Words, words, words…

RCL Year B, Proper 19 Several years ago I spent a week in the Taizé community in France. There were 4 or 5000 people there, mostly under the age of 30 – at Easter they get upwards of 10,000 – and three times a day the whole community gathered into the big church for worship […]

RCL Year B, Proper 19

Several years ago I spent a week in the Taizé community in France. There were 4 or 5000 people there, mostly under the age of 30 – at Easter they get upwards of 10,000 – and three times a day the whole community gathered into the big church for worship that lasted at least an hour each time. There was also Bible study, chores, and standing in lines for meals, but worship took up the bulk of the day. There weren’t a lot of words in the worship. It included a line or two of scripture, read in several different languages; several different chant-style songs where you sing the same words over and over again; and long stretches of silence without any words at all. It was deeply moving, being in that space with so many people, all in silence. Taizé is a wonderful destination for a pilgrimage, even if you’re not under 30 (and you can sneak off site and do a little wine tasting in Burgundy villages while you’re at it, though you’re not really supposed to do that).

But when I came back to the Anglican theological college I was studying at in England, the good old Book of Common Prayer worship, full of its rich language and deep tradition, just felt overwhelming. It was overwhelming because it was so over-the-top wordy, words filling up every space and crowding the Spirit out, it felt to me. 7:00 am for the mandatory Morning Prayer, Lord open thou our lips, and our mouths shall show forth thy praise, and on and on we went, long scripture readings, long prayers, long 4-5 verse hymns, words words words. It took me a long time to readjust.

Today in our month-long ministry fair at ECA we’re focusing on our ministries of worship and music. Just like at Taizé, worship is the main thing we come together for at church. It’s more important than our dinners and our classes, because it’s the one time when all of us are together, old timers and newcomers alike. And it’s why we’re a church and not a club, after all – we worship God together. So the people who lead our ministries of worship – who read the scriptures aloud for us, who sing anthems and lead our hymn singing, who acolyte and usher and set the altar and do all the things that make our worship flow, deserve a lot of thanks and praise. It looks like it just sort of happens, or at least, we hope it does. But of course there’ s a lot of time and preparation put into it all, even in our liturgical tradition of the Book of Common Prayer and a set lectionary, where we’re not making it all up every Sunday. So thank you, all of you.

Last summer, some of you might recall, I did a few weeks of instructed Eucharist, teaching our way through the service as we worshiped. One of the things I touched on then I want to return to – what all the words we say and the silences we keep are for. It’s easy for all these words to flow right past your ears without touching down in your brain or heart; and it’s easy to skip right over the silences, shuffling with our bulletin and thinking about other things. It’s easy, in other words, for us to go through our worship without worshiping at all.

First, a look at our scriptures today. Most of the words we use in worship come from scripture, both for the readings and even in the prayers. We read and pray with scripture because it is made up of words about God and us, and God with us. The letter of James today starts off talking about the perils of teaching and preaching, how those who teach need to watch their words carefully. (It would have made a good lesson for the last Sunday of our series, when we will focus on education, but then again, we don’t want to scare our Sunday School teachers off. It makes me a little nervous about preaching today too.) But James also talks about other words, words we use in our community as we talk to one another and about one another – making the point that our words matter, and what we say both reveals and shapes our souls. That’s what Jesus is challenging his disciples with in the gospel, too, asking them, who do you say that I am? What words do you use to describe me? And of course, the disciples are only partly able to do this – Peter says, you’re the Messiah, but when Jesus pushes his interpretation of what that means, Peter says, whoa, you’ve got it wrong, that’s not what my words meant. And Jesus rebukes him, for what Peter is saying is coming not from God, but from his own confusion. His words reveal that he hasn’t really got it yet at all.

Both of the readings make it clear that words are powerful – and that the wrong words can be deadly. ‘The tongue is a fire…a restless evil, full of deadly poison,’ James says. ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ Jesus yells at Peter. Words can do real damage: think of how propaganda can make nations believe it’s ok to exterminate people in war or death camps, or of how malicious gossip can tear somebody down or make a whole community lose hope. We talk about ‘spin,’ about how politicians and others in power frame or selectively use the facts to create a certain outcome – but really, we’re all engaged in that all the time. Our words matter – they make things happen. It wasn’t just God who spoke things into being at creation – we can all speak things into being with our words.

So the readings point out that we have to be careful about words, that words can be dangerous. Maybe instead of our wordy worship we would do better to come together and sit in total silence for an hour like our Quaker friends. And yet our tradition gives us a lot of beautiful words for worship, words that for the most part bless and open our hearts. Both the words from long ago – from scripture and in the prayers of our tradition – and the words we offer ourselves in prayers and in greeting at the peace, make things happen. They can open our hearts to hear God’s voice; they can give voice to longings and needs we have a hard time admitting ourselves. They can open us more to love, to and from God and to and from our neighbor. They can work on us without our knowing it – that’s why children get more out of church than we think they do – but the words of prayer and scripture work on us more if we listen to them and notice them.

So how do we use these words well? Well, first of all, it helps if you give yourself the time and attention to really read them. You can do some of this ahead of time. Every week in the midweek bulletin we list a link you can use to read the scriptures ahead of time – you can click on that and read the words we’ll be listening to in church on Sunday, and really give yourself time to think about what they mean. Then, on Sunday, you can come a little bit early. You can sit down with the bulletin and the hymn books and you can look ahead. Hymns change every Sunday; the prayers change every season or so. Sit and do this in church – which requires you to come before 10:59, and to sit and be quiet instead of chatting. There’s two changes of behavior for most of you, I realize. If you like chatting too much, you can do that downstairs, so the people who want the silent reflection time can have that up here. (Yes, we’ve said that a lot, though it never seems to stick, does it?)

And then when the service gets started, settle back. Let the words carry you along; listen to them, say them, sing them, but don’t agonize about them. You may not know what every word means or grasp what’s happening or believe exactly what you think we’re saying. That’s ok. This is common prayer, community worship – let the community around you carry you through the parts you’re not sure of. And let’s face it, all of us sometimes come into worship and struggle to feel any of it as meaningful and spiritual – we’re distractible creatures, and depending on where things are in our relationship with God, we might just not be ‘getting it.’ That’s ok too. Again, allow the community of faith hold the faith for you. But try not to think about your grocery list, or about the sign-up sheet for the next fellowship event. Try here, for this hour or so, to let that stuff go, and allow the words to wash over and through you and into you. Sit and live into the times of silence – after all, we don’t have that many of them in our worship, so make them count. Even if you’re not sure what sense the words and silence are making here, they can change you.

There are ministries of leading and helping with worship that are open to anyone. But the prime ministry of worship for us is simply to engage in it, here together. God speaks in many ways: the deep traditions of our faith, the words of Holy Scripture, the prayers of long ago and right now, the hymns ancient and new, the silence and pauses, all offer another chance to hear God’s voice – God’s voice here in our community, God’s voice in our hearts, God’s voice spoken for the world. Listen to how God is speaking here today; fill yourself with these words and this silence as fuel for your week. So that in all you do, in all you say, God’s voice can be heard in the world. Amen.