2/1/23

Back in September 2018, I spent one of the most memorable weeks of my life in and around England’s Salisbury Cathedral. Each night I would walk the half-block from my hosts’ home, pass through the gates in the medieval walls of the cathedral close (the 80 acre enclosure around the cathedral), pass the school where Lord of the Flies author, William Golding, taught, pass the spot where three protestants were burned at the stake in 1556, and cross the beautiful lawn around the cathedral to attend the evening services or, as they call it,  “Choral Evensong.” 

One evening in particular, sitting there in the choir stalls,  listening to the men and boys choir chant a psalm, I remember being struck by a profound sense of history. I’m sure it helped that earlier in the day while listening to the boys rehearse the director told me I was leaning against  the cabinet where, for 500 years, they stored an original copy of the 1215 Magna Carta! But sitting there in the choir stall, I thought about how worship was carried on in that sanctuary, uninterrupted (except for brief periods of war and plague) for 800 years. Every day. 

Sitting there, chanting, singing, praying, and listening, I realized I was taking part in a long tradition of worshipers who praised God day after day after day . . . and I also realized that the long tradition of worship in the cathedral was part of an even longer tradition that went back millennia. I thought of the words God spoke to Moses from the burning bush: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6).  Yes, God was about to use Moses to do a new thing by bringing his people out of slavery and forging them into a people for himself. But while doing something new, God was acting out of a long tradition, an old story that began with promises made centuries beforehand.

We are heirs of a rich tradition. 

When we started Christ Church, even though it was a new plant and even though we weren’t connected to a particular denomination, we still recognized we were part of a long story of God’s people. We wanted to be sure our worship practices and theology would be a continuation of a faith stream that stretched back thousands of years and would, as much as possible, draw from the entire story – from every era – of the story of God’s people. 

Our pattern of worship dates back to the earliest days of Christianity. The earliest believers were Jews, and even after their conversion, they continued to attend the synagogue (until they were thrown out) to study God’s Word. They brought the pattern of hearing the scriptures read, singing the psalms, and hearing an address based on the scriptures (a sermon) into their Christian worship, combining it with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The first part of the service centered around listening to the Word; the second half centered around the Table. By the 3rd century, the elements of Gathering and Going Forth were added, giving us a 4-fold order of Gathering, Word, Table and Going Forth - which is the shape of our worship services today.

When we gather, we sing hymns from a hymnal, which is a gift to us from past generations of believers. The oldest hymn we sing is probably “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” and was written around AD 347, but we also sing songs written within our lifetimes. We close this part of worship by standing together and reciting the Apostles Creed, a summary of our common faith that dates to the earliest years of Christianity. 

Next, we settle in to listen to the Word. Each week, we read from scriptures that were first written down some 1400 years before Christ and completed around 60 years after his Resurrection. In response, we sing Psalms that the people of God have sung since before the time of King David.  

Following the Word, we prepare to gather at the Table to remember, to praise God for all he has done for us through Jesus, and to look forward to the return of Jesus. . . and to say “Thank you.” The words of institution (“this is my body . . . this is my blood”) were spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper. The Great Thanksgiving we pray before communion is based on a communion prayer the early church father Hyppolytus wrote down in AD 215 – a prayer he had learned as a boy. This part of our service, more than any other part, binds us together with believers from every age, race and nationality: “And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord. . .”

So you can see, our roots run deep! But we’re not all ancient (although I’m feeling pretty ancient more and more). As I wrote earlier, we try to draw from every era of Worship – and that’s true of our music as well (by the way,  music is not the same as worship. Music is part of worship, but so are scripture and prayer – even the sermon).  We sing music from the synagogue and from the camp meeting, from southern gospel and black gospel, from Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran and Church of God traditions . . . our music should be an expression of our unity!

Finally, in the Going Forth, we are sent out to love and serve our Savior, and it is always with a song. Often it's a good old American gospel song like “Follow, follow, I will follow Jesus.” This week it's a Spiritual, “This Little Light of Mine.” Sometimes it's a more recent song like “He is Exalted.” (Notice in all this I’ve avoided the word “Contemporary” – a word I don’t find very helpful. If I’m singing “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” and worshiping, then it’s contemporary because it’s happening NOW). 

This Sunday, we celebrate four years as a congregation. But, young as we are, we’re part of a long line of worshipers that stretch back through the ages, and our worship reflects that. But what do we believe? What do we profess while we’re worshiping? I’ll write about that next week! 

Blessings, 
Pastor Terry

PS - One of the Psalms the Salisbury choristers chanted was Psalm 150. The arrangement is by a composer with the wonderful name, Goodenough . . . and it was more than good enough! They sang it as they processed around the 465 foot long nave, and the sound of “let everything that hath breath praise the Lord” soaring through that Cathedral was unforgettable. Here’s a recording of King’s College Choir singing it:

King's College Cambridge Psalm 150 O Praise God in his holiness (Chant: Goodenough)