Sermon for May 13th, 2018

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Luke 24:50-53

50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Colossians 3:14-17

14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him

FPC Worship is Public

A father was talking with his young son one day about growing up, and the son asked the father, "Dad, what's the difference between a boy and a man?" The father thought about this, and then said, "A man is someone who always works hard, someone who is responsible, and takes care of the whole family." Now it was the little boy's turn to think. After awhile he said, "In that case, Dad, when I grow up I want to be a man, too...just like Mom."

Today is mother's day, and we are wrapping up our sermon series on worship here at First Presbyterian Church. I'm not sure if there's a really strong connection between the two, other than to quote the great theologian St. Augustine, who said "one cannot have God as a father without also having the church as mother. Augustine owed his own faith to the influence of his mother, Monica, and I know that there are many of us (myself included) whose participation in worship through the years owes much to the love, prayers, and persistence of a faithful mother.

I've been using the letters of the word WORSHIP as an acronym to help remember some important aspects of worship that we embrace here at First Presbyterian Church. Today is the final exam...without looking at your bulletin, can you remember what worship stands for? Welcoming, Orderly, Reformed, Sacred, Honest, Intelligent, and Public.

So today we come to the letter P, for Public. What does that mean, that our worship is Public?

To really understand this one, you have to go all the way back to the middle ages, where a practice had developed in the early medieval church known as the Missa Privata, or "private mass."

It began as a simple convenience--a way to offer a service of worship for someone who, for whatever reason, could not attend mass with everyone else at the designated day and hour. In time, however, it became a way for the church to show favoritism to wealthy individuals or nobility who simply didn't want to show up to church and worship with all the peasants. It also became a way to exclude undesirable people from worship--and sometimes in the middle ages that meant everyone except the clergy!

Can you imagine what an amazing worship service I could create if I was the only one attending? All my favorite songs/hymns, the scripture reading entirely in Greek or Hebrew, and no anxiety about whether or not anyone will laugh at my jokes. I would definitely laugh at them. I could recite the Apostle's Creed at breakneck speed without waiting for anyone to catch up, the communion line would be nice and short, and at the end of the service I could bless myself with a great benediction and immediately go home. The offering might be a little light if I did that too much...but no worries: A few private worship services for the right folks at the right price, and we're back in business.

You can see the problem with that, right? So did John Calvin, Martin Luther, and other 16th century reformers. In their reforms, they insisted that any time and any place the church gathered for worship of any kind--communion, baptism, a wedding, a funeral, that the doors be thrown open wide for the entire public, and if that was not possible, then neither was worship.

So worship is public, as opposed to private.

But there's another sense in which our worship is public, too. The word public comes from the Latin word populus, which means "people." But when you put it in the genetive case, populi, or popli, which becomes public, it actually means "of the people" or "by the people" or "from the people."

Think about the ramifications of this. Worship is of the people, by the people, from the people. As opposed to "of the pastor, by the pastor, and from the pastor." In other words, worship is not something that I do, while you watch. It's not something the choir/praise band does while you listen. It's something we all do together; we all participate, we all have something to contribute.

That's what


worship belongs to everyone...everyone contributes. Open Source. litourgos - work of the people