The Great 180

Posted on by bcp1662

The first thing a visitor to St. Peter’s website encounters is this statement. Or is it more of a warning?

The Liturgy exists for the purpose of worship, not for the comfort or edification of the faithful; we do not therefore take part in it for any personal gain, but to make the most perfect offering to God of which man is capable. And if we take our Communion and receive Him who is our perfect joy, still it is not for our own benefit, but that we may be more wholly given to God in union with Him. — Frederic Harton

It describes the exact opposite of what most people consider the purpose of “going to church”?

In the first prayer in the Holy Communion liturgy why do we ask God to “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit”? In order that “we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy Holy Name.”

In that prayer we say, “Lord, we are here to worship you. Prepare us to do that worthily. We have come here with all kinds of impediments to pure worship. Please put us right by the deep working of your Holy Spirit in the thoughts of our hearts, the very center of our consciousness.”

If we have come to church primarily to be fed, or blessed, or encouraged, or instructed we would need a different prayer. Perhaps, “Lord, help me to receive all that you know I need.”

There is nothing wrong with that. We do need all these things, but our greatest need by far is to worship and give thanks and praise to Him.

Start worship and see how many other needs are met and calamities averted in the process. Start with the needs and see how frustrating it all becomes when God doesn’t seem to deliver.

The source of all the horrors of Romans 1:22-32 to which we give so much attention is Romans 1:21: For although they knew God, they did not honor (worship) him as God or give thanks to him…”

Worship originates in a unique and neglected part of our “being”. In worship we experience a blessed, healing respite from our chronic obsession with ourselves.

Every Sunday we will receive and be blessed and fed by the ministry of the Word, the prayers, the music, the grateful reception of Blessed Sacrament, and the fellowship. But in all our receiving we are worshipping.

“Lord, I listen to your Word as an act of worship. ”

“I confess my sins and receive your forgiveness as an act of worship. ”

“I lift up my heart, I draw near, I bow down, I open my hands, I take, eat, drink as an act of worship to you.”

“I greet my neighbors, and receive their greeting, as an act of worship. I smile, listen and share as an act of worship. We bear each other’s joys and burdens and enter fellowship with each other as an act of worship. ”

It is all for Christ’s sake and for the glory and delight of our God.

Lord, deepen and purify and intensify my worship of you!

Betting Our Obedience

Posted on by bcp1662

Eugene Peterson took the title of his book, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction” from this statement by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: The essential thing in heaven and earth is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction…

You can see why a pastor/author might be attracted to the phrase as a call to discipleship.

What we do every day forms us far more than great events. Events, even traumas, are momentary. The enduring impact comes from how we remember and ruminate in the days, stretching to months and years that follow.

”Sow a thought, reap and action; sow and action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

”Sow an obedience….”

What have I been “obeying” for a “long” time?

We learn things through long obediences that others cannot know.

A man who keeps his marriage vows for 30 years knows something that a philander cannot. Both are obeying something, and learning something.

Likewise, a life-time alcoholic and the teetotaler.

Young people who nurtured their walk with Jesus Christ through their 20s know things at 30 that their worldly peers do not.

We only get our 20s, or 30s, or 40s once. At 60 we can (and often do) attempt what we wished we had done in those earlier years, but of course it is not the same. We aren’t the same. Nothing is.

There are also those precious first-time, one-time, only-time experiences that can never be repeated.

What we learn from experience (often we say, “the hard way”) seems to go deeper and last longer than what we learn by observation or hearsay. Mortality sets a hard limits to experiential learning. So do the boundaries of space and time; I can only be in one place, doing one thing at any one time. Second-hand knowledge is seemingly infinite in our Information Age.

The old beer commercial was right when it said, “You only go around once.”

Experience yields a kind of confidence. But who can isolate the defining variables in even the most straight-forward “I did X and Y happened and now I know Z with more confidence than I would have otherwise if I hadn’t tried it for myself.”

But even doers have their doubts. Was Robert Frost being ironic, even cynical, when he said that “taking the road less travelled by” had “made all the difference”? Really? Or is this just something we tell ourselves? How can we know?

Still, we think, we decide, we act — not necessarily in that order. We obey and disobey. We observe. We imagine that we learn.

Lately I have been conducting some experiments with shorter one-year “obediences” in the same direction. On my birthday I committed to reading through the New Testament every month for a year. I can tell you what it feels like at this point. That’s about all. I’ll be able to tell you more next November. You might be able to tell me something.

I am also experimenting with 30-day obediences.

People often say that they tried this or that and it didn’t work. Yes, but how long did they try it? And what do you mean by “work”?

I’m not the first person to think that “obediences” of any duration are like bets. See “Pascall’s Wager.” But unlike everyday bets some “obediences” pay off long after they are placed, and sometimes only in eternity.