A PRAYER TO START
St. Patrick wrote a prayer of which the cadence draws us into rhythm with the world in which God is alive and active, creating and saving. Pray this prayer 3xs before affirming your agreement…
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of the Christ.
May your salvation, Lord, be ever with us.
(Repeat twice more)
Amen.
GETTING THOUGHTFUL
Paul writes, in what we now call Romans chapter 12, that our response to the glorious mercies of God toward us should be nothing short of a life lived as an offering to him. This “living sacrifice”, Paul argues, is our “spiritual worship” (v.1)
When you hear the word “worship”, what comes to mind? How about a place to encounter God, be changed by God, declare our adoration to God, or get to know God? For many in our faith history, myself included, the word worship envisions such divine contexts, and usually, a set of actions that are appropriate to the setting.
How about when you hear the word “spiritual”, what do you picture? If you are like me, spiritual, and spirit for that matter, where words that evoked images of disembodied beings, non-earthly realms, in-audible and invisible dialogue, and supernatural occurrences. Put “spiritual” and “worship” together and we are hard pressed to imagine anything less than a transcendent experience. But, is that the imagine Paul is trying to foster in those who he is exhorting to offer their everyday—waking around, going to work, raising kids, praying and playing—living to our Father in heaven?
Maybe we are missing the picture of spiritual worship then. Now a picture that never popped into my mind, is that of breath. And yet, the process of taking in and expelling air is actually the visual that would have attended the word we hear as “spiritual” to Paul’s readership. Breathing, or even the blowing of the wind, is the picture Paul has in mind as the descriptor of our living worship.
Do me a favor, place your hand about four to six inches in front of your mouth. Take in a deep breath, hold it for just a moment, and then exhale. Now reflect on what just happened.
Did you feel something across the palm of your hand?
Did you smell something (for better or for worse!) as the molecules ricocheted into your nostrils?
Did you experience any difference of weight upon on your chest from when your lungs where full and when their contents were released?
Did you hear the sound of the oxygen and carbon dioxide mix rushing out of your open mouth and across your teeth?
Did you see anything though? I would bet you didn’t!
Breath might be invisible, but is not immaterial. It is real: a mixture of molecules in motion, and tangible: felt, smelt, heard, experienced. Breathing is not supernatural; rather, breathing verifies that something is presently alive and active. So, we might think of “spiritual worship” than as encountering and adoring God in what the psalmist calls “the land of the living” (Psalm 116:1-9). It is a physical image of being alive and active to God who is himself alive and active, creating and saving.
Why is it important that we have a physical image of spiritual worship? Well, if we have an abstract picture of spirituality (which most of us do), we will miss where we encounter God, are transformed by God, are witnesses to God at work and witness in that same work.
Our, at least my, tendency is to limit the spiritual life to the necessary but immaterial exercises that we most associate with religion: reading, prayer, silence, study, attendance at sanction-sanctified events, etc. Practices that disconnect me from those that share my affinity for oxygen, as well as spaces that are my normal habitat. Yet, God, who is Spirit, is alive and active in the very places where I breathe and feel that breath of others, and the places where the wind blows (which is everywhere, with few dangerous exceptions). What if these very conditions are where I can not only serve God, but come to worship (encounter, experience, adore, know) God alive and active?
Have you ever thought about where Jesus, who is God alive and active among us in undeniable humanity, where Christ himself was a “living sacrifice”? Jesus, in whose body you and I find our position and purpose (vv. 4-5), lived his worship, certainly at times, in places of solitude and sanctuaries, but most often in the common places of homes, on walks down the street, at dinner tables, in friendly conversation, chance encounters and among those searching for something real. It was here, in the confines of dirt and sky, jobs and families, where Jesus was alive and active to God alive and active. And, it is here, as Eugene Peterson (34-35) argues, where,
“…this marvelous work of salvation is presently taking place in our neighborhoods, in our families, in our governments, in our schools and businesses, in our hospitals, on the roads we drive and down the corridors we walk, among the people whose names we know.”
REFLECTION
I am often guilty of limiting “spiritual worship” to disconnected or immaterial (in mind alone) exercises. The “spiritual disciplines”, so necessary and dear, that I have been conditioned to gravitate towards often are the only pictures I can envision when I consider a life of worship. And yet, I believe that God is alive and active in everything that is real and tangible, and every moment of my day. How then do I imagine worship as something more? Perhaps it starts with my expectations.
Use the questions below to help you prayerfully reflect individually and/or discuss as a DNA group.
Why do you think Paul purposely gives us physical images for both our worship (v. 1) and our position and purpose in God’s created order (v. 4-5)?
Why are we (you) so prone to limit our “spiritual worship” to unique practices and places?
What might the dangers be of doing so?
Where do you go, most often, to encounter and adore God?
What do you do to prepare yourself for those times and spaces?
Spend a few moments listing out where Jesus “worshiped in spirit and in truth”, creating a place for people to encounter God, be changed by God and adore God.
What would look different about your day/week if you expected to encounter and declare your adoration for God in your confines of your normal human existence (i.e. among real people you know and in real places that you visit)?
REVERBERATIONS
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “As kingfishers catch fire”, captures the full context of our spiritual worship. Might our living sacrifice we holy and acceptable as we act in God’s eye, what in God’s eye we are. Let these words reverberate off the walls of your mind, the chamber of your heart, and the actions of your hands this week.
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumble over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself: myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.