On Wednesday night I was teaching my Bible Study on the Gospel of John. It is an energizing, fun and deep exploration into that most philosophical of Gospels. We take our time and we wander off the path into all sorts of things faith and life related. When I teach I like to stay focused, distractions put away, be in the moment, cell phones silenced. I even took my keys and my phone out of my pocket and put it on the bookshelf in the back of the room, so I could be free to go with the flow of the class. The shelves that have spare bibles in case you came to class without one. The wooden shelves that were mostly empty, thereby becoming an echo chamber of sorts when the silenced cell phone began to vibrate somewhat insistently.
I pretended not to hear, that there couldn’t by anything more important than what we were doing together in class in that moment. Even though I watched each member of the class slide their eyes over to the angry insect of a cell phone buzzing away on the bookshelf amplifier, I carried on. Relieved when it stopped, I continued to carry on, with only a slight narrowing of the eyes when it started up again a few moments later.
When class finally ended, I grabbed the phone as everyone was packing up, muttering under my breath about how in the old days such interruptions weren’t imagined, let alone tolerated and cursed be the inventor of such an intrusion into our daily lives. I woke up the screen and saw the angry red slash indicating multiple missed calls, but curiously no little tape recorder symbol telling me a voicemail was awaiting me. Any why is the voicemail symbol a cassette tape (or maybe even a reel to reel tape) symbol anyway? That’s a bit retro, isn’t it?
So, no voicemail, but text messages abounding. From my daughter Maddie. The first one began, “I’m not hurt.” No message that begins with “I’m not hurt” is good news. Trust me on this. Well, OK, there is good news in it. In fact the only good news is those first three words. After that, it is no longer good news. The good news is used up and now you are on to the bad news. She had an accident and was shaken up pretty badly, the car was totaled we found out later, but mercifully she was OK.
When she couldn’t get her parents, she called the dance studio where she was headed for her lesson, just to tell them she wasn’t going to make it. Her dance instructor Ben came and found her and stayed with her and in the end drove her across town to Aldersgate where both her parents were. And we have been dealing with the implications - insurance, car rental/dealers, doctors and x-rays just to be sure - ever since.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Yeah, ok, thanks Paul. Three little verses at the tail end of a letter that some scholars think is perhaps one of the oldest documents in the New Testament, It was written to a church that was concerned about stuff. All kinds of stuff, but mostly the stuff about how are we going to live in this world as it is and where is Jesus anyway, he said he would be right back and we’ve been waiting. It was easy at first, but stuff keeps happening and we aren’t sure what to do, or how to be in a messy and confusing and sometimes heartbreaking world.
As usual, Paul is full of advice and suggestions. But here at the end of the letter he decides to place all his emphasis on worship. He says, in his inimitable style, that the Christian’s response to the world - messy as it is - is to worship. To live in worship. To let our lives be an act of worship. Our work be true liturgy - which in the Greek means “the work of the people.”
Right, I hear you saying. Right. My response to car crashes and traumatized daughters is worship. Uh huh. My first act when my candidate doesn’t win a sure thing election is to give praise to God. Sure. When I’m facing an uncertain tomorrow with an inadequate safety net my inclination is to sing hymns and read responses. Yeah.
What I want is presence. Someone there to remind me that I am not alone. What I want is someone with answers, with solutions, that will help me find a way through the mess in which I find myself. What I want is peace at the unsettled core of myself, a reminder that the broken circumstances of my life this moment are not the whole story, not the whole picture. I want to be taken out of myself long enough to see that there is hope.
What I want is worship. Even when I don’t know it, that is what I want. What I need. I want joy, always. But not a giddy, always laughing kind of happiness that isn’t aware of sorrow at work in the world. I want joy, that tells me that no matter what I am loved, no matter what I am held in the palm of a hand I can’t see but can lean into all the same. I want that deep seated confidence that Someone is in control even when it doesn’t appear to be so. I want the vision that will let me see the sun that is shining in the cloudiest of days. Rejoice always.
What I want is an open line of communication. To have the sense that my pleas are heard and are not just buzzing away on some wooden shelf somewhere. What I want is to feel like I can have access to the Presence, to the peace that passes all understanding. That I can state my case and cast my cares and unburden my soul and not have the sense that I am shouting down a well. And I want the strength to keep trying even when it seems like the line has gone dead, to keep trying when the signal seems lost. That a response will come, a hand will reach out toward mine even when it is a hand I wasn’t expecting. Pray without ceasing.
Because then, with that heart of joy and devotion to prayer and presence, I will give thanks. In all circumstances. What a phrase, he could have left that one out. In all circumstances. Those three words seem innocuous enough. Until you are in a circumstance that threatens to unhinge you. Until you feel helpless in the face of the hurricane. Until you wish for that time turner thing so you could go back and make a different choice in a difficult moment. In all circumstances. It covers too much, don’t you think. Yeah, in most circumstances I can hold onto my equilibrium. In most circumstances I can do the right thing, hold the right spirit, give the right responses. But in all circumstances? All?
I am thankful that the totaled car protected my little girl. I am thankful that a dance instructor went above and beyond the call of duty to give care and comfort to a frightened teenager who wasn’t at all sure what to do. I had never met Ben. I knew Charles, her previous instructor, but had only heard about Ben. When I saw him that night, tall and black and elegant, moving with that dancer’s grace, he seemed like an angel for a moment. All of Maddie’s dance instructors have been tall, towering over her, it almost looks funny when they stand together. How is this going to work, I wonder. Until the music begins and they dance.
When they dance, Paul’s instructions don’t seem so hard, rejoice always. Worship is not a time or a place, it is not defined or ritualistic, it is an attitude, it is a posture. A dance with one almost too tall to reach. And yet a dance all the same. And I’ve learned that dancers get hurt, dancers stumble and fall. Yet they dance on. In all circumstances they dance on. Because not to dance is not to be you. Not the real you, anyway, not the deep, confident, joyful you. So, keep dancing, in all circumstances.
Keep worshiping, in joy, in communion, in gratitude.
Shalom,
Derek
I pretended not to hear, that there couldn’t by anything more important than what we were doing together in class in that moment. Even though I watched each member of the class slide their eyes over to the angry insect of a cell phone buzzing away on the bookshelf amplifier, I carried on. Relieved when it stopped, I continued to carry on, with only a slight narrowing of the eyes when it started up again a few moments later.
When class finally ended, I grabbed the phone as everyone was packing up, muttering under my breath about how in the old days such interruptions weren’t imagined, let alone tolerated and cursed be the inventor of such an intrusion into our daily lives. I woke up the screen and saw the angry red slash indicating multiple missed calls, but curiously no little tape recorder symbol telling me a voicemail was awaiting me. Any why is the voicemail symbol a cassette tape (or maybe even a reel to reel tape) symbol anyway? That’s a bit retro, isn’t it?
So, no voicemail, but text messages abounding. From my daughter Maddie. The first one began, “I’m not hurt.” No message that begins with “I’m not hurt” is good news. Trust me on this. Well, OK, there is good news in it. In fact the only good news is those first three words. After that, it is no longer good news. The good news is used up and now you are on to the bad news. She had an accident and was shaken up pretty badly, the car was totaled we found out later, but mercifully she was OK.
When she couldn’t get her parents, she called the dance studio where she was headed for her lesson, just to tell them she wasn’t going to make it. Her dance instructor Ben came and found her and stayed with her and in the end drove her across town to Aldersgate where both her parents were. And we have been dealing with the implications - insurance, car rental/dealers, doctors and x-rays just to be sure - ever since.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Yeah, ok, thanks Paul. Three little verses at the tail end of a letter that some scholars think is perhaps one of the oldest documents in the New Testament, It was written to a church that was concerned about stuff. All kinds of stuff, but mostly the stuff about how are we going to live in this world as it is and where is Jesus anyway, he said he would be right back and we’ve been waiting. It was easy at first, but stuff keeps happening and we aren’t sure what to do, or how to be in a messy and confusing and sometimes heartbreaking world.
As usual, Paul is full of advice and suggestions. But here at the end of the letter he decides to place all his emphasis on worship. He says, in his inimitable style, that the Christian’s response to the world - messy as it is - is to worship. To live in worship. To let our lives be an act of worship. Our work be true liturgy - which in the Greek means “the work of the people.”
Right, I hear you saying. Right. My response to car crashes and traumatized daughters is worship. Uh huh. My first act when my candidate doesn’t win a sure thing election is to give praise to God. Sure. When I’m facing an uncertain tomorrow with an inadequate safety net my inclination is to sing hymns and read responses. Yeah.
What I want is presence. Someone there to remind me that I am not alone. What I want is someone with answers, with solutions, that will help me find a way through the mess in which I find myself. What I want is peace at the unsettled core of myself, a reminder that the broken circumstances of my life this moment are not the whole story, not the whole picture. I want to be taken out of myself long enough to see that there is hope.
What I want is worship. Even when I don’t know it, that is what I want. What I need. I want joy, always. But not a giddy, always laughing kind of happiness that isn’t aware of sorrow at work in the world. I want joy, that tells me that no matter what I am loved, no matter what I am held in the palm of a hand I can’t see but can lean into all the same. I want that deep seated confidence that Someone is in control even when it doesn’t appear to be so. I want the vision that will let me see the sun that is shining in the cloudiest of days. Rejoice always.
What I want is an open line of communication. To have the sense that my pleas are heard and are not just buzzing away on some wooden shelf somewhere. What I want is to feel like I can have access to the Presence, to the peace that passes all understanding. That I can state my case and cast my cares and unburden my soul and not have the sense that I am shouting down a well. And I want the strength to keep trying even when it seems like the line has gone dead, to keep trying when the signal seems lost. That a response will come, a hand will reach out toward mine even when it is a hand I wasn’t expecting. Pray without ceasing.
Because then, with that heart of joy and devotion to prayer and presence, I will give thanks. In all circumstances. What a phrase, he could have left that one out. In all circumstances. Those three words seem innocuous enough. Until you are in a circumstance that threatens to unhinge you. Until you feel helpless in the face of the hurricane. Until you wish for that time turner thing so you could go back and make a different choice in a difficult moment. In all circumstances. It covers too much, don’t you think. Yeah, in most circumstances I can hold onto my equilibrium. In most circumstances I can do the right thing, hold the right spirit, give the right responses. But in all circumstances? All?
I am thankful that the totaled car protected my little girl. I am thankful that a dance instructor went above and beyond the call of duty to give care and comfort to a frightened teenager who wasn’t at all sure what to do. I had never met Ben. I knew Charles, her previous instructor, but had only heard about Ben. When I saw him that night, tall and black and elegant, moving with that dancer’s grace, he seemed like an angel for a moment. All of Maddie’s dance instructors have been tall, towering over her, it almost looks funny when they stand together. How is this going to work, I wonder. Until the music begins and they dance.
When they dance, Paul’s instructions don’t seem so hard, rejoice always. Worship is not a time or a place, it is not defined or ritualistic, it is an attitude, it is a posture. A dance with one almost too tall to reach. And yet a dance all the same. And I’ve learned that dancers get hurt, dancers stumble and fall. Yet they dance on. In all circumstances they dance on. Because not to dance is not to be you. Not the real you, anyway, not the deep, confident, joyful you. So, keep dancing, in all circumstances.
Keep worshiping, in joy, in communion, in gratitude.
Shalom,
Derek
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