of our story, a celebration of Jesus the Christ. 

A friend of mine in Oklahoma City pastors a very large church. The place we would call the sanctuary—the gathering space—is something they call the “Celebration Center.” It is a huge room that looks kind of like a theater in the round. Throughout the room there are live trees and shrubs, and also small waterfalls. 

We used to have running water in the back of this church in the baptismal font. However, too many people had to get up and leave during the service, and so they stopped running the water! The Celebration Center in Oklahoma City is unique among all the worship spaces I have seen. 

I still like the word “sanctuary.” Sanctuary provides the image of a safe place and of shelter. But I like the image of my friend’s church too: a celebration center. I like the “feel” of the Old Testament Psalm text: “I went with the throng, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.” 

WORSHIP IS NOT THE ONLY THING WE DO 

Worship is far from the only thing we do. Some churches are open only for worship and not much else. That is certainly not true here. 

Worship is not the only thing we do here, but I do believe worship is our energy center. I have long believed that. I think I always will. 

I invite and encourage you to be in your place here every week. Draw upon the energy of God—God’s endless supply. And then share it with the world in the best way you know how.