Worship-The Act of Making Worth

The root of the word “Worship” could be translated back in time as “worth making.”  It got me thinking about Sundays and the absolute privilege of my role with you.  “Making-worth” together sounds like a pretty good description of what we do.

I walk into the pulpit every other week with a little fear.  Not much, but a little. Some of the fear involves practical matters, like did I get the hymns, or am I missing any announcements.  But the real anxiety relates to the quality of the worship.  I am always worried, “Will this service take people anywhere?”  “Will it touch people enough to warrant them getting dressed and out of bed on a Sunday, and be part of how and why we deserve roughly one morning each weekend?”  In particular, I ask myself will it reach those of you that I had in mind as I wrote it?”   I want worship to have a bit of that pensive energy for you too. 

If there is a prayer here it is that what we do together is always a balance between moments so comfortable that we want to take our shoes off and moments so holy that like Moses, you feel like you need too.   You should demand little else.   Let’s be purified by a desire to love ourselves for what we are and purified by a momentum of being better than we are. 

Ideally, I want the entire church experience to be a balance in one moment between creating so comfortable a sense of being at home with loved ones that you lean back into each other’s shoulders.  In the next moment I want it to feel inspiring, and after that the next a jarring challenge.  I want you to hold us, and in particular me, but in the deepest sense “us” to high standards.  I have faith that it is our relationships to each other, new ideas, and knowing we are called to do our little part to save the world that will give us purpose and heal us. 

I know that it is kinda flowery.  Overall, I think we do Sunday pretty well.  I think although sometimes it is almost a bit to informal, we are good at gathering.  The inverse of that is our relationship with our finances.

What is becoming very, very, clear is that the collective we as a church are not doing so well is having hard and real conversations about the financial state of affairs regarding our community.  This is not a blaming act, but a call for all of us to face up to the truth that, unlike climate change, we can’t just stay the course. 

In March, following church, nearly every time we meet, let’s talk about our finances.  Just like the balance of services needing to be both very comfortable and very challenging, let’s remember that the time for taking off our shoes comfort regarding the stability of this community we all love we feel here is threatened by our distaste to face the very un-theoretical challenge of our finances. 

I am hoping that following the Theological Discussions we have scheduled on Saturday March 11^th those who wish to engage can help us prepare for another meeting following church on Sunday March 12^th that takes even one more step forward.

I want to be very clear; I am speaking as much to me as anyone.  I don’t want to be here either, but here we are.

Can we do that?  Can we?  The time has come for a real conversation not about the birds and the bees but the dollars and cents that will greatly determine our future.

This is the time we promised ourselves we would.

Steve