The Labor of Worship

In one of the comics in yesterday’s paper, a child said, "Of all the days in the whole year to celebrate Labor Day, why did they pick a day nobody works?" The answer, of course, is that Labor Day doesn’t really commemorate work, per se. But in keeping with this same paradox, on this Labor Day weekend I’m going to preach on "The Art of Doing Nothing." "The Art of Doing Nothing" is the title of an essay in a book called Learning to Fall by Philip Simmons. Simmons wrote the book while he was living with and dying from ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life. A good title, and a good book.

I was reminded of the book on Friday when I went to donate blood. Not because I was aware of my noble altruism in donating blood as a contribution to help fight deadly diseases, but because I generally donate platelets and that means just being there hooked up to that infernal machine for at least two hours… doing nothing (and not feeling terribly noble or altruistic). I need all the guidance I can get on the Art of Doing Nothing.

Simmons’ essay begins with the common observation that most of us, Americans in particular it seems, cannot rest from doing and acquiring. We equate doing nothing with idleness and to be idle is to be useless as a human being. So we do things, lots of things. We measure our self-worth by our busyness. Why else, he writes, would he "volunteer again for the balloon inflation committee for the annual Zucchini Festival parade?" We fill our lives, he says, with an immense quantity of busyness hoping that in the midst of trying to do everything we will do something that is important or meaningful. But in the end our busyness distances us from everything potentially important or meaningful in our lives.

But after lamenting our obsessive busyness, Simmons’ essay (in my opinion) seems to get a bit bogged down. He meanders around quite a bit, because deep down he admits, and I agree, that doing nothing really is not the answer either. He struggles, not very successfully, to describe a way of doing nothing that is meaningful, that is actually doing something. For pages he tries to get a handle on how a person can master the art of doing nothing.

Finally he sort of backs into the answer. Simmons quotes a Zen master, a Taoist sage, a Hindu philosopher, several poets, and finally Jesus. Yes, Jesus is the answer. The antidote, the answer to our numbing, endless doing can only be found beyond, outside ourselves. In God. If the question is: What are we as humans supposed to do? If that is the question, Jesus has an answer. "I have come down from heaven," he says, "not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." [John 6:38] I have become human for the very purpose of doing God’s will. Jesus also said, you’ll remember, "those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." [Matthew 16:25] We are supposed to do God’s will. And to "do the Father’s will" doesn’t always mean obeying an order or a directive or a commandment. It can mean something much broader… something like just finding ourselves all wrapped up in God. And when Jesus says we would do well to lose our lives, maybe we should think not so much of death… maybe we should think in terms of losing ourselves in the presence of God. That’s one way to describe worship.

Surely most of you know what it feels like to "lose yourself." (And I don’t think I’ve ever heard that phrase used with negative connotations.) Perhaps you have lost yourself in a wonderful movie or musical performance, or lost yourself in the midst of some awesome natural wonder beyond description like the Grand Canyon or the northern lights, or maybe you’ve lost yourself in a moment when you see your child experience deep joy. As you "lose yourself", you forget your busyness, your anxieties, your needs and your fears; and without really thinking about it, you abandon yourself into something greater. To lose ourselves or abandon ourselves. Or Simmons talks about "absorbedness." Letting ourselves be absorbed, totally absorbed into something greater.

This is one way to describe worship. True worship is losing ourselves in God.

Jesus has something to say about worship in this morning’s Gospel. Quoting Isaiah, he says, "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines." There’s true worship, Jesus suggests, and then there’s vain worship. Vain and vanity come from the same root. There’s worship where we loose ourselves in God’s presence. And then there’s worship where we hang onto our vanity. True worship and vain worship.

Vain worship is worship where church attendance is just one more activity in our human busyness. One more thing we do to accomplish our ends.

Vain worship is worship that is done "in vain" because the whole time we should be worshipping the voices in our minds are running constantly with our worries, our needs, our expectations.

Vain worship is worship where we don’t pray or sing because we are afraid we might make a mistake. Vain worship is worship where we pray or sing particularly loudly so everyone around us will know that we know exactly what we're doing.

Vain worship is any worship when we set conditions on our participation.

Priests are particularly good at vain worship. After all, how many congregations would like a priest who continually lost herself during worship? The busy voices in our minds are always running. "Will the reader remember how to introduce the psalm?" "What was it I was supposed to include in the announcements?" "How many times do I have to tell them to say the Amen after the absolution of sins?!" Vain worship.

I have said before that there is no bad reason to come through that church door on Sunday morning. All reasons to come to worship are good. And I fully believe that God cherishes all our worship, even our vain worship, seeing in it our good intentions and our best hopes.

But we rob ourselves. When our worship is vain, we rob ourselves of the experience of true worship, the experience of losing ourselves in the presence of God.

So how can Episcopalians come to experience true worship? First we should remember that here Sunday morning isn’t the only place where we may meet God in worship. But it is the best place to start. And losing ourselves in God’s presence doesn’t necessarily mean being slain in the spirit. Or being overcome by mystical visions. Those gifts, when truly given, are given it seems only to a few. But even New England Episcopalians can lose themselves in worship.

Start with the conscious, willful decision to turn off the busyness in your mind. The Jesus Prayer comes to us out of the ancient Eastern Orthodox tradition. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." When your mind starts to make a mental list for the stop at the grocery store right after church: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Or if you find yourself distracted by someone sitting behind you making some very irritating noise: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Or if you are preoccupied with worries, responsibilities, or any other uncertainty, pray with certainty: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." The Orthodox also call this prayer the Prayer of the Heart and describe it as a tool to bring the mind into the heart. Lose yourself in God’s love.

Or another suggestion. Listen. During worship, listen. I know how easy it is for the words of our worship to come and go without my really listening to them. Focus on listening. Listen to these words spoken directly to you. Listen especially to the Word of God booming from Holy Scripture. Try putting aside the service leaflets with their written Scripture passages and listen. These are not just words on a page, they are words spoken by God to you. And listen to the prayers as we say them. Listen to the sound of your voice, the sounds of the voices of those next to you. Lose yourself in the words of our conversation with God.

Or one more simple suggestion. Especially during the prayers of the people, despite what I just said, don’t listen, and let your mind wander and rest upon someone else who worships here this morning. Don’t stare, of course, that would be rude… but focus on the prayer you would bring to God on behalf of this particular fellow Christian. It might be someone you know very well or don’t know at all… What is your prayer for her? For him? Bring your prayers, and yourself, into God’s presence.

It’s easy to think of worship as "doing nothing." But it is labor; it is our Christian labor. The results of this labor, though, are measured, not by how much we gain, but by how much we lose.

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