Sermon from Aug. 11, 2024, by the Rev. Dr. Tara W. Bulger

Friends, we're beginning a new sermon series today called Behind the Bulletin, and we are looking at worship a little more closely. We will be exploring what it is we do in worship and the the elements of worship. And to begin, we have this passage from Hebrews chapter 10 verses 19 through 25.

Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

It is a fact, I think of almost every human being, that we wake up and our days have this default setting. And the default setting is called me. I wake up and I think about me. Soon after that, I think some more about me. Everything in my world is filtered through my experience and I tend to put myself right at the center of it.

But we serve a God who is deeply relational, who wants us to be outside of our default setting and wants us to be in community with God and with one another.

Think of the whole of the biblical story. It is God, our relational God, who calls out to Abraham and brings him into community and creates a covenant. It is God, our relational God, who meets Jacob and gives him a new name and makes him a nation. It is God in the person of Jesus Christ who called the disciples into community and taught them and healed with them. It is God who gave Paul his sight after being blinded and called him to to relationship. We are called as people of God to get outside of ourselves and to open ourselves up to God. And we do that primarily in worship.

Worship is the place where we come and we are reminded that God is at the center of all things. That God and God's goodness and love is actually at the center of the whole world. And we are called to turn our attention again to it.

Now, our worship has a particular form, it's called the liturgy. The liturgy is the way that we have come to worship God. Liturgy means that we hear about God and we respond to God's goodness. That's all it means, that in worship we hear of God's goodness and we respond.

Liturgy is sometimes called the work of the people because in hearing about God and responding, we are able to turn away a from ourselves and turn more towards God. And so in our worship service, the liturgy begins when we gather in God's name.

Our gathering begins with the prelude. When we have that first piece of music that is played, it's not just to enjoy the music. The prelude is a time to transition from getting here to being here. That's what the prelude is for. It's a time to let the world around us fall away and to bring our attention to this time of worship knowing that Jesus Christ will meet us here with a blessing. The prelude is a time to turn our attention towards God.

I can remember many years ago when my kids were small, we were getting ready for church one morning and I was complaining, shocking, isn't it? I was complaining that I didn't have anything to wear. I was complaining that I had been up all night with the baby. I was complaining about being too tired to go to worship. And my husband, very dryly said, “well, I think they let you sit down when you get there.” It takes work to get here and I want to acknowledge that. But the prelude is a time when we let all of that work go away and we ready ourselves to worship God and to receive the blessing that is worship. It's also a time to greet one another, to come in, and get settled.

The second movement of our worship is a call to worship. And make no mistake, God ask us to worship together. God calls us to gather together as the body of Christ and worship together. This is where all of our devotional life begins, and it should go through and fill every part of our week. But it begins here as the people of God gathere together to worship. The call to worship is also a time when we remember that this hour is set apart. This is an hour in our week where we will do nothing more than come before God and try to turn our hearts to God. Our passage from Hebrews acknowledges that very thing. The letter is written to a people who had been faithful Jews before becoming Christians. And those faithful Jews came to the synagogue and they offered sacrifices that had to be mediated through the priest. They weren't even allowed inside the sanctuary, the holy of holies.

But all that is changed in the person of Jesus Christ. And we are promised that when we gather together, or as Matthew 18 says, when two are three are gathered together, the very spirit of Jesus Christ will be there. I sometimes think if we took seriously that Jesus Christ will meet us here, you couldn't keep us away from the door. That if we truly believed that Jesus Christ was in this moment, we would all be here wanting to meet with Christ in this hour. We begin our worship with a call to worship, that time set apart.

The next movement is a hymn, and there's something about singing together that binds us to one another. Did you know that when people sing together, their heart rates slowly come into rhythm with one another? We are the body of Christ and singing together binds us with one another. We may not all sound the same, but we all have something to offer. And in fact, in that first hymn in particular, we remember who Christ is, who God is. We remember God's goodness. It is told in the story of the hymn, and that prepares us for the confession—for the time when we remember who we are and who God is. It was the church reformer John Calvin who said, the more you know about God—the more you know about God's goodness and holiness and love and mercy— the more you know about yourself. Because we are a people who have not loved and been as merciful as God has called us to be. And so we have this time of confession as we gather, because it allows us to unburden ourselves. We say those words in the prayer of confession that remind us that we have made mistakes and we lay it here before God, knowing that God will forgive us and renew us.

We then, as we have gathered, have unburdened ourselves and stand before God. There's nothing that you can do that would mean you weren't allowed to worship God. No matter how deep the sins, no matter how long it has been since you have worshiped, all are welcome here.

We are also a community that believes that when we gather to worship God there is healing. And we have to first acknowledge our brokenness in order to receive any sort of healing from the Holy Spirit. That’s what confession does.

The Christian life begins with worship. Everything else flows from there. We pray in our own devotional life and we read scripture in our day-to-day life. And we have conversation with trusted friends. But it all begins here. This is the place where we learn to pray and to read scripture and be faithful. This is what gives the rest of our weak meaning. And so we meet together,

And we gather in all sorts of ways. We gather in Sunday school classes and Bible studies and small groups. After this, we're going to gather around tables and have lunch together. That's all a part of being the church because God does not want us to go it alone. God wants us to gather together and offer hope to one another, and the love of Christ, to everyone.

So this is the beginning. This is the beginning of letting go of that default setting of me. And this is the beginning of turning our hearts to God. And we will enjoy one another around tables at lunch after this, and we will enjoy one another as we meet. It is who we are as the people of God that we are always called to gather together. May it be so for long into the future. Amen.