3/31/14. SECULAR WORSHIP AND SACRED WORKPLACE

BLOG 3/31/14. SECULAR WORSHIP AND SACRED WORKPLACE

Here’s one for you: I am persuaded that all worship must be secular, and that our ‘Monday morning world’—be it workplace, home, family, whatever—must be sacred. The community’s times of gathering together for worship have always got to be in the midst of the realities of our lives, else they become sheer escapism. Our calling, after all, is to be God’s New Creation people incarnating that New Creation, to be the sons and daughters of ‘the Light’ right in the particular contexts of our lives, i.e., the secular context of ‘this present world of darkness.’

That means that the focus of our gathering together is for us to be energized afresh for that calling. It means that we are continually being equipped and encouraged for that task by the teaching of the Word of God and as we gather around the Eucharistic symbols of our redemption and calling.

Our worship has always got to be aware of our self-identity as a people called out of the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Just as he, Jesus, was the Word made flesh and (to borrow Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase) “moved into the neighborhood,” so we as those who have received him, are also called to live out our lives—not in an escapist world of ‘spirituality’ retreats and church meetings, but rather in our real flesh and blood neighborhoods.

This is where we grow. Our communal gatherings should result, not only in our being energizing for this calling, but actually causing us to ‘salivate’ over the challenge of the week before us, that of taking the light and hope and love and grace of Jesus right into the company of those—maybe affable and personable, or maybe agnostic, maybe hostile, maybe cynical, or … maybe those longing and hungering for some focus—real persons with whom we are inescapably thrust day by day.

We live in a remarkable new culture. We live with many incredibly bright and informed products of the internet-dominated culture, which has access to more information than any society ever in the history of the world … yet, one cannot find one’s own true center, or authority, or creative source, or guiding line, or final goal … on Google. We: Christ’s church, are those who are witnesses to this infinite grace of God to real and broken people as we move among these persons—some gifted, some disgusting, some morally in shambles, and others winsome and yet lonely. We know that when the iPhones and laptops are turned off … that these are left with a haunting loneliness because they are made by God and for God.

It is this secular reality and calling that must suffuse our times of worship, so that as we become the church scattered we can engage in our sacred calling, that of demonstrating the glorious gospel of hope with humor, warmth, sensitivity, caring and courtesy. Being faithful in this sacred calling is where we really grow strong, but then it thrusts back into our community of accountability and into our times of worship to be further equipped, encouraged, and energized and to share our thrilling pilgrimage, and to renew our strength as we engage God in his Word and the Eucharistic encounter.

Yesterday at the particular gathering for worship of my community, I talked with a chef, a small business owner, a surgeon, a grieving mother, a filmmaker, an actress, a new father, a building contractor, and many others. I am in awe of the New Creation potential of such as they move today into the neighborhood of their incarnations.

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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