Tuesday, August 5, 2014

The Symbiotic Relationship of Worship & Service" Pent. 8 AUG 3, 2014

Good morning everyone!    
Icon: feeding the 5,000
I begin this morning with a question.  What is an example of a symbiotic relationship?  [Plants, humans, animals.]  One can’t exist without the other!   
And what about symbols?   We know the meaning of a symbol is “something which stands for something else”. 
And just look all around right there in our sanctuary!  It is full of symbols!  The stained glass windows, the colors of the liturgical season (green for Pentecost), the Cross, the dove, what else?   
How about the symbol for St. Peter, the upside down cross?  Why is it upside down?  It must mean something!
But a symbol can be more than a visual image, it can also be a gesture, a sound, a word, even letters & numbers are symbols!   Symbols are everywhere!  Look at the symbolic gestures we all just did together…the sign of the cross, bowing, genuflecting... 
And have you ever noticed that in music, some songs just “sound sad”, and others “sound happy”?  I’m not talking about the lyrics, but the sounds!  What is the sound that makes a song sound sad?  Yes, the minor third, the blue note!  And happy?  Usually it is the tempo and rhythm…
Yes, symbols are a complex form of communication and have multiple levels of meaning. They can mean a certain something, but to each of us, can have different meanings.  The same goes for other cultures.  What means something here, can mean a whole other thing in another country or culture! 
Last week I spoke about what the kingdom of God is like, and ‘why do we worship’, and that at its root, worship is about love. 
But wait…there’s more!   Worship, because of the richness and depth of symbols & ritual actions, is very much interrelated with what we do here inside church, but also outside of “church”.  The two are very much connected…a symbiotic relationship.
How?  Let’s take a look…
Today’s Gospel passage in Matthew tells the story of feeding the 5,000. 
We all know the story well.  Jesus goes to a deserted place to try and get some rest & alone time, but crowds of people find him.  Instead of sending the people away so he and his disciples could be alone & eat a meal together, Jesus did not send the crowds away.   He could have said, hey come back tomorrow, but he didn’t.
Jesus saw there was a need, and had compassion for the people.  The people were sick, so he healed them.  They were hungry, so he fed them.
Jesus took the bread, looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the bread, and gave it to the disciples to give to the people.”  Here, we see the beginnings of the future Holy Communion / Holy Eucharist. 
Breaking Bread
The Eucharist was born in service to others! 
The actions of Jesus blessing, thanking and sharing the bread is innately connected to serving the people in the wider community.
The early Christians continued this style of ministry, (today we call this “outreach”, or “mission”)  & Christianity spread like wildfire thru the Mediterranean, the Middle East, into Africa and into Europe.
Why did it spread so fast?  What drew people to this new religion?
Well, the early Christians really practiced what they preached. They got out there and lived the Gospel!
The whole of the early church spread because the early Christians helped fulfill the needs of the people.  They helped the homeless, they fed the hungry, they cared for the sick…   No armchair analysts! 
The early Christians were not inward looking…they were outward looking.  They lived out their faith!
And so I ask you, how do you “live your faith”?
Fish symbol
The very first Christians would meet in houses to worship.  They didn’t have churches or church buildings, so they met in people’s houses.  The symbol of early Christianity was the fish.  People would have a symbol of a fish on their door or house…the Romans didn’t know what this meant.  (Remember, the early Christians were persecuted , so they used symbols and symbolic gestures with each other.)   
For example, sometimes people would greet each other and symbolically (secretly) ask the person if they were a Christian by drawing an arc in the sand with their foot, a half of a fish.  If the other person was a Christian, he or she would draw the other half of the arc of the fish in the sand with their foot!  A sort of secret code!
And so they met in people’s houses to worship.  The early liturgy (remember, liturgy means the work of the people), revolved around
Fresco of the Agape Meal
gathering for a meal, called the “agape meal”, the love feast.  They also prayed, sang songs, listening to scripture and had a teaching or lesson. This later became the homily or sermon.  They visited, encouraged one another, and had fellowship, and they ate food together.  This later became the Holy Eucharist!
And if you have ever wondered why or how worship services developed & became the way they are today, why we have Eucharist, why we sit, stand and kneel, why we sing, etc. …it is and has always been a reflection and expression of what we do in the wider world!
People living out their faith.   Without this, the symbols, rituals and songs that we sing and all that we do here in worship can become meaningless empty rituals.
As we know, many hospitals, care facilities, nursing homes, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, orphanages, schools, colleges, & universities were originally started by various and courageous people, living out their faith.    
Take for example St. Joseph’s hospital, the first hospital in Phoenix.  It was started in 1895 by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy.   Actually, the Sisters first came here to establish a school.  But upon arriving, they saw there were many people sick with tuberculosis, and most of them were very poor.  Many people living in tents, hovels and dying in the streets.  And so, the Sisters instead established a hospital to serve the sick and the poor.    
The Episcopal Church was also very involved in mission and serving
St. Lukes, 1911 Phoenix, AZ
the needs of the people in early Arizona.   In 1907, The Rev. John Atwood established St. Luke’s Home / Hospital in Phoenix in memory of his wife, and to care for tuberculosis patients.   
In 1919, they expanded to care for war veterans and treating those with other diseases.  (The Rev. Atwood by the way, became the Bishop of AZ in 1911 and served until 1925.)
Treating Veterans in 1919
Notice these ministries were based on need and changed as needs changed. 
However, probably one of the biggest mistakes ever made by the Arizona Diocese was their decision in 1995 to sell St Luke’s hospital.
Bishop Kirk Smith talked about this at a meeting last year.   St Luke’s was sold so the Episcopal Church could concentrate on “church matters” and not have the headaches of managing a hospital.
Unfortunately what helped make much of the Episcopal Church so connected to the wider community & non Episcopalians in Phoenix had been essentially cut off.   The connection of direct service, ministry and mission to the people and community, gone….and for so many recipients of this medical ministry in the community…the Episcopal Church further removed. 
Yes, big mistake.
Churches and people of faith used to start & run hospitals, schools, help feed the poor, house the homeless…now we have non profit organizations, and for profit organizations that do this… so many of the things that the church used to be directly involved in, has become the charge of other organizations.
And it is no secret that church attendance has been in decline the past 40 or so years.  And for many, practice no religion at all.  Many are raised with no religion at all.   So many students that I teach and have taught over the years have been brought up with no religion at all.  And in the military, the largest group at every unit I have served, is “no religious preference”.   Sadly, for many people in the wider world, the church has become irrelevant.
So I ask some questions for us all to contemplate…
What is St Peter’s known for in Casa Grande and in the wider communities?   The Gila Indian Reservation, Ak-Chin, the Tohono O’Odham reservation…. the city of Maricopa?   
How are we known?   Are we known?    
Is St. Peter’s an inward looking church, or an outward looking church?  One based on the needs of the people & wider community?
You may wonder what this has to do with worship and liturgy… 
Actually, it has everything to do with worship and liturgy.
Let us think and pray on these things...
Amen.

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