It’s Interesting, But Is it Worship?

Roger Fritts

May 4, 1997

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church

Bethesda, Maryland

•In many small Unitarian Universalist fellowships, we can attend Sunday programs where the worship leaders have eliminated all readings and hymns. All that remains are announcements, a lecture, a discussion and coffee hour.•

•In California, I attended a worship service where the minister with a shaved head painted his head and face with white latex paint. He talked about his desire to rid himself of his ego. He is now serving a small church in Indiana.•

•In New York, a colleague told me about a worship service that consisted entirely of a woman in leotards with leopard stripes dancing to recorded music.•

•In New England, I attended a Unitarian Universalist worship service where a communion of wine and bread is a weekly part of the service. •

•At the divinity school I attended, two ministerial students led a worship service that consisted of demolishing a soda machine with sledge hammers.•

•At a liberal religious summer camp, I attended a service where the worship leader invited everyone to come in bathing suits and paint each other’s bodies with washable paints.•

•And a famous experimental Unitarian Universalist worship service occurred in Texas in 1975. There, a member of the congregation who had trained in profes sional dance and who worked in a local night club did a striptease as part of the Sunday service. A reporter described the service in Newsweek, and it was the subject of jokes by Johnny Carson.•

There is a tendency among people who visit many Unitarian Universalist churches to say, “The people are stimulating, the service was interesting, but is it worship? How can a church have worship without more tradition, more ritual, more similarity in religious views?” The variety of worship experiences among us raises questions about what it is that constitutes worship. What is appropriate on Sunday morning? Are there any limits? On what grounds can we evaluate a Sunday morning service?

Just as movies are ranked based on content, Unitarian Universalists have developed a ranking system specifically for sermons. I do not know the original source of the code, but our congregation in Atlanta published a version a few years ago in their newsletter.

•First are the “G” Sermons. “G" sermons are generally acceptable to everyone. They are full of inoffensive platitudes and the congregation usually describes them as “wonderful” or “marvelous.” The minister panders to the congregational prejudices, while planning on a long tenure. Church members always forget the content of the sermon by 2:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon.•

•Second are the “GP” Sermons. GP sermons are for more mature congregations. They are sometimes relevant to today’s issues and they mayeven contain mild suggestions for change. The congregation often describes them as “challenging” or “thought provoking,” although no one intends to take any action. The minister is a safe prophet.•

•Third are the “R” Sermons. R sermons are definitely restricted to those not upset by the truth. This sermon “tells it like it is.” The R sermon is threatening to the comfortable and most often described as “controver sial” or “depressing.” Visitors are shocked. The delivery of an R sermon is usually an indication that the minister has an outside source of in come.•

•Finally are the “X” Sermons. X sermons have a limited audience. The sermon really “socks it to them.” It is the kind of sermon that landed Jeremiah in the well, got Amos run out of town, and set up the crucifix ion of Jesus. Always described as “in poor taste,” the minister who preaches this sermon should have a suitcase packed and the life insur ance policy paid up.•

Of course, such a code is more than humorous. The suggestion that a sermon is like a movie, points to a fundamental issue about worship. When I sit in a service, I find I am sometimes tempted to approach it in the same way the reviewers Gene Siskel or Roger Ebert approach a movie. I am tempted to review the service with a thumb up or a thumb down.

This approach has a weakness. It evaluates worship as though the service is simply another performance. A critical difference exists between going to a concert or a lecture and going to church. Here we are a part of a community. Many of the same people gather here week after week, year after year. Worship brings us together to share the important moments of our lives. Congregationalworship is the weekly meeting of a community. This experience is central to the worship service.

A central purpose of the rituals we go through each week is to renew our ties to this community.

•The greetings, the hand shakes and the smiles that take place before the service renew the ties of community.•

•The organ prelude is a ritual that ties us to an old tradition of churches beginning their services with a prelude.•

•The tune of the Doxology ties us to the tradition of thousands of Protestant churches, the words tie us to our Unitarian Universalist heritage.•

•The lighting of a Chalice and the readings and hymns from the gray hymnal define us as part of the North American Unitarian Universalist movement. •

Describing Unitarian Universalist worship David Bumbaugh has written:

We experience and celebrate our community through the marvel ous music of the choir, the responsive readings, the singing of hymns, the times when the children join us for special services. We experience the community and celebrate it by being together, by listening together, by speaking together, by singing together. There are moments of high discipline, as when the responsive reading suddenly becomes something more than rote, and richdrama invades the interaction between us. There are moments of real struggle, as when the hymn is a bit stronger than usual and we find ourselves stumbling through it, listening for a voice strong enough to carry us along, drawn by the need to be part of the group, embarrassed by the fact that we cannot find or effectively pursue the tune. There are moments of wordless sharing when the music shakes us to our very roots and all words become superflu ous.

What role does the sermon play in our worship? The Protestant Reformation gave centrality to the sermon, and we follow that tradition.

The sermon is a weekly expression of the values of our religious community. Although we have freedom of the pulpit, there are certain rules that Unitarian Universalist clergy must respect, if we are to be effective in our ministry.

•The congregation expects the sermon to use reason and evidence to support any claims of fact that clergy make.•

•The congregation expects the sermon to affirm the equality and dignity of every individual. Included in this is the expectation that clergy encour age people in the congregation to feel good about themselves.•

•The congregation expects the sermon to help them better understand the world and help them grow to be better people.•

These are some of the common values held by many Unitarian Universalists.One role of the sermon is to help people feel more a part of a community by encouraging them to live up to these values.

Of course, our efforts to create a community of worship do not always work. As in any human situation, we only partly achieve the aims we set out to accomplish.

•A service may be only an intellectual experience, leaving us informed but not aroused.•

•A service may be such a strong emotional experience, you may feel that you have temporarily lost touch with reality, you may have lost the feeling of being grounded in the real world.•

•The hymn may remind you of a particularly painful time during childhood and ruin the service for you. •

•The minister may remind you by appearance or by tone of voice of a former teacher or boss or spouse with whom you had a bitter, difficult experience. You may find yourself transferring the anger you feel toward this other person onto the minister who reminds you of this person.•

•The traditional symbols of religion may feel stale to you; they may have lost their power to move or touch you.•

•Attempts at innovative and experimentation may appear strange and out of place. •

•The service may leave out a symbol that you have come to associate withworship, such as the Lord’s Prayer, and with this element missing you may feel more of a stranger than part of a community.•

Yet in spite of all the things that can go wrong, we continue to come to reli gious gatherings to worship. We humans appear to crave religious community, in the same way we crave health foods, sunshine, and exercise. Therefore, each week we work to overcome our differences to create a worshiping community.

Next September we will experiment with a third worship service at Cedar Lane. Although many Protestant and Catholic congregations hold weekly worship services at times other than Sunday morning, this is something new for Unitarian Universalists. Because this is new, we have some room to experi ment and try new ideas. I hope to work with a group from the congregation, a worship service task force that will help plan the third service. If helping to create a worship service appeals to you, I invite you to join in.

Whether you choose to become involved in this experiment, or choose only to attend Sunday mornings, I hope you can let your defenses down and feel yourself drawn into a feeling of community, which transcends the differences between us.

Finally, something more happens for me in the very process of experiencing a religious community. Everything I am about to say next is extremely personal and therefore may not reflect the worship experience of anyone else. In experi encing community through the words and the music and the coffee hour, I experience something else. I feel connected to a force that is larger than myself, larger than the community of which I feel a part.

In a worshiping community I sometimes feel the presence of what, for the lackof a better word, I call God. The experience of a worshiping community some times produces within me an influx of life and power, a feeling of wholeness.I cannot force this experience into existence for myself or for others. I can only try to be open to it and encourage you to be open to it. Being in a community where I feel trust, where I feel safe, I can lower my normal defenses so that I have a greater openness to both inner and outer reality. Put another way: the more I can let go of hate and anger and fear and feel love for others, the more I can be open to the community of worship. When this happens, I feel part of a vast, all pervasive unity. The whole feels more than the sum of its parts. I feel part of a mystery that exists independent of the categories of space and time.

Rabbi Harold Kushner put it this way:

We don’t go to church or synagogue at a stipulated time because God keeps “office hours.” We go because that is when we know there will be other people there, seeking the same kind of encoun ter we are seeking. That is why it makes sense to read words someone else has written, words that may or may not reflect what we believe. The purpose of reading those words is not to fool [anyone] into thinking we share the pious sentiments of the prayer's author. The purpose is for us to join in song and prayer with our fellow worshipers, to find God in the . . . experience of transcending our isolation, our individuality, and becoming part of a greater whole. When the service works, we will feel different about ourselves and the world for having gone through that expe rience.

This is worship, a shared emotion, a feeling of wholeness. It does occur. Through music, through the view of the trees, through words, through laughter, through silence, through a smile exchanged between two people on a Sunday morning, worship does occur.

First Reading:

The six blunders of humanity according to Gandhi are:

Wealth without work.

Pleasure without conscience.

Knowledge without character.

Commerce without humanity.

Worship without sacrifice.

Politics without scruple.

I want to focus on the fifth blunder according to Gandhi, which is worship without sacrifice.

The word worship, as many of you know, is derived from the old English “weordh-scipe,” meaning a ship, or vessel, containing that which we hold of worth. We come together to hold up our most valued possessions—the loves of our lives —and give thanks. But we come together with people who may have different needs, who surely have different tastes, who believe in different theologies, and bring different expectations.

Some people want more music from different cultures; others want more music rooted in the European tradition. . . . Some like sermons which teach; others want sermons which touch. Some like the feminine imagery of our new hymns; othersdon’t like the new words at all . . . This time of gathering on Sunday mornings can test our tolerance, and challenge the very aspiration we hold so dear, to be accepting of others who are different.

Part of worship experience is sacrifice, as Gandhi knew. We sacrifice our choices. We sacrifice our autonomy. There are expectations, there are limits, there is a discipline. These are strange words to many Unitarian Universalists, for whom freedom rings more sweetly on the ear. But, until we realize that spiritual freedom can only be found through discipline, we will be skimming on the surface of life’s mysterious deep.

Part of that discipline is to remember that when we come to the worship service, we have not come to a lecture or a concert; we don’t have to make notes or provide a critique . . . We are here to experience our own longing for something more . . . whether that something be found through music or silence, though words, or people, or the very space itself. If part of the service is not exactly what you would have chosen, stop for a moment, breathe, relax—remember, it may be exactly what speaks to someone else. Which is not to say we do not welcome comments; we do.

But please remember to pay attention to your own longing; that should be your focus—don’t cut yourself off from the experience of worship. Let Sunday morning be a time of reflection for you, a time of recollection, a time to center into the mystery that moves and has its being in your life.

And so, we will worship together, in peace.

Margot Campbell Gross

Second Reading:

What people bring to the church on Sunday morning is vitally important. When the worship service is viewed only as a performance, the choir and the minister critically appraised like a dog show, then the purpose of the hour is completely neglected. To a large extent, the posture, attitude, and prior preparation of the individual determines the worship experience.

Obviously, the beauty of the Sanctuary, the quality of the music, and the challenge of the sermon are key ingredients. But they are only aids to religious understand ing. Worship is a highly disciplined activity, with the individual fully engaged in the process, and feeling ultimately responsible for success or failure. In short, no one worships for another.

We so often fail to realize that worship is an inner event. It is not a noun, but a verb—an action of intense concentration. What’s required is a posture of humility, an attitude of openness, and a preparation for awareness. Worship is seeing what is otherwise hidden. Far from a passive observation, it involves a prodigious amount of personal energy. All we need is what you bring.

David Rankin

Closing Words

May this church be dedicated to the proposition that beneath all our differences and behind all our diversity there is a unity which makes us one and binds us forever together in spite of time and death and the space between the stars.

David Bumbaugh

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4099
Tel: 301-493-8300    Fax: 301-897-5713
e-mail: office@CedarLane.org
Sunday Services at 9 and 11 a.m.
© 1998-2008, Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
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