Readings for Lent 1C: Deut. 26:1-11; Lk. 4:1-13
March 4, 2001
The Rev. Karen Siegfriedt
St. Jude the Apostle Church, Cupertino CA,
In today's gospel, Jesus said: "Worship the Lord your God." (Lk.4)
Worship is an occasion of encounter with the Living God. It can be expressed privately or corporately, such as each Sunday when we gather together as a community to express adoration, praise, and thanksgiving to God in response to God's activity in the world. Some types of worship are highly ritualized as in the Episcopal Church. We call this kind of ritualized worship, "liturgy". Some of our liturgy seems obscure. Some of it seems holy. Most of it seems complex. For the next five weeks, I will be offering a sermon series on the Sunday Liturgy of the Episcopal Church, known as the Holy Eucharist. This week, I will be giving an overview of the first half of the liturgy- The Liturgy of the Word.
Growing up, my family had many rituals around the holidays. On New Year's Eve, we would sit around the TV with pretzels and gingerale, watching the Guy Lumbardo Show and waiting for the countdown from Times Square. This evening's activities collected the excitement, the thoughts, and the hopes and dreams for the coming year. On Valentine's Day, we would each bring to school, a paper bag and about two dozen valentines, to give to our fellow classmates. This ritual enhanced the bonds of friendship within the classroom. On George Washington's birthday, my mother would serve a cherry pie after dinner, as we thought about this great president and the legend of his honesty. St. Patrick's day was of course, a major holiday for the Irish in Boston. It was a day of celebration, parades, drinking, and the wearing of green, especially for newly arrived immigrants and those who lived in South Boston. Its purpose was to engender pride among a somewhat powerless group of people who depended upon the community for nurture and survival. Birthdays were celebrated with a cake made from a Betty Crocker cake mix, followed by the singing of "Happy Birthday" and a modest offer of gifts. It was a day on which the birthday person was made to feel special for his or her presence on this planet.
Rituals offer a family a sense of grounding, especially if they are repeated year after year. An important function of rituals is to give a group of people a sense of identity and to enhance community by celebrating important cyclical events. When we engage in rituals that point to the power and presence of God, we call this worship. These worship rituals enhance our sense of community and identity as Christians. Worship comes from the word that means "worthy". Some folks worship money and power because after all, money and power have worth. For Christians, God is the only appropriate object of worship for we believe that it is God who is the true source of ultimate power and creation.
Each Sunday, we come together as a community to express our interior confidence in the loving presence of God. Our Sunday liturgy reminds us who we are, to whom we belong, and where we are headed. Since this reminder is not enhanced by activities in the secular world during the week, it is even more important to come to Church each Sunday to praise God from whom all blessings flow, and to remember that in baptism, we have been marked as Christ's own forever.
For those who are new to the Episcopal Church, the Sunday liturgy can be very confusing. There are bulletins, hymnals, and prayerbooks to maneuver. To you I say, put down your books, open your hearts to God, and sing the hymns listed on the hymn board. Most of the service is led by a team of clergy and lay people. There are only a few responses that are required of you and these responses repeat themselves week after week. Eventually, you will learn them by heart just by listening. However, by knowing what to expect and why we pray the way we do, I think you will become more comfortable with the service.
I love most of the Episcopal liturgy, although I do think it has too many words and not enough time for silence. But then again, no one asked me my opinion. Our liturgy consists not of private prayer, but of common prayer. This means, that when we pray together, we pray the same words, over and over. Now, our interpretation of these words might be very different from each other, but the sounds that come out of our mouths are the same. In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I, in an attempt to bring the Protestant and Catholic factions together, presented one Prayer Book to be prayed in common, but permitted the people to hold onto their own understanding of God. Having an authorized Book of Common Prayer is what makes us part of the Anglican Communion. If you want to know what we believe in, watch how we pray. Open your Book of Common Prayer (BCP) to the catechism on page 857. Notice that there are seven kinds of prayer: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession and petition. The Episcopal liturgy will include all of these prayers. That is why it is so rich and deep and thus life transforming.
Today is the first Sunday in Lent. The colors of the vestments have changed to purple, the music is more somber, and there is more focus on petition, forgiveness, and repentance. The season of Lent began with Ash Wednesday and will culminate in Holy Week.
I want you to take a look at your bulletins and notice that the Sunday liturgy is divided into two parts: The liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of Holy Communion. We will focus on the first part today. There are two main services of Holy Communion in the BCP: rite I which uses more traditional and penitential language and rite II which uses more modern language and is more joyful. At St. Jude's, we use rite II.
Open your BCP to page 355. Notice that at the top of the page, a hymn may be sung. If there is music, we sing an entrance hymn as a means of opening up our heart to praise God and to move the altar party from the back of the church to the front in procession. You could call this "traveling music". Then the celebrant begins the service with a greeting or acclamation. The service could begin with "good morning." But since the liturgy focuses on God, there is a public acclamation that places God at the center. There are three different acclamations depending upon the season of the year.
Next comes the collect for purity. I often say this prayer before the liturgy begins. When you come into church to prepare for the service, I suggest you say this prayer as a means of centering your thoughts on God. Remember, if you want an experience of God, you need to be open and prepared to receive God. On page 356, there is an option for singing the Gloria. We often sing another Gloria in "canon". The Gloria is a song of praise. I read an article recently that talked about people no longer praising God in society, except perhaps at church on Sunday. Instead of praise, we congratulate each other. For instance, when a child is born, we congratulate the parents as if they had created the baby instead of praising God for the gift of life.
The reason that "congratulations" have replaced "praise" is because the dominant myth of our time has us believing that our autonomous self is sufficient and that there is no need for God. The myth suggests that we are rugged individuals who are responsible for ourselves and our successes and are at the center of the universe. So when a person gets a new job or recovers from an illness or succeeds in some endeavor, we do not praise God but rather congratulate the individual.
There is a dark side to the loss of praise of God and the elevating of the self as "Lord". When all credit is given to the self for good things, a corresponding blame is implied for the bad things that occur in life. Thus, the poor man is responsible for his poverty, the abused woman for her abuse, and the sick man for his illness. I could go on about the necessity for praise but that will be in a later sermon. For now, I would like for us a community, to embrace the practice of praise and place God at the center of our thoughts and thanksgivings. By praising we will affirm that God is at the center of the universe.
Usually during Lent, we do not say/sing the Gloria but rather the Kyrie. This gives the service a penitential flavor. At the top of page 357, there is a dialogue of salutation followed by the Collect of the Day. A collect is a prayer which "collects" or summarizes the theme for the day. A collect includes 3-5 parts. First, God is addressed and then described in more detail. A petition is asked followed by a Trinitarian statement. Sometimes more than one petition is posed and sometimes the reason for the petition is given. The collect for the first Sunday in Lent is on page 218. Notice that the collect speaks about being tempted. Do you see how this collect is connected to today's gospel story which spoke about Jesus being tempted n the desert?
After the collect of the day, we sit to hear many passages of the bible read. How do we know to sit? See the instructions on page 357! The Episcopal Church reads more of the bible in its liturgy than any other denomination. This is the "Protestant" aspect of our tradition. About 90% of our liturgy uses biblical texts. Scripture forms the foundation of our liturgy and our understanding of God. Next week, I will speak to this part of the liturgy in detail. After the lessons are read, then the sermon is delivered.
Next comes the recitation of the Nicene Creed. From the 5th century to the 11th century, more and more churches began to recite Nicene Creed during the liturgy. I personally do not think it enhances the liturgy. But then again, no one asked me my opinion. The Creed seems to be a stumbling block for many parishioners here. I have often been asked by parishioners if it is required for them to intellectually accept every word of the Creed in order to be a Christian. My reply is: The Creed states the orthodox position of the institutional church. If you want to be an "orthodox" member, then you embrace the creed. If you do not want to be an "orthodox" member, then you don't. But whoever you are, wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcomed here. There will be no outcasts.
Next comes the Prayers of the People. Here we open our hearts with compassion for those who need help and we lay these concerns before the community of faith and before God. We don't know how prayers of petition and intercession actually work but we do know that prayer does work. Prayer changes us and it seems to change others. The act of observing an atom, changes it behavior. The act of prayer, can influence it even more.
The confession of sin and absolution comes next. I will dedicate an entire sermon in two weeks to this part of the service. At this time, we lay before God and ourselves, those attitudes and behaviors that engender fear and hurt ourselves and others. Because God is merciful, we can begin our life anew. Finally, the liturgy of the Word ends with the offering of the peace. When we greet each other with the sign of peace, we are offering God's peace, not our own "hello". The early Christians offered the sign of peace with a kiss. For most of us, this is too intimate and not appropriate. If someone holds out his or her hand, then shake that person's hand and say "The peace of the Lord be with you." If someone opens up his or her arms and wants to embrace you, then do so only if you feel comfortable. What is most important is the sincerity of the greeting of peace. We greet those around us, not just our friends. The time of peace in not a mini coffee hour but a very holy moment.
In corporate worship, we unite ourselves with others to acknowledge the holiness of God, to hear God's Word, to offer prayer, and to celebrate the sacraments. So let us open our hearts to the divine and allow them to be filled with joy and love.
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