Worship – Page 2 – Five Short Words

Alongside my daily reading of the psalms and the Gospel of John, I have been reading Isaiah. Today I got to chapter 55. More about that shortly.

But first, I must mention the novel that I’ve just finished. ‘In the Beginning’ by Chaim Potok. The story concerns David, who is only a small boy at the start of the novel. His family, orthodox Jews, have arrived in New York in the 1920’s from Poland. Like other novels by Potok, you get an insight into the daily life and religious observance of orthodox Jews, which I found fascinating. It impressed on me how little I know of Judaism, past and present, and prompted me to read some Jewish commentaries on the Bible (Old Testament).

In Synagogue worship, the reading of Torah – The Law of Moses – (The first five books of the Bible) is central, and in the course of a year, the whole of the Torah will be read in the Sabbath morning worship. (In some traditions there is a three year cycle of Torah readings). The reading of Torah is followed by a Havtarah, a reading from another part of the Old Testament that is thematically linked to the Torah reading for the day. The Havtarah reading completes the Bible readings for that day.

So to Isaiah 55. The following verses are part of the Havtarah reading on the Sabbath called Noach, when the story of Noah is read as the Torah reading.

1 “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!
You without money, come, buy, and eat!
Yes, come! Buy wine and milk
without money — it’s free!
²Why spend money for what isn’t food,
your wages for what doesn’t satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and you will eat well,
you will enjoy the fat of the land.
³Open your ears, and come to me;
listen well, and you will live —
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
the grace I assured David.

These verses are an invitation to come to God, the source of all that is good, and lifegiving. The significance of water is clearly to do with the necessity of water for life. This is understood also to tell us of the necessity of God’s law for us to live fully. So water is a symbol of Torah, and like water, we need Torah’s influence in our lives continually.

In the account of the Israelites’ journey after the Exodus, it tells us that they travelled for three days in the desert without finding any water. After three days, they found water, but it was bitter. When the people complained and asked, “Moses, what are we going to drink?” Moses asked the Lord for help and the Lord told him to throw a piece of wood into the water. Moses did so, and the water became fit to drink.

So as the people could not go more than three days without water, and water is a symbol of Torah, we must not go more than three days without a public reading of Torah. It became the custom not to let more than three days pass without a public reading of Torah. So readings from the Torah are read on Monday and Thursday, as well as on the Sabbath.

And for me as a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, I see these verses from Isaiah as an invitation to come to Jesus, God’s promised one. In John’s Gospel chapter 4, Jesus has an encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and in the course of the conversation, Jesus says these words “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

For me, the whole of Torah is fulfilled in Jesus, who came to do God’s perfect will, and to lead us to the Father.

Grace and Peace.

In other posts I’ve been writing about the church and the inward looking mindset that often plagues us. I’ve suggested that the order of priorities that prevails much of the time: Worship – Community – Mission is the wrong way round and it should be: Mission – Community – Worship.

Even so, I want to say something about worship as the launch pad for mission. Worship is, or should be transformative. It should be the place where we are not sure whether we are in heaven or on earth. It should be the place where we are re-centred in our mission to make God’s love in Jesus Christ known.

In thinking about what constitutes this quality of worship, I came across the following in a book called ‘At Heaven’s Gate’ by Richard Giles.

‘Good worship springs from an authentic and palpable sense of community. Once we learn what it means to be a genuinely interactive community of faith, we shall draw forth from one another a whole range of talents and ministries to create extraordinary worship. Although worship can, and does happen at gatherings of strangers and on one-off special occasions, good worship at the local level, week in week out, depends very much on the quality of the common life enjoyed by that local community. Good worship begins with a whole and happy community.

It cannot be done the other way round, for worship used as a sticking plaster for a dysfunctional community will not last very long. …… Building community is the first priority therefore of a church intent on renewing its worship.

… It will require community building that will embrace many aspects of our community life, providing various opportunities for members of the community to get to know one another better, to listen to one another and strengthen the bonds that tie them together.

Coffee after worship; events that combine elements of worship; spiritual formation and socializing; small groups that provide opportunities to learn; worship and shared meals in a home setting; pilgrimages; retreats; outings; working parties to tackle particular projects. All are ways of building up a sense of belonging and purpose.’

Now if I had written this at any other time, we might pay attention to these words and set about paying more attention to these ways of building community.

However … this is not ‘any other time !’ If the above words have any truth, then Christian worshipping communities must, as a matter of urgency, seek to find other ways in this constrained atmosphere to build community.

For example,

Resourcing worship at home for families and encouraging ‘bubbles’ to worship together.
Being more intentional, as we were at the beginning of lockdown, to serve one another through helping out with shopping etc.
Small ‘whatsapp’ groups or similar. (I say small because my experience is that as groups get larger engagement gets less)
Working parties (currently up to six people) to do for example some local clean ups, or tidy church gardens etc.
Socially distanced walks for small groups. (Sitting in the garden together might be too chilly, but walks could work)
Using technology (eg Zoom) for group get togethers. My experience again is that the larger the number the more difficult it is. (Some people find this helpful, whilst others don’t).

This isn’t going to be easy, but getting some energy into ways of building community in churches seems even more crucial in these times.

Category: Worship

All You Who Are Thirsty

Build Community: Yes, But How ?