We’ve Always Done It This Way

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

November 2, 2014

We’ve Always Done It This Way

Nehemiah 8 (selected verses)

We know the commandment, don’t we:

Remember the sabbath day,

and keep it holy.

It’s one of the first commandments we learn:

For six days you shall labor

and do all your work.

But the seventh day is a sabbath

to the Lord your God;

…the Lord blessed the sabbath day

and consecrated it.

(Exodus 20:8-11)

That’s the commandment as we hear it

from the book of Exodus.

In Deuteronomy we find a slightly different version:

it begins with God calling us

not just to remember the Sabbath,

but observe it:

“Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy”

(Deuteronomy 5:12)

The commandment calls us to observe the Sabbath

by refraining from work,

by resting,

and by remembering.

                                   

But the commandment doesn’t call us

to observe the Sabbath by worshiping,

by going to church,

or back in Moses’ day, by going to the Temple

and offering a sacrifice.

In the Bible

worship was not seen as something

to be done once a week,

at a special time and place;

worship was seen to be a part of daily life.

It was understood to be part of how we were called

to live our lives:

we worship God,

we praise God,

we adore God,

we give honor and glory to God

in our work, in our lives,

in all we do,

each day, not just on the Sabbath.

        

In fact the Hebrew word for worship

can also be translated as work, vocation,

to remind us that our daily work is worship.

The Sabbath our ancestors in faith observed

was on a Saturday, the last day of the week.

That practice continues today

for our Jewish brothers and sisters:

their Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday

and continues through sundown on Saturday.

For us, our sabbath is of course on Sunday,

a practice that dates from when

the earliest followers of Christ

began to gather in the predawn hours

on Sunday morning

to remember the resurrection,

to remember when God raised Jesus from the tomb,

on that first Easter, that first Sunday.

Ever since, there’s been a bit of Easter

in every Sunday service.

We decorate our Sanctuary with an empty cross,

rather than a crucifix,

to remind us

that the Cross could not kill

and the tomb could not hold our Lord.

So even in November,

we can shout out, “Christ is risen indeed!”

We’ve come a long way from going to the Temple

to offer a sacrifice,

as even the faithful did in Jesus’ day.

And we’ve come a long way from

gathering in private homes

early on Sunday mornings to remember Easter.

Over the centuries we’ve not only built churches,

we’ve built worship.

But did you ever stop to wonder

where we ever developed the basic model

we use for the hour or so

that we are gathered here on Sunday morning?

The commandment doesn’t tell us

anything worshiping;

about what to do,

and certainly Jesus never gave us instructions for

what to do on Sunday morning for worship.

So why do we worship as we do?

We Presbyterians, part of the Reformed tradition,

look for answers in the Bible.

And the answer to our question is there.

But it does require a little digging;

the answer is found of one of the lesser known,

more obscure books of the Old Testament.

Yes, our model for worship comes from an Old Testament book,

If we find the book of Nehemiah,

we’ll read about the restoration of the Israelites

back to their land after their exile in Babylon,

more than 500 years before our Lord was born.

They’d lived under Babylonian rule for 70 years,

before the Persian army routed the Babylonians,

and then freed the children of Israel

and sent them back to their homes.

The Persian King, Cyrus, encouraged the Israelites

to rebuild Jerusalem and their Temple,

which was little more than an ash heap

after the Babylonian army

had looted and burned it.

The people of Israel rebuilt

and then they celebrated,

celebrated by gathering in community in Jerusalem,

gathering to hear Scripture,

to hear the priest Ezra read from the law of Moses,

as the first books of the Bible were called.

 “…all the people gathered together

 into the square before the Water Gate.

They told the scribe Ezra

to bring the book of the law of Moses,

which the Lord had given to Israel.

Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought

the law before the assembly,

both men and women and

all who could hear with understanding.

He read from it facing the square

before the Water Gate

from early morning until midday,

in the presence of the men and the women

and those who could understand;

 and the ears of all the people

were attentive to the book of the law.

The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform

that had been made for the purpose…

And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people,

for he was standing above all the people;

and when he opened it, all the people stood up.

Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God,

and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen’,

lifting up their hands.

Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord

with their faces to the ground.

…So they read from the book,

from the law of God,

with interpretation.

They gave the sense,

so that the people understood the reading.”

  

There it is, in the Word of the Lord:

the model for worship,

the model our church and most churches use,

a model that dates back almost 2500 years,

yet is still the same basic structure we have today,

down to the wooden platform that today we call a pulpit,

and the people responding with their “amens”.

When we worship,

we gather first and foremost

to hear the word of the Lord,

words read from Scripture,

words then interpreted, for understanding.

Of course, interpretation can be done in different ways:

a preacher can read and then preach,

as I do most Sundays.

But we can also interpret through music –

our choir has done that before for us.

We can interpret through drama, story-telling.

When our youngest children

present a pageant of the Christmas story,

they are interpreting scripture

just as surely as preacher

preaching from a pulpit.

                          

We’ve had the same basic model

for worship for 2500 years,

which makes it easy to fall into the trap

of resisting change,

of sticking with the response,

“we’ve always done it this way”

any time someone suggests that we might want to try

something new or different.

We honor tradition,

we honor our history;

but we also know that the head of our church,

our Lord Jesus Christ,

leads us constantly into the future,

God’s future,

an ever-changing future.

and we must follow,

trusting that the Holy Spirit

will grace us with the wisdom and the courage

to change and adapt for whatever

the future has in store for us.

We do this with music regularly –

trying new hymns, new arrangements,

different instruments to accompany our singing.

We do it as well with interpretation –

something as simple as when I bring my iPod

and play a piece of music to accompany the sermon.

As part of our capital campaign planning,

we’re looking at our audio visual needs

here in the Sanctuary.

Video screens are something

that we’ll probably have before long –

not because they are the latest fashion,

the latest trend in worship,

but because they can help

with the very core of worship:

visual presentations can help with interpretation,

can help our understanding.

We use video in our teaching venues all the time now –

it is a rare Bible Study class

when I don’t have something visual

to enhance our understanding

and I’d love to have the same capability

from time to time for sermons.

Worship services in our church

are lively and joyful;

They are the result of a great deal of time,

energy, and effort,

not just from me and Deborah Panell,

but from the dozens who help make

each Sunday worship service

faithful, inviting,

nourishing, and inspiring:

the choir, the ushers, the greeters,

those who prepare bulletins,

those who clean the Sanctuary,

those who see to it that the lights are on,

and the heat is working,

those who assure the sound system is ready to go.

the parking lot clear and safe,

that there is coffee and tea and other refreshments

for after the service,

those who check the candles,

put water in the pitcher,

assure that there are fresh worship bags

for our children

and nursery care for our youngest.

Every Sunday service is the result of many, many hands,

all of us working together in community,

all working to help us all focus on the heart of worship:

hearing and understanding.

We’ll continue to honor tradition

even as we adapt to change.

Even we preachers are glad that we no longer preach

as Ezra did, from “early morning until midday.”

Together we’ll continue to worship God

in spirit and in truth, as our Lord teaches us,

keeping the commandment faithfully

as we observe the Sabbath

praising the Lord our God.

To God be the glory!

AMEN