Which way is right?

The Rev. Dr. Delmer Chilton
Assistant to the Bishop
ELCA-Southeastern Synod

A friend of mine is a member of a spiritual order for lay people. The members of her group agree to live by a common covenant to pray and serve the world and to be accountable to one another. She and the other members in her geographic grouping get together for worship and fellowship about once a month.

My friend shared with me a story about a recent worship service that got off to a bit of a rocky start, with a little confusion about the readings and who was doing what, and that sort of thing. After the service and before the meeting one member complained bitterly about the worship, saying, "I would be embarrassed to bring a friend to our worship, we're so disorganized."

My friend was a bit hurt by that. She's an Episcopalian and a Lay Reader and not at all slack about worship and she thought it was a good worship service with a little human error thrown in.

As I heard her story and we chatted about it, I thought of an essay in a book I keep by my bedside, Where Books Fall Open, a collection of essays, snippets and poems about the reading life. In one of the snippets, the author talks about how her brother had left a book spread open face down on the bedside table and was startled to return from his afternoon walk to find it shut with a stern note from the chambermaid, "Don't ever do that to a book!"

The writer went on to muse about how some book lovers have a classic or pristine relationship with books; showing their love by treating them with kid gloves. These folks seem to say about books: "Don't bend them, don't crease the pages, don't write in them; indeed it would probably be best if you didn't read them at all, just look at them and wonder what they say."

Others (and I count myself in this club) have what the essayist called a carnal relationship with books; being more interested in the words than the pages; caring more for the ideas and stories than the bindings. We underline and write in the margins, we fold down corners and make expansive notes on the pages in the back.

It occurred to me that the person grousing about worship was like the hotel chambermaid; a classic lover of good worship; wanting it done right for form's sake. And my friend is a bit of a lover of worship, reveling in the awareness of the presence of God and the love of her fellow worshippers.

So which way is right? Well, it seems to me it's a both/and situation; not an either/or. We must care and care deeply about the shape our worship takes; it must be planned carefully and done reverently. But we must also leave room for the basic humanity of those who gather. As someone once told me, "It's not close-order drill or a play; it's worship. It's not so much scripted as planned. As much as possible be both reverent and natural."

The old way of saying it was that good worship should both "glorify God and edify the believer." C.S. Lewis once admitted that he did not particularly like most church music, but that he was willing to believe that some of the high toned stuff glorified God and some of the more ordinary edified believers even if most of it mystified him, and that he felt the Christian thing to do was to participate as fully as he was able.

As for me, when I have the opportunity to plan worship I resolve to do all I can to make sure things are done "decently and in order," as the Presbyterians say. And when I find myself in a service I didn't plan, I resolve to participate fully, trusting that God is being glorified and someone is being edified.

Delmer