Texts: Psalm 16: 5-11; Psalm 46: 1-3, 10-11
The Elements of Worship: Entering the Stillness
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Over the past several weeks, I’ve been circling around the Afro-Cuban ceremonies that I witnessed in early January when I traveled to Havana and Matanzas, two important centers of African religion in the Americas. That experience did two things for me. First, it offered a glimpse into a powerful set of religious practices that are everywhere around us, religions that have shaped American life in ways few people understand. These are religions with a complex and dense symbol system, which unfolds during long ceremonies, liturgies, used for guidance and spiritual strength in the world. They’re practices that have come to mean a great deal to me personally, practices I wish to understand more. But then secondly, it had the effect of reanimating a sense of our own rituals, our own worship, here in Old Lyme. However familiar it may seem, however ordinary it might feel for you, when we enter the doors of the Meetinghouse on Sundays, we’re doing something equally profound, even if the expression is quite different. What I hope to do over the next several weeks is to look upon our own ceremonies, our own worship, with a new set of eyes. I hope to convince you that our own practices are every bit as complicated, mysterious, and alluring as anything we might experience in other parts of the world. In other words, I want us all to appreciate the beauty of what happens in this place Sunday by Sunday, for it is as the Psalmist said: ours is a goodly heritage.
The idea I’d like to put before you today is that a worship service is an attempt to articulate an ideal architecture of human life. Put differently, we might think of it as a kind of template for a day, a window into certain crucial moments that occur for each of us between the time we wake up, and the time we go to bed. How do we begin each day? How do we greet the morning? That’s the prelude. What moments occur that call to mind what’s worthy of our deepest attention? That’s the call to worship. Are there moments within our lives that prompt exuberance, exaltation, or even lament, moments that call for artistic flourishes? That’s the singing of a hymn, and the singing of an anthem. Is there something within the day that moves us to generosity and gratitude? That’s the moment of the offering. And wisdom – where do we turn for the nourishment and guidance to be found in words and ideas? How do we challenge ourselves, as individuals and as a community, to be the best version of ourselves? That’s the sermon. And then finally, how do we finish the day? How do we close it all out? That’s the benediction.
All of it, each and every element, is a way of helping us to perceive the goodness of the world, to perceive the goodness of our own lives, but also about the capacities that each of us have for failure, and for making a mess of things. It’s about being invited, over and over again, to make amends for whatever mistakes we may have made, and of finding ways to live into a love that surrounds and upholds us. It’s about being able to perceive the sacred properties of every living thing, and to live out the reconciling purpose to which we’ve been called as people of faith. How do we do that exactly? Well, every aspect of our worship is providing us with important clues.
And so let’s start with the prelude, and everything surrounding it. Most of the time, depending on when you arrive, Simon is playing a piece of music on the organ as a way of inviting you into this space, and into a particular frame of mind. When that happens, we’re entering into something, crossing a significant threshold or boundary, one intended to open us to certain things: to the transcendent, to God, to one another, and to particular ethical considerations. Crossing the threshold is an important part of the prelude.
Thresholds are all around us. They’re invisible regulators of human behaviors, and bodily performances. If you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the threshold helps to call forth certain behaviors in visitors. You’re more likely to speak in hushed tones. You’re more likely to avoid overly demonstrative gestures. You’ll likely move slowly, and deliberately, rather than running. You’ll refrain from food and drink, unless you go to certain designated areas. To cross the threshold is to be ushered into a particular set of behaviors for the duration of your visit, behaviors that, it is hoped, open you to the art you’re there to consider. Likewise, if you were to visit the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami today, there would also be a threshold, one that would call forth different kinds of behaviors or bodily performances. In that space, loud voices are encouraged. Costumes are permitted. Emotive gesticulations and speech are expected, as are food and drink. Those same behaviors might get you in trouble if you tried them in a business meeting, or at the Met. But the threshold allows you to conduct yourself in that way, precisely because it opens you to the drama occurring on the field. When you cross a threshold, any threshold, you’re being given vital information about the bodily performances that are likely to occur in that space.
And that’s certainly true here. To cross the threshold into this space is to be invited into something that is, at least initially, a little quieter, a little more reflective, a little more subdued. It’s not a requirement, but a lot of people dress up, putting on their Sunday best, in order to cross this threshold. That can sometimes function as a sign of status and class, and there have been times in my life that I’ve deliberately bucked that habit, wishing to present myself as I most ordinarily am. If that’s where you are, I salute you! But I’d like to read the act of dressing for church more generously. At its most elemental, I think it can be understood as the desire to bring one’s best self to this space, to show up in the fullness of one’s being, rather than the drab or shabby selves that we most often are, or at least, that I most often am. We dress because when we cross the threshold of this space, we also hope to call forth the best qualities within ourselves, showing our poise, our confidence, our generosity, our courage, and our hope. None of us feel like that all the time. In fact, if we’re honest, many of us feel the opposite of those things much of the time. But still, to cross the threshold is to seek the best in ourselves, like a moving prayer, worn upon our bodies: let today be the day that I live as the person I wish to be. Even if I didn’t yesterday or the day before, may it be so today.
And so we cross the threshold, our movements and our clothing alike functioning as wordless, unspoken prayers. We climb the steps and enter the doors, where there is, hopefully, someone to greet us, and to make us feel welcome. After that, some people like to move directly to a seat, and to sit quietly for a while as the prelude plays, praying, or simply being still for a moment. Other people enjoy visiting, saying hello to friends, asking about the week. Both of those are essential aspects of what happens during the prelude – gathering oneself in prayer and meditation, and acknowledging others within the community. To cross the threshold, then, is to be oriented both vertically, toward God, and horizontally, toward other people. At best, it is to become centered and still as the world turns about us. In the words of the Psalmist, it is to “be still, and to know that I am God.”
I like to think of entering worship, the moment of the prelude, as a metaphor for what it is to begin each day. Which is to say, the prelude is a scene of instruction that we all might use in our daily lives. How often do we begin the day by immediately picking up our phones, and checking email? How often do we immediately begin scrolling through the news, or planning for this meeting, or that presentation? How often do we just begin rushing through the tasks we need to accomplish, rather than entering the day with a sense of calm purpose? There’s been a good deal of research lately suggesting that how we enter the day has consequences not only for the remainder of that particular day, but for our overall sense of well being and long term health. And there’s evidence to suggest that even by rising five minutes earlier to meditate, or to pray, or just to sit calmly and in silence, that practice can help to give you a still point of equanimity that can keep you oriented throughout the day, no matter what it might bring.
I recently read an account of John F. Kennedy’s personal bearing during the Cuban missile crisis. Most members of his cabinet were pushing him toward aggressive confrontation, so as not to be humiliated again, as he had been during the Bay of Pigs invasion. And yet while the world was on the brink of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy remained cool. He doodled on notepads during meetings. He drew pictures of boats, evidently thinking about the sea. He went for walks. He revisited books he had read earlier, and arguments he had previously made. He lived by advice that he himself had written some years earlier, in a book review on nuclear negotiations. “Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent…avoid self righteousness like the devil.” In that moment, Kennedy stilled himself, becoming a rock upon which wave after wave could crash, without moving him. It was from out of that cultivated stillness that Kennedy walked the world back from the brink of nuclear annihilation.[1]
I don’t know how Kennedy began his days during his presidency, or during that fateful ten days. But that sense of stillness and calm within a maelstrom is something of what I sense happening during the prelude, and in the opening moments of each day. We carry any number of struggles or inner conflicts with us whenever we cross the threshold into this space, or into a new morning. We’re absorbed in worries about deadlines, or the demands of a project. We carry anxieties about money, or about our children. We fear what’s becoming of our country, and what it means for the future. It’s not that those things aren’t real. They’re plenty real. But by becoming still at the beginning of things, we give ourselves the chance to become composed in the midst of it all, assured that we have what it takes to meet the challenges before us, confident that God will meet us within whatever befalls us. That’s what the prelude is about.
I’ll close with a passage from the ancient Chinese text, the Tao Te Ching, a passage that speaks to the openness we seek to cultivate in the prelude to worship. Here are the qualities of a still soul that it names:
Careful as someone crossing an iced over stream.
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapeable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.[2]
That’s what we strive to become as we cross the threshold into worship, as the prelude leads us deeper. It’s what we seek to be as we begin each new day, in each of our preludes: careful, courteous, fluid, shapeable, receptive, and clear. And so it is that we open ourselves to the presence of God. Amen.
[1] Holiday, Ryan, Stillness is the Key (New York: Portfolio/Penguin Books, 2019). See pages 11-22 for Holiday’s account of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
[2] As quoted in Holiday, pg. 20.