Liturgy -the work of the people

What a strange word....

What does it conjure in your mind?

conjures chants and bulletins

special religious words

special religious training

meant only for the highly trained.....

standard order of events, how we gather, how we pray, how we worship, our posture towards God

How formal or informal our worship is.

the irony: Liturgy: The Work Of The People...

-meant to be the people gathering to worship....the people (Lei), Work (ergos), doing a public service together.

We call our Sundays Gatherings of the people because we want to de-religify our language and make it accessible. Gathering: Is the meaning of the Word Church Ecclesia

But we do this thing called: Worship....and we have equated it to music or prayer....when we exalt God’s name and talk about the great things he has done.

Worship is such a strange idea, it needs to be worked through.

-Etymology of Worship: Showing Worth through honor and service, condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown. PIE: “To turn, wind”

If you can turn/wind something and it does not break, it is worthy of trust. Ship- PIE “cut scrape, hack”

This is what worship is: You test something to see if it is worthy of your faith. Then you trust it with your actions (Rope)

What a profound change in how we think about what we do as a community.

Ebenezers:

Stories:

Songs:

Ancient Ways to mark the faithfulness of God that we still participate in.

But the work of the people is not just remembering or praying....the work of the people is a day-in-day-out question of how do we worship....put our trust in a source that is worthy of our trust.

We test God through prayer/invitation/reflection/celebration

Then we trust God by reminding each other that He is worthy of our trust.

We just talked about our priestly duties over the last 7 weeks.

-As priests we do some work:

-living sacrifices

-Remember with ritual, words reading, remember who we are and who we serve.

-transformed through learning and hearing the Word of God

Jesus reshaped worship for his followers.

John 4:21–24 NLT

Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

What is Jesus talking about? He is shifting their view of worship, from about place to about purpose.

His Brother James Gives us a lesson in what it means to really worship:

James 1:19–27 NLT

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls. But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

This was a huge part of Jesus’ teaching, to rethink what we think about things: repent, to rethink how we’re thinking.

That our worship is not just religious ceremony or words or trembling. James is going to squarely connect it with our lives....and it will be a discomforting Journey for us as Western Christians in the 21st century..

Worship is about Hearing and Doing.

-You can believe in God

-Hear His Voice

-attend the services

-Call yourself ‘christian’

-give alot of money

-have important roles in churchy organizations

-and still have no place in God’s family....because it is not about the religious stuff.

The Shift we need to make: Let God shape your life.

-John 12:49

John 12:49 NLT

I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it.

I only do what I see the Father doing.

Do you have a rule of Life that is shaped by God or are you tossed to and fro by whatever comes along.

Is your schedule determined by God or by the demands of teh world, your kids schedule, your corporate overlords?

No really, think about this last week. What structure did you give it before it began?

Is there time for rest and time for work

Is there time for community, meals together, learning the way of Jesus?

Is there time for serving others, generosity, connecting with people in need?

Is there space for your neighbors? Time to talk with your spouse?

Or did you just take what came?

Obligations are our driver:

When someone doesn’t care about obligations it perplexes us.....

Now those people live miserable lives alone.....

But what if your life was shaped by God’s calling and will?

What if you had space for the important things?

What if you lived simply enough to work less?

What if you said no to obligations, embarrassment and did the important things first.

We’ve all seen this illustrations: Jar with rocks, pebbles, sand and water.

Our work is to shape our lives that show we worship the right One.

He is worthy of our trust

So we listen to Him

So we obey Him

So we are shaped by his priorities and His values.

What is a Rule of Life? It is an intentional way that we choose to live in light of God’s voice, call and priorities....

-not about:

-self actualization

-getting more done

-beating ourselves up with duty

-being more efficient

What it is about?

-living out our values shaped by God

-Learning the way of God

-teaching our kids the way

-remembering daily what our lives are for

What it does to us?

-we are shaped by our habits and actions, more than what we think.

“Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies.” ― James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation

“It's not that we start with beliefs and doctrine and then come up with worship practices that properly "express" these (cognitive) beliefs; rather, we begin with worship, and articulated beliefs bubble up from there. "Doctrines" are the cognitive, theoretical articulation of what we "understand" when we pray.” ― James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation

We receive practices from God and have our hearts and minds shaped by those practices. It starts with submission to a process of formation, before we ever understand what they mean or why they are valuable....

we move forward in faith.

-Mr. Myogi and Danielson

-Yoda and Luke Skywalker

-Hustle: Stanley Sugerman and Bo Cruz

We are shaped by our lives before we understand what they even mean.

Rule of life is not a creative work but a received invitation.

This summer is all about us receiving the practices of the way and intentionally pursuing them before we understand their power:

So now is the time to listen to the father:

-what has he told you needs to be a part of your life?

-What does his word say? What have we been taught as a community?

-What do you need to stop and what do you need to start in your life?