life. First, context matters. Imagine God is Joshua Bell. God shows up doing something amazing but not in the “frame” we’re used to. Can we see it? The church has a major God-frame problem. Worship can reinforce our tendency to see God only in church or it can equip us to open our eyes to the manifold ways God is present and active in daily life. Consider: What do our prayers, sermons, songs and offerings say about where God is at work in the world?
Second, how do we counter the tyranny of taste seen in our iPod culture? Partly, we need to find ways to prac- tice care for our neighbor. If worship is only about me being “fed spiritually,” it’s hard to notice how God might be working powerfully in an encounter with a stranger. We need to recover a deeper understanding of follow- ing Christ, who meets us in word and sacrament and in our neighbor—especially the neighbor we don’t know, like or want to associate with. As theologian Karl Barth once answered when asked if our loved ones will be with us in heaven: “Not only our loved ones!” Third, training matters. Some people without a sense of classical or violin music assumed Bell was just enter- taining for a dime. When we don’t invest in a faith formation attentive to the ways God is present with and through us in our daily work, it’s easy
to assume God is present only at church. We can incorporate affirmation of vocation into the
rite of sending. In doing so, we bless specific work that members are sent to do in daily life and help form our congregation’s imagination of where and how God is at work in and through us, for the sake of the world. Fourth, chronos, a Greek term for time in the minute- by-minute mode, dominates our life—even our worship. Many congregations make worship decisions based on what can be done within 60 minutes. Many people in the subway station couldn’t stop to listen to Bell because they were following the logic of chronos time. But the Greek language gives us another word for time, God’s time: kairos.
Paul writes: “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). If we don’t form people in worship who are prepared to respond to the “now” of God’s presence and action, we won’t be prepared to be caught up short by the beauty of a first daffodil, an arresting red maple or a first snowfall. We need to foster the capacity to fall into “time out of
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time” and God’s “now” since it’s often in the surprise of a moment that we come face to face with Christ Jesus.
Our worship is full of unused invitations to silence .... But neuroscientists say our brains, when listening to music, are most active during the rests.
Beginning with Jesus Our response to these challenges can begin with Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark, our earliest record of Jesus’ resurrection, the women go to the tomb just after sunrise. They are shocked to see the large stone rolled away and a young man dressed in white. He announces that Jesus has risen and gone ahead of them to Galilee (16:1-7). Notice where Jesus did not go: the temple. He went out on the highways and byways, meeting disciples “walking in the country” (16:12) and “as they were eating” (16:14). Specific practices of our life as church can help us reframe where we expect to see God at work in the world through Jesus and the Spirit. We can pray well, clearly and specifically, by name, for the daily work of Christians in the world. And we ought to pray not just for our friends and our own nation, but for troublemakers near and far. “Pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). In this we discover a deeper sense of Christ who meets us in the world and “goes ahead to Galilee.” We can also bless and send people into
their God-given vocations in the world. We have a lovely rite for affirmation of vocation in Evangelical Lutheran Wor- ship. Our gifts, given by the Spirit in baptism, belong to our neighbor in need. Let’s bless people as they go into the world, discovering that God is already
there at work “reconciling the world” (2 Corinthians 5:19) and inviting us to participate. Perhaps the most precious gift we can offer our neighbor is our attention. Theologian Dietrich Bonhoef- fer wrote that listening is the first step in caring for our neighbor. The key here is knowing God listens to our cries and then listening with God’s ears. Can worship help us learn to do this most holy thing? Indeed. Our worship is full of unused invitations to silence. In our media culture silence is too often dismissed as empty. But neuroscientists say our brains, when listening to music, are most active during the rests. Learning to listen as Elijah did for God’s still, small voice (1 Kings 19:12) trains us to give our attention to God’s voice in unexpected places, from unexpected people. In the end, Billy from “Family Circus” is half right. We do meet God in Christ as we gather each week in church. Because God is present for us in word and sacrament, Billy appropriately gives thanks to God. But when he runs outside to join his family, I like to imagine he’ll next say: “Hi, God! Whatcha up to out here? I’m ready to play!”
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