Communion Liturgy: Rejoice

Communion Liturgy: Rejoice In The Lord

Leader: The Lord is with you. 

All: And also with you. 

Leader: Lift up your hearts. 

All: We lift them up to the Lord. 

Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. 

All: It is right to give him thanks and praise. 

Leader 1: Lord Almighty, our king and our God. Today, our souls yearn, even faint for your presence. And even if our lips will not form the words, our hearts and our flesh will cry out for the living God.  The trees of the field clap their hands to applaud you. The mountain and hills burst forth in song to praise you.  The flowers of the field raise their blossoms in exaltation. The birds of the field soar and dive in pure joy in your presence. Some days, we who are your people are strangely silent. But today is not that day. We will rejoice! Hallelujah.  

Lord, your life pours into us and overflows to us. Like rain in the summer heat, you refresh us for the journey-a journey with your presence as its destination. Your nearness is our good. We are blessed to come close to you. We will rejoice! Hallelujah!

Therefore, we join our voices with the angels and all of creation and with all those you have redeemed from every time and place, who forever sing to the glory of your name:

All:

Holy, holy, holy, God of power and might,

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Faithful, Good and Worthy. Full of Grace and Truth.

Blessed be Your Name, Mighty God.

Leader 2: You are holy, O God of majesty and blessed is Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord.  At this table we celebrate that first Communion where Jesus said to his disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”  Your eager desire for unhindered fellowship with your disciples, which Jesus demonstrated on the cross, is unchanged. We are handfuls among billions in your care, yet you are mindful of us. You did not spare your own Son, but gave him up for us all and, along with him, graciously give us all things!  How incredible to think that your love moves you so much! We rejoice. Hallelujah!

Leader 1: On the night Jesus was betrayed, arrested and sentenced to death, he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: "Take and eat; this is my body which is given for you."

Leader 2: When supper was over, he took the cup, and after giving thanks, gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take this and drink it; for this cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you and many, for the forgiveness of sins."  

As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we do proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again. May our lives be resurrection-lives, always proclaiming the mystery of our faith:

All: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. 

Leader 1: We rejoice. Hallelujah. Amen. 

Psalm 134: In The Night

Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who minister by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who is the Maker of heaven and earth. - Psalm 134

This psalm-the last of the songs of ascents-caught my attention while studying from Eugene Peterson's A Long Obedience In The Same Direction. What struck me were two things: 1. It was sung by the many pilgrims who walked the long road to Jerusalem to worship God at the temple and 2. It was directed at those who worked in that temple, not during the public ceremonies, but during the long nights. It is an invitation to those who might be numb from exposure to the temple from those who have been long away--an invitation to experience again the pilgrims' joy at coming close to the living God.

In some ways, the difference between the temple servant and the pilgrim is like the difference between a doctor and a patient. For the patient, cancer is a terrible, unexpected, life-and-death event that becomes the central focus of their lives. For the doctor-especially someone like an oncologist--the cancer is one more in a steady flow flow of patients, symptoms and treatments. A doctor cannot take the strain of fifty or a hundred emotion-filled, life threatening illnesses without developing some degree of detachment. But that detachment threatens to remove the very real human cost of cancer. There is always a tension.

God's presence is a consuming fire. How to live with that continuously?

Any who have served for long in ministry, whether vocational or not, know the numbness of which can slowly deaden the experience of God's presence. Maybe it is the over-familiarity with the holy, or the taint of shallow faith expressions, or weariness of the soul, or the frantic dealing with details. Working to put Sunday services together for many years, in many different capacities, I have witnessed how their very regularity can nitpick away at our joy and mask the very presence of God that the worship is meant to reveal. There can be cynicism. There even be annoyance at the joy of others.

The psalm invites the hard-working temple-dwelling servants to join the pilgrims (see also Psalm 84) in the joy of worship-of lifting hands and praising God. It is a recognition of the realities of prolonged night-watches, un-glamorous stretches of ministry. That is why the author of the psalm ends with a blessing-a re-introduction of those whose work was in the temple to the presence of the God in which they worked nightly.

God, many labor for you with numb hearts, worn down and worn out. Renew them with the joy of the pilgrim and the vision of God transcendent.

Psalm 84: Pilgrimage Has A Destination

In his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick probed the universal human tendency towards pilgrimages. In the novel, the religion Mercerism connects people together emotionally as they share the journey up an unspecified hill while pelted by rocks from unknown adversaries.

In exploring this aspect of many religions, Dick focuses on the sense of shared experience. Each of the participants in Mercerism does so through an Empathy Box, which links them together with fellow pilgrims and with the pseudo-messiah, Mercer. In the novel, his followers share together in a way that cannot do in real life; a sort of unspoken, mutual struggle against an apathetic or even hostile world. This sense o fthe journey together permeates the travelogues of pilgrims since the time of The Canterbury Tales.

Likewise, Dick attemts to evoke the sense that the pilgrimage itself is a test or a purification process. The journey is like life in miniature. The perseverance in the face of hostility strips away pretension, revealing who we are, stabbing pride and focusing us on what is important. Here, the author draws on existentialists, such as Albert Camus, whose short story The Myth of Sisyphus reflects a similar attempt to create meaning in a ridiculous universe.

But what is notably missing in this stripped-away version of the spiritual journey is a destination. Pilgrimages, by definition, are journeys to the holy. The pilgrimage journey is preparation to meet with God; to receive what He has and we do not. But in the novel, a series of revelations show that the vision shared by adherents of Mercerism was, in fact, crafted on a sound stage in a movie studio. There is no hill; there is no end; there is no arrival; there is no God. Just pixels of their imagination. In the end, this leaves the hero of the story locked in the metaphysical downstairs, wiser and yet, ultimately, pitiful. You are left asking the question (as Solomon did):

Then I thought in my heart, "The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?" I said in my heart, "This too is meaningless." - Ecclessiastes 2:15

The book of Psalms contains numerous pilgrim songs. sung by the travelers as they climbed towards Moutn Zion, approaching the city of Jerusalem, and the temple where God dwelt. Compared with the downward spiral of despair of the novel, these songs are filled with hope.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty!  My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.  Psalm 84:1-2

The journey is not an aimless one, but one filled with purpose--a chosen path.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,  who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.  - Psalms 84:5

The trip is wearying; stretches of difficulty as they traveled from one oasis of refreshment to the next, sustained by God himself.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength... - Psalm 84:6-7a

These pilgrims had a destination. It was both a physical destination (see vs. 3) but more importantly, it was the a meeting place: the arrival into the presence of God.

..till each appears before God in Zion. - Psalm 84:7b

What has God brought you through on your pilgrimage? Are you in the rough period of the journey or a period of refreshment? Do you long for the destination (God himself) or have you settled for the rest area?