The liturgical season of Easter started last Sunday with the
glorious announcement ‘He is not here, He is risen!’ Churches decked themselves
in flowers, hymns of praise were sung, and everyone was reminded of the reason
for our faith.
This is now the Second Sunday of Easter. Often attendance is
lower than a normal Sunday, and even though the Easter lilies linger, the
excitement is at as high a pitch. We still sing Easter hymns, but a week of the
everyday world noise has blunted the enthusiasm. I wonder if that is one reason
Jesus told his disciples to ‘go to Galilee’. It was an opportunity to meet the
Risen Lord in the familiar places of fishing and boats.
Where can we find Jesus amid our busy lives? The Way of Love has the answer in the practice
of Worship.
During Lent we visited each of the Way of
Love parts as we looked at how to Rest in God’s will, Go
in faith, Learn to follow and to Turn. We’ve seen that to Bless
is to give all and when we Pray we offer ourselves to God.
Worship underlies all these practices. If we do not acknowledge
that God IS God through worship, we may miss the point of the Way of Love.
As we come to the end of the Book of Ruth, we hear how all
Naomi’s prayers and hopes come to fruition. Ruth risked everything to approach
Boaz on the threshing floor to ask for his protection. Now Boaz comes to the
gate of Bethlehem where business was done in order to officially make her his
wife. First he has to get the ‘nearer kinsman’ to relinquish his right.
Boaz uses the ruse of a piece of land to open the discussion.
‘Naomi, who has come back from the
country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land …If you will redeem it, redeem
it; but if you will not, tell me, so that I may know…’
At first the other man agrees, but then he learns, ‘The day you acquire the field…you are also
acquiring Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead man, to maintain the dead
man’s name on his inheritance.’ Immediately he declines, saying, ‘I cannot redeem it for myself without
damaging my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself...’ (Ruth
4:1-6)
Boaz makes the transaction official by the exchange of a
sandal. “Boaz took Ruth and she became
his wife…and she bore a son.” Naomi can now rejoice and praise God as well.
The women of Bethlehem tell her, “Blessed
be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his
name be renowned in Israel!” Isn’t that a lovely hymn of worship?
We learn than “Naomi
took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse…They named him
Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.” (Ruth 4:13-17)
From the marriage of Ruth the Moabite and Boaz, son of Rahab
of Jericho comes David, the shepherd boy who becomes King of Israel. Generations
later, from the heritage of two foreign women comes the Messiah of Israel! The
One who became Incarnate, lived and died; then rose again.
In the Gospel for this Sunday (Matthew 28:1-10) we hear how
two other women become the first witnesses to that Resurrection. (image by Smaltz shows all the women, not just the 2 Marys). “After the sabbath,
as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
went to see the tomb… the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I
know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he
has been raised.”
They are commissioned to “go quickly and tell his disciples, `He has
been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.'” As
they leave the Garden, “Suddenly Jesus
met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of
his feet, and worshiped him.”
Just as the two Marys recognize and worship the Risen Lord,
so too are we called to worship. In the First Letter to the
Corinthians, Paul states “If for this
life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from
the dead, the first fruits of those who have died…the resurrection of the
dead has also come through a human being…all will be made alive in Christ…For
he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy
to be destroyed is death.” (I Corinthians 15:19-26)
Worship puts everything in the proper perspective. In the
Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande many are reading You Are What You Love by James K.A. Smith. Smith states that Worship
is the way “our imaginations [are] restored, recalibrated, and realigned by and
affective immersion in the story of God in Christ reconciling the world to
himself”. He suggests that our daily rituals are actually “veritable
‘liturgies’ of a sort” and our vocations are “ways to pursue God himself”. Our worship
rituals “train our hearts and aim our desires toward God and his kingdom so
that, when we are sent from worship
to take up our work, we do so with a habituated orientation toward the Lover of
our souls.”
Jesus sent the disciples to Galilee, back to the familiar
home turf and met them there. We do meet God at church during formal worship.
We also meet God in the day to day living and rituals we do. Naomi met God in
holding her grandson. The disciples met God by the Sea of Galilee. Paul met God
on the road to Damascus.
James K.A. Smith notes, “We image God in our work—in all of
the very earthly and human, all-too-human things we are called to do.” And he
notes “It is in the worship of the Triune God that we are restored by being
restoried.”
Easter brings new beginnings, and Worship helps us reset
and begin again. As we hear the Story of God’s saving work, join in common
prayer, and gather around the Lord’s table we focus on what is of core
importance. Then we are empowered to go out into the hurting world to be
bearers of God’s new life and co-creators of reconciliation.
Is worship central to your relationship with God?
How can you recognize God in the daily ‘liturgies’ that are
imbedded in your daily life?
Do your daily 'liturgies' bring you closer to God?
