In America, typical sacrifices made to attend worship on Sunday morning relate to giving up our tee time at the golf course, changing the time we have set for brunch, or not in sleeping after a night out on the town.
We have no clue what sacrifice really means, but the worshipers at All Saints Anglican Church in Peshawar, Pakistan do. Over 80 of them were killed last week during a suicide bombing attack during worship.
O God, you make the blood of the martyrs the seed of the church: Grant that we who remember before you the blessed martyrs of Peshawar, who opened in the heart of Pakistan the loving way of your Son Jesus Christ, may like them, persevere unfalteringly in the faith for which they died, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
(Adapted from the prayer about the Martyrs of Uganda found in "The New Book of Festivals and Commemorations" by Philip Pfatteicher).
UPDATE #2: According to the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Peshawar, the death toll from the September 22nd bombing is 127, with 170 injured. Here is a link which contains the Bishop's information, as well as links to sites which offer a way to help.
This upcoming Sunday, September 29th, the Western Church celebrates the feast of St. Michael and All Angels. Assuming they follow the lectionary (don't get me started on that subject), many ELCA pastors will probably use the regular lectionary texts of the day for their Scripture readings. As for me, though, instead of observing the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, I'm going to take this opportunity for a break from the "long green season" (green is the liturgical color used during the season after Pentecost) and grab my white vestments out of the closet to celebrate St. Michael's Day (if I wanted to go old school, I could call it "Michaelmas").
I saw a comment on another online forum that we should stay away from observing St. Michael's Day because angels are allegedly part of a so-called "mythology" from a different time. I find that reasoning suspect, given the large number of references to angels in the Bible (for just a few, see my earlier post here - http://benedictinelutheran.blogspot.com/2013/08/want-to-have-encounter-with-angel.html). Additionally, Luther strongly emphasized the role of the angels - both the good ones and the demonic ones (See Heiko Oberman's classic biography, "Luther: Man Between God and the Devil" http://books.google.ca/books?id=ROjEtAGFm1kC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false). Luther's emphasis on the work of the angels can be found in the Small Catechism's Morning and Evening Prayers:
(LUTHER'S MORNING PRAYER)
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son,
that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You
would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life
may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all
things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over
me. Amen.
(LUTHER'S EVENING PRAYER)
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that
You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all
my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into
Your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy
angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.
Therefore, regardless of whether or not your congregation celebrates St. Michael's Day, and regardless of whether angels play a role in your personal piety, don't ignore them - as St. Clement wrote in a letter at the end of the first century, the whole multitude of angels stand ready to minister to God's will. (Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter 34).
St. Simeon was a Fifth Century hermit-monk who lived for 37 years on top of a small platform. He had developed a reputation as a holy man, so many came to him for prayers and advice, but he desired solitude. So, he ascended to the top of an abandoned pillar in order to live and pray alone.
As you can see in many of the icons depicting St. Simeon, though, he did not achieve his desire for solitude by living on top of the pillar, as many still came to see him. After St. Simeon, others hermits, known as "stylites" followed his ascetic practice of living, praying, and fasting on top of platforms.
The monk, a 59 year old man named Maxime Qavtaradze, spent time in prison during his younger years, but now, like St. Simeon, offers prayers and counsel to people who come to rock to meet him. But, also like St. Simeon, he lives on the rock because of the solitude: "It is up here in the silence that you can feel God's presence."
I'm not really much of a musician, though. I was in band and choir in the small town high school that I attended, and did relatively well there, but there wasn't much competition. That's what my kids tell me, anyway, when I try to brag about being the first chair trumpet player in the Western Iowa Conference honor band during my senior year. I no longer play an instrument, and while my voice has improved due to the constant singing I do as a pastor, I lack the training to excel at vocal music.
However, despite my lack of musicianship, I nevertheless think that I know quite a bit about music because I've listened to so much of it over my lifetime. I haven't made the transition to listening to music via download, but I have boxes full of CDs and vinyl albums that I have collected over the years. On top of that, I don't know how many music groups I have seen perform over the years, but it has to be well into the hundreds - ranging from watching bar bands all the way up to seeing groups like the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd play in stadiums to crowds in excess of 50,000 people. Country, folk, heavy metal, hard rock, classic rock, punk, rap, pop, orchestra, jazz, blues - I've seen it all.
Has my history listening to live music influenced the way I preside over worship, though? Not really. Just because I've seen Mick Jagger twice in concert doesn't mean I want to move like him (apologies to Maroon 5).
Instead, what has influenced my worship style is the belief that what we do during worship should reflect how the angels and saints worship God. How do we know the way they worship God? We see through the mirror dimly, but Isaiah 6, among other passages from the Bible, gives us a clue:
"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’"
We can't fly around like the seraphs, but we can sing their song. Their words form the basis of the Sanctus - the "Holy, Holy. Holy" song that is sung by the congregation during the Eucharistic liturgy. When we sing those words, regardless of whatever style of music is used to accompany the words, we mirror the heavenly liturgy. Our voices our joined with the angels in their eternal song of praise.
I am partial to classical forms of the liturgy. When I hear recordings of great Russian choirs singing the Sanctus, it sounds like I have a front row seat to a concert by the choirs of angels and archangels.
I can accept the fact that this kind of music might not appeal to everyone the appeals to me. Regardless of the style of music used to perform the song, though, the words matter. Because of Christ, we participate in God's divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), so why wouldn't we want to participate in those aspects of the heavenly liturgy that have been revealed to us through the visions recorded in Isaiah and elsewhere in the Bible?
When we gather together for worship, we enter into sacred time and space. The veil between heaven and earth is lifted, and our voices can join those of the saints of all ages in the praise of God. Therefore, the words and music of worship should be used in a way that allows us to be in harmony with the angels and saints, instead of merely being a distant echo.
A few months ago, I wrote about the spirituality of silence. (http://benedictinelutheran.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-spirituality-of-silence.html). Since then, I've been thinking about how a spirituality of silence might be relevant to those of us who don't live in a monastic cloister, such as the Carthusians that I wrote about in my previous article. I recently came across this passage from a book called "The Jesus Prayer" which emphasizes how times of intentional silence can give us freedom:
"Silence is not just a kind of ascetic discipline that we lay upon ourselves. It is not a clamp over our lips such as a schoolteacher might impose in calling for silence in the schoolroom. Rather silence means freedom from the bondage of words, freedom from the constraints of thought and desire, freedom from the compulsion to go on talking and thinking up ideas and adopting viewpoints and feeling desire - or repressing such feelings. We often read of this in one of our communion hymns:
Let all mortal flesh keep silence
And with fear and trembling stand.....
At last all our inner drive to think and desire and form words can come to end. The whole person can rest and be at peace - and worship Christ."
(from pp. 63-64 of the book "The Jesus Prayer" by Per Olof-Sjogren - a great book about the Eastern Orthodox practice of praying the Jesus Prayer, from the perspective Swedish Lutheran priest).
The members of my congregation have heard me preach about how our prayers sometimes seem to be directed to the "great Santa Claus in the sky" - a God who seems to exist to give us stuff when we ask for it. When I make that comment in a sermon, it is largely directed at myself, as I have prayed that way many times. Of course, Jesus told the disciples that we can ask God for what we need ("give us this day our daily bread"), but that does not mean we should tell God to give us whatever we want.
How do we avoid falling into the trap of praying to the "great Santa Claus in the sky"? One way is to remember that a few simple words will do the job. Prayers need not be lengthy petitions or sermons to God. A simple cry to the Lord for mercy will oftentimes suffice, as it seeks union with the very heart of God:
"[T]he prayer for mercy is not a prayer for certain gifts of grace from God, nor a prayer for forgiveness, for strength, for help in the changing fortunes of life, nor a prayer for any particular gift from God, but a cry to God himself, a prayer to his heart, implying: the man who is enfolded in the heart of God needs nothing more.... It is an additional advantage and benefit to pray for everything needful, but praying for contact with the heart of God includes all kinds of prayer: confession of sin, thanksgiving, intercession, praise, petition." (From the book "The Jesus Prayer" by Per-Olof Sjogren).
Also, when we simply pray for mercy, our prayers are joined with the saints of various eras. Each one of the verses of Psalm 136 includes the phrase "for his mercy endures forever." In Luke 18:13, Jesus extolled the virtue of the prayer of the tax collector, which was simply "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." The tax collector's prayer is echoed in the ancient "Jesus Prayer" which has been used for centuries in the Eastern Church: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." The liturgies of both the Eastern and Western Churches include the prayer "Kyrie Eleison" - "Lord, have mercy."
So, the next time we get the urge to make our prayers look like a laundry list directed toward God, remember that the simple request for mercy encompasses a request for what we really need - union with God.
Today is Labor Day - a secular American holiday, of course, but labor is at the very heart of Benedictine spirituality. The essence of the Rule of St. Benedict is described in the Latin phrase "ora et labora" ("pray and work").
A recent survey of workers in the U.S. and Canada revealed that around 2/3 of workers felt unsatisfied at work. http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/05/18/new-survey-majority-of-employees-dissatisfied/. I suspect that part of the problem is that our society has reduced the concept of work to being a mechanism to receive a paycheck, as opposed to thinking of work as being a vocational calling from God.
The kind of work described in the Rule of St. Benedict is not glorious, but a daily regimen of manual labor, combined with lectio divina ("divine reading"): "Idleness is the soul's enemy, so therefore at determined times, the brothers ought to be organized with manual labor, and again at determined hours in lectio divina. . . . If the necessities of the place or poverty demand that they themselves work at the harvest, they should not be sad. For if they live by the work of their hands, then they are true monks, as were our Fathers and the apostles." (Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 48).
There is no easy cure for the kind of widespread job dissatisfaction mentioned above. It might help, though, if Christians would follow the Benedictine model and carve out some time during each work day to stop, pray, and give thanks to God for the work that has been given to us, which allows us to "live by the work of our hands."
