Psalm 95:1-7a
You know, when you really think
about it, the stuff we do in this room each and every week, is just a bit odd.
I mean, really, have you ever stopped to think about what it is we do each and
every Sunday (or at least what most of us do some Sundays)? We get up at a regular time, on a morning or day we
have off of work; we get dressed in clothes we may otherwise reserve for more
“special” occasions (like weddings, funerals, school pictures, or job
interviews); we gather with a bunch of other people in one room (some we like,
some we don’t like, and some we don’t know); we sit on benches, sing songs
together, listen to readings from a book some of us have read ourselves more
than once, and then listen to some guy talk for as long as it takes to watch an
entire episode of a Seinfeld rerun. As
if all of that wasn’t odd enough, at some point—every week—we pass two plates
around to take up money so we can keep doing this and so others can do the same
things in places all over the world. Of course, that may be the oddest thing of
all, right, that we have done this nearly every, single week for over 167
years, and as far as we can tell, we’ll keep doing it every, single week.
Of course, to those who’ve always gone to church or who have been a part of a church for most of their lives, nothing about this seems strange at all—it’s what you do. But to the untrained, the uninitiated, I suppose it might seem…well…a bit nonsensical. At least that was the impression I used to have until I heard about Sunday Assembly. Now, Sunday Assembly may sound like the latest Pentecostal congregation gathering in the empty building next to the old K-Mart in some a strip mall in some small city, but it’s not. In fact, it may be the furthest thing from that, yet if you were to walk into a Sunday Assembly you wouldn’t think it was all that different—at least not at first. To tell the truth, Sunday Assembly doesn’t sound too different from what we do in here every Sunday.
See, Sunday Assembly began on January 6th of 2013 in the Islington borough of London. Two people, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans felt the need to have a regular gathering of like-minded people who would come together to create community, sing songs, and be inspired to make the world a better place. In fact, the Sunday Assembly motto is “Live better, help often, wonder more.” The first Sunday Assembly met in a place called The Nave in Islington, next door to a church called St. Jude and St. Paul’s: there was a crowd of 200 at the Sunday Assembly, while about 30 met at St. Jude and St. Paul’s. At their second meeting, Sunday Assembly had over 300 people, and today they have 70 chapters in eight countries.[1] It’s really something else. Really, it’s something else, because the one thing Sunday Assembly is not is a church, because Sunday Assembly is intentionally non-religious. In other words, it’s a gathering of atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and the like using the model of a church service. Sunday Assembly has all the same parts and may even look and feel the same as a Sunday worship service, but it isn’t. But what really makes them different?
Of course, to those who’ve always gone to church or who have been a part of a church for most of their lives, nothing about this seems strange at all—it’s what you do. But to the untrained, the uninitiated, I suppose it might seem…well…a bit nonsensical. At least that was the impression I used to have until I heard about Sunday Assembly. Now, Sunday Assembly may sound like the latest Pentecostal congregation gathering in the empty building next to the old K-Mart in some a strip mall in some small city, but it’s not. In fact, it may be the furthest thing from that, yet if you were to walk into a Sunday Assembly you wouldn’t think it was all that different—at least not at first. To tell the truth, Sunday Assembly doesn’t sound too different from what we do in here every Sunday.
See, Sunday Assembly began on January 6th of 2013 in the Islington borough of London. Two people, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans felt the need to have a regular gathering of like-minded people who would come together to create community, sing songs, and be inspired to make the world a better place. In fact, the Sunday Assembly motto is “Live better, help often, wonder more.” The first Sunday Assembly met in a place called The Nave in Islington, next door to a church called St. Jude and St. Paul’s: there was a crowd of 200 at the Sunday Assembly, while about 30 met at St. Jude and St. Paul’s. At their second meeting, Sunday Assembly had over 300 people, and today they have 70 chapters in eight countries.[1] It’s really something else. Really, it’s something else, because the one thing Sunday Assembly is not is a church, because Sunday Assembly is intentionally non-religious. In other words, it’s a gathering of atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and the like using the model of a church service. Sunday Assembly has all the same parts and may even look and feel the same as a Sunday worship service, but it isn’t. But what really makes them different?
I’ve heard the language of worship
tossed around about other things this time of year too, especially this week of
every year. I mean, think about it: folks get up early on a day they might
otherwise have off from work; some get dressed in clothes they wouldn’t
necessarily wear during the week; they gather together in one place with a crowd
of other folks, some they like, some they don’t like, some they know, and some
they don’t know; they sit on benches, sing songs together, and may even come
away inspired. Of course, some of the biggest differences between such events
and what we do every week is that some people will spend more money on one of
those events than they’ll give to the church all year, and they’ll likely drive
for hours (rain or shine) to go, and they’ll gladly sit or stand for well over
the allotted hour given for a Sunday worship service, and they’ll talk about it
for the rest of the week (maybe even for months and years to come). Some will
call it a religious experience, but most of us call it what it is—college
football. It may have many of the elements of what we do here each and every
week (gathering together, singing songs, fellowship) but it’s clearly not the
same thing, right? So, what really makes it different?
Now, if you were to take a short
drive into town right now, you’d likely find a few places where folks are
gathered, places that look on the outside a bit like this one, but inside
they’re a lot different. Why, they might have a grand pipe organ, ministers
wearing elaborate vestments or black robes and stoles, a robed choir with a
small orchestra or a five-piece rock band. Their minister might be wearing
jeans and an a designer t-shirt or an old polyester suit. They might be
gathered in a stone building with fine, stained-glass windows, singing ancient
hymns, or they might be in a living room passing around a wine glass and a loaf
of pita bread. They may not even sing together; they may not even sit on
benches; they may not even get dressed up; they may not even listen to some
single person talk, but we have far more in common with any those folks than we
do those gathered for a meeting of the Sunday Assembly or the collective crowd
at a college football game. What is it that makes us the same though we have
entirely different ways of doing things?
Then again, if you wind the clock
back, back several centuries, back even before Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, if
you turn the pages of Scripture back to the time of the Psalmist, to the time
of the temple in Jerusalem, to a time when the people of God brought lambs,
goats, doves, and grain to the priests of the temple as an offering, to be
slaughtered or burned in the altar. That doesn’t sound remotely like anything
we’d do today, yet you’d find we truly have more in common with them than we do
with those other societies and organizations that have co-opted the ways and
means of contemporary congregational life. But how is it that we are more like
those ancient Hebrews with their lamb-slaughtering, grain-burning,
festival-celebrating ways than those groups who gather together to sing songs
and pass the plate?
Can’t you hear it in the words of
this “enthronement psalm” we’ve read together this morning? O
come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock
of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a
great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths
of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he
made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us
kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For
he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Can’t you hear it? What makes us
different from a gathering of the non-religious? What makes what we do
different from what the crowd at a football game claims to experience? How is
what we do the same as our Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist,
High-Church, house church, contemporary, or traditional brothers and sisters?
What makes what we do the same as our ancient counterparts’ acts of animal
sacrifice and burnt offerings? It’s the very reality that what we are doing is
not about us—it’s about proclaiming the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord!
What we do, week after week, is create the opportunity for the
declaration of the reign of God. Yes, creating community is a part of what we
do. Yes, singing together is a part of what we do. Yes, learning together is a
part of what we do. Yes, being inspired to make the world a better place is
part of what we do. But the ultimate reason we are here, the reason we do this
over and over again, week after week, month after month, year after year,
generation after generation, is that we need to be reminded of the deep truth
that the One who set the stars on fire, the One who spins the earth on its
axis, the One who raised the mountains and filled the oceans, is the One who
calls us ever on in this life, the One who calls us ever deeper into
relationship with God’s self. We gather to partake in these otherwise odd
practices as a way to remind ourselves that God still reigns, that when it
seems like the world is going to hell in a handbasket, when we have grown too
confident in our own abilities to manipulate and control our own lives or the
lives of others, when the sky grows dark and the path seems lost, when we feel
untouchable, Christ still reigns.
Worship isn’t about coming together because it’s “the right thing to do.”
It isn’t about coming to hear good music, good preaching, funny stories, or to
check some box on our list of self-righteousness. Worship is about giving to
God that which only God deserves: the praise, adoration, and recognition of the
Lord of all Lords, the King of all Kings, and the God—the One, True God—who is above
everything else that we may ever consider divine. Praise be to God! O
come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our
Maker! For he is our God, and we are the
people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Amen.
[1]
You can find more information about Sunday Assembly on the website: http://www.sundayassembly.com/, as
well as this story from the BBC (accessed 11.25.2017): http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21319945
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