What is at work in you?

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 Participation is an important word throughout Episcopal/Anglican Theology, and no doubt in other traditions as well. While I enjoy an inspiring sermon or perhaps good speaker in other contexts, we believe and teach that the sermon is just a small piece of it.  Every moment beginning to end is our worship, and we participate in something much greater than ourselves, or our particular gathering. When we worship, we participate in an eternal flow of worship. We remember that specifically when we sing "with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven," just before we share communion. We also join beyond geography with Christians around the world who gather to pray and praise. 

    It was extremely challenging to be apart from one another because what we do in worship together is much more than words spoken and heard. As convenient as it may have been to sit at home in pajamas while watching church online, there's much more happening when we gather for worship. 

    There is a dance that takes place beginning the moment the first person enters the church;, there is a procession which draws us together and orients us toward God, and the symbolic locale of the Altar. We stand to sing, kneel to pray, sit to listen to enlivened scripture, and we move toward the altar to be fed the body of God in bread and wine. We use our whole bodies as we participate in worship. Because we are created by the overflowing Love of the Sacred Trinity, it can be said that we are participating in the perichoresis, the sacred dance of God. 

    I have been participating in that dance for going-on 45 years, and I have been presiding at the altar for 15 years. More than anything I've heard or read, it is participation in worship with my whole self week by week by week that is working in me. Trying to write about it even feels too shallow. The best way to understand, as Philip said to Nathaniel, is to, "come and see." 

    I know our way of worship is not for everyone, and for some their most important spiritual work may need to happen in another place with different scripture, or with 12 steps. Being apart was difficult for all of us, and staying apart may be devastating. Being in an intentional community opens the door for transformation. When we attend and participate in community, we take the holy risk of being changed by someone. Our own plans may be thwarted by new perspective from another. Left to our isolation, we may think we stay in control, and remain the same, but in reality we will become as salty and barren as the Dead Sea. 

    We are unable to control, thanks be to God, who shows up at church. I appreciate that it takes vulnerability to step into a church. We are vulnerable people, all of us. It takes a step of trust to open our hearts to God. I worship with people with a whole range of political views, a variety economic standing, and from backgrounds I will never fully know.  It is a ripe setting for the Holy Spirit to move through each of us to help us understand God's truth. Not only do I think you need church, but I know that church needs you. 

    Christmas is a great time to join or rejoin your church community (or other intentional community.) There is a good, ancient and holy reason so many sacred festivals occur at this time of year. It is a time of renewal, and for me a time of remembering the Creator being born into creation in Jesus Christ. This Advent season of preparing for Christ's coming into the world has been at work in me, once again, as I watched the light of another candle added each week to our wreath. 

    There are good reasons to watch church online, and I'm grateful that we have that technology to stay connected in some way, but whenever you are able, participation in worship, being in a room of friends and strangers is a whole different dimension. It is stepping into the continuous flow of worship of God, and taking a holy risk of being transformed into the person God has created you to be. 

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