May 19, 2025 • 23 mins
Join Bishop Becca Middeke-Conlin as she unpacks the true meaning of worship, challenging traditional notions and exploring what really matters in Christian community. Bishop Becca breaks down some complex liturgical concepts and terms like "Liturgy" and "Lectionary" and "Adiaphora!" and she argues that love, not ritual, is the ultimate expression of faith.
Key Takeaways:
- Love is the true mark of discipleship, not worship style
- 'Adiaphora' - understanding what truly matters in worship
- The importance of accepting diverse worship practices
- Liturgy is about creating meaningful community connections
- Worship should be intentional, caring, and purpose-driven
Discover why 'don't yuck someone else's yum' might be the most important theological lesson you'll hear today, and learn how worship styles are ultimately less important than the love we share. This message is perfect for anyone who's ever felt confused by church traditions or wants to understand worship beyond surface-level practices.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bishop Becca Middeke-Conlin (00:00):
Oh, our holy gospel this morning is
according to John the 13thchapter. We do have a response,
but I guess you aren't going
Pastor Joe Liles (00:08):
to do it. Your response is, glory to you, oh
Lord. Glory
Bishop Becca Middeke-Conlin (00:12):
to you. Oh Lord. GOSPEL this
morning is according to John the13th Chapter, glory to you. Oh
Lord, good. You got it, alright?
Cuz that is level one. Afterwashing the disciples feet,
predicting his betrayal and thenrevealing his betrayer, Jesus
speaks of His glorification onthe cross. This is not the
(00:32):
gospel. When he has when he hadgone out, Jesus said, Now the
Son of Man has been glorified,and God has been glorified in
him. If God has been glorifiedin him, God will also glorify
Him in himself, and will glorifyhim at once, little children, I
am with you only a littlelonger, you will look for me.
And as I said to the Jews, I nowsay to you where I am going. You
(00:55):
cannot come. I give you a newcommandment that you love one
another, just as I have lovedyou, you must, you should also
love one another. By this,everyone will know that you are
my disciples. If you have lovefor one another, the gospel of
the Lord, praise to You, OChrist may be seated. How good
(01:16):
choir may be seated too. Howgood Lord it is to be here. I
bring you greetings from theentire Arkansas, Oklahoma
Senate. I especially bring yougreetings from the shared
Ministry of north centralOklahoma, where I was at last
week, which is Saint Paul's UCCand Marshall Oklahoma, Perry uh,
(01:38):
Zion Lutheran in Perry,Oklahoma, and Prince of Peace in
Ponca, City, Oklahoma. And theysend their greetings, their boo
Hoos, their Alleluias there.
It's good to do ministry withyou as part of the Senate. Can I
send your greetings, your boohoo your Alleluias to where I'll
be at next week, which isUniversity in Norman. I like it
(02:01):
when you all start withenthusiasm for this, and I don't
have to ask for the secondversion of it. So thank you all.
So as pastor, Pastor, Joe said,I am Becca Mitch Conlan. I'm the
Bishop of the Arkansas, OklahomaSenate. There are 41
congregations between our twostates that are part of the
ELCA, the Evangelical LutheranChurch in America. And I am not
(02:22):
Joe's boss. I don't want to beJoe's boss. I just kind of help
oversee those 41 congregationsand how they work. And so when
Pastor Joe invited me to comeand preach today and we're going
to have this traditionalservice, I realized I'm probably
not the best person to have aconversation about traditional
worship. Part of it was, I thinkI might have gotten a little
(02:46):
annoying to Joe trying to figureout what he meant by traditional
worship. Because I'm like, arewe going to do all the pomp and
circumstance of all the smellsand bells that happens in like
high church liturgy? And Irealized being here today, he
it's like, oh no, he wants thechurch that he grew up in.
That's what he meant. And Ithink that's a problem, because
(03:08):
every church does things alittle bit differently, such as,
you know, level three, five, youknow, sacred Sunday. And one of
my least favorite answers when Igo to a church and I ask, and
I'm leading worship, and Ihaven't been there in a while,
and I'm asking them somethinglike, Hey, how do you do
communion? My least favoriteresponse is, oh, the normal way.
(03:31):
Normal for you. What does thatlook like? Please. Are you doing
bread or wafers? Are you doingwine or grape juice? Are you
doing that? You dip into the cupor you drink out of the cup, or
do you have little cups? And ifthe little cups are they pre
filled, are you going to pourthem? There's a bunch of
different ways to do worship.
And one of my problems withtraditional worship is that once
we get into the habit ofsayings, then things are set for
(03:55):
us. And many worship leadersactually don't start stop
planning worship, because wehave a liturgy that is already
picked out. I'll get to whatliturgy means in a bit. Don't
worry, there's going to be somebig words here. I'll define
them. We also have a lectionary,so the readings are already
picked out. The prayers havebeen written often by our church
(04:15):
publishing houses, like twoyears ago. And then we have just
we do things by rote, by memory,and we don't actually take time
to plan worship. And it's soeasy to move into this process
where worship then becomes staleand dry. Another problem that I
have with traditional worshipcompared to whatever the
(04:39):
neighborhood's Normal style ofworship is. I don't know what
you want
Unknown (04:44):
to call that modern worship with traditional
elements. Okay, the
Bishop Becca Middeke-Con (04:48):
modern worship with the traditional
elements is that many people whodo traditional worship,
especially higher churchworship, and by that I mean all
the smells and bells, theprocession. I. All the garments,
all the things, is that thosepeople often feel like there's a
right way and a lot wrong way todo worship, and they're doing it
(05:08):
the right way. And I'll give andI so I often call these people
liturgical police. And I'll giveyou one of my favorite stories
about interacting with allliturgical places. Years ago, I
was at a pastor's conference,and this was like a late night.
We already had closed the barconversation. We were at the
hotel lobby at this point, and Igot stuck talking to one of
(05:31):
these liturgical police people,and I really did not want to be
in the conversation like I wouldrather have talked to the person
managing the hotel desk thanthis guy. I was just done
talking to him, and he startsgoing on this rant about Pascal
candles and Christ candles andAdvent wreaths. And I am not
following Him again, Pascalcandles, I'll define later.
Don't worry. And I thought Iasked what was like, an
(05:51):
appropriate question. Like, so,are you mad that people put the
Paschal candle in the Adventwreath? Are you mad that they
call it a Christ candle to beginwith? And he looked at me, and
he said, haven't you ever read abook? There was a word in
between there and that pause,yeah, you figured it out. And I
(06:14):
was just dumbfounded, like, whocares? And so I said, adiaphora.
Adiaphora, another big word I'llget to it. Don't worry. So let's
define these big words that I'vetalked about. One of the words
that I said was lectionary.
Lectionary is the set ofreadings that many congregations
(06:34):
follow week to week. A lot ofmainline Protestant
congregations follow it. TheCatholic Church follows it, and
not just here in the UnitedStates, but across the world. We
currently are using a lectionarycalled the Revised Common
Lectionary, which is came outwhen I was two years old. So
it's old, but not that old, butit also follows what was the
(06:57):
Common Lectionary and otherlectionaries that have been
around for hundreds of years,which church bodies have gotten
together and said this is ourpattern of worship and reading
so that we can get to a lot ofScripture over the time. And so
the Revised Common Lectionaryhas a three year cycle. Year a
normally follows the Gospel ofMatthew. Year B normally follows
(07:20):
the gospel of Mark. Year Cfollows the Gospel of Luke. And
you all are going, but whatabout John? Right? Well, what
was our gospel reading fromtoday? John? That's we're in
year C. And what happens is Johnjust kind of gets smooshed in
between all these places.
There's also those three otherreadings that happen. The first
(07:42):
one is almost always from theOld Testament or the Hebrew
Scriptures. And today you'regoing wait we did acts, right?
Well, that's because we're inthe Easter season. And during
during the Easter season, wealways read that first lesson
from the early church in Acts,and then the second is a psalm
that normally responds to thefirst reading, and then we have
(08:03):
an epistle reading, normally,something from one of Paul's
letters, though, again, in theEaster season, we read from
Revelation. Instead, Easter justmesses everything up. Doesn't it
like the world with Jesus'sresurrection? And so these
readings normally all tietogether as well. There's some
theme to it. So today's themefor our reading has been, how
(08:26):
you know that somebody belongsto God. Our reading from Acts
today is we hear of Peter sayingthat you don't have to be kosher
or circumcised in order toworship God, and then, therefore
order to worship Jesus. Sotherefore everyone can worship
God. Our Psalm today was aboutall of creation. Worshiping God.
(08:49):
Praise the Lord from the highestheavens. Praise the Lord from
the earth. His glory is abovethe earth and the heavens, aka,
everyone should be worshipingGod. Our reading from Revelation
says that God is making a newthing, that God He will dwell
within them as God, and theywill be his people, and God
himself will be in them, andthey will be their God. Again.
(09:10):
All of creation should be theones worshiping God. All belong
to God. And then our Gospellesson today, from John talks
about how people will know thatwe are Jesus's followers because
of love, that all who lovetherefore and every time we
share love, is a way that weshare God with one another. Now,
(09:37):
one of the pastors that I metwhen I was in seminary loved the
fact that there was thelectionary because it kept him
from preaching on the prodigalson 25 Sundays a year. So if you
ever think that Pastor Joe ispreaching on the same text over
and over again, maybe it's timeyou say, Hey, Joe, we need the
lectionary. Yeah, um, however, Iwill also say that there's times
(09:58):
that I don't understand the.
Dictionary, there's times thatI'm like, I don't understand why
this reading got paired with theother readings, or why we are
reading this reading during thispart of the liturgical year. So
the liturgical year, again,definitions is this church year
and the seasons of the church.
(10:19):
So we have Christmas and we haveEaster, the two high points of
the church here. And thenthere's the season before and
the season of because Christmasand Easter are not days, they
are seasons. How many days isChristmas? There's a song about
it 12, yes. So there's 12 Daysof Christmas, the entire season
(10:40):
of Christmas, and the seasonbefore is Advent, and the last
day after Christmas, just today,is epiphany. And then we have
Easter. And the season beforeEaster is lent for 40 days. How
long is Easter? Not one day 50.
And the last day of the Easterseason is Pentecost. And then we
have on the rest of the calendaryear what we call ordinary time.
(11:02):
Isn't it the best name ordinarytime. And ordinary time
sometimes is also referred to asthe long green season. And it's
called that because each ofthose seasons have a color to
represent them, so that whenpeople come into church based on
the vestments that pastors arewearing, such as the stole, or
my coat that I'm wearing, or thepyramids, which is what's on the
(11:25):
altar. People know what seasonthat we're in. So right now
we're in the Easter season,because Easter was, this is only
the fifth Sunday of Easter. Weare not yet at at 50 days of
Easter, um, and so we have thewhite for Easter and white for
Christmas. We have purple orblue for Advent. We have purple
for Lent. We have green for thelong ordinary time, and we also
(11:48):
have red for PentecostReformation Day and other
celebrations of the church. Soif you come back here on
Wednesday, when we have soon tobe pastor Tom's ordination,
instead of white, we'll bewearing red, because it's a
festival of the church. So theother one of the other words
(12:10):
that I talked about earlier wasthe word liturgy. Now we use
liturgy a whole lot intraditional serve worship. We
use the term liturgy a whole lotin traditional worship, but
every church has a liturgybecause liturgy just means a
pattern of worship. So thetypical pattern of worship here
(12:31):
at the neighborhood lookssomething like gathering, hymns,
prayers, scriptures. At somepoint, the kids leave, the kids
there's a sermon. The kids comeback. You have communion.
There's more sending out withannouncements and more music,
right? The liturgy that we areusing today this morning comes
(12:52):
from the Evangelical Lutheranworship, the cranberry hymnal,
and it actually is oftenreferred to as the lovely,
uncreative name of elw settingfour. It comes from LBW setting
two, for those of you who grewup Lutheran and used the green
hymnal growing up, and it waswritten in the 70s, but a lot of
(13:13):
the parts, the sung parts thatwe will and the spoken parts
come from scripture, and theyare ancient. So we will hear a
Holy, holy, holy that comes fromIsaiah, six, three, right before
communion, or like the words ofinstitution that are said, not
just in the spoken liturgy andtraditional service, but also
each week here at theneighborhood, comes from first,
(13:35):
Corinthians, 1123, through 26where Paul actually quotes what
happens in most of the Gospels.
And the purpose of the writtenliturgy is to create patterns
and repetitions so that peoplecan easily learn what is
happening, even non readers.
When I was a kid, my brother andI used to whisper compete the
(13:57):
entire communion liturgy to eachother to see who could get it
most correct, because it kept usentertained during worship. And
just so, you know, I am twoyears younger than my brother,
and I always won, and guesswho's now a bishop.
(14:17):
There's also the sung liturgy,and just this weekend, I heard a
pastor tell me that his fiveyear old, four year old child
knows the canticle of praisethat we sang earlier, and will
sing that while serving tea toher dolls. So the part of this,
the purpose of it, is so thateven young kids can participate
(14:38):
in worship, because they knowwhat is happening, and these
patterns help people understandand participate in worship. And
it can also feel like a littlebit like comfort food. How many
of you grew up with traditionalworship? How many of you are
having a little bit of like,it's like eating a big bowl of
macaroni and cheese right now?
Yeah, a little bit of comfort.
(15:00):
Comfort to it. There issomething about when you hear
the Lord be with you, that it'shard you can do it, and it's
hard not for your hearts to liftup a little bit, even if you
haven't been to worship fordecades. People know that
because it's ingrained in them.
And there's also the times thatsometimes you just aren't
feeling like worshiping. And youcome to worship and those words
(15:22):
that are so ingrained in yoursoul, you're able to say and
participate in, and then youleave worship feeling a little
bit more uplifted, because yoursoul needed to hear what was
deep down within it. There aresome times that this spoken
liturgy that comes week afterweek can be so inviting. But
(15:43):
there's one more big word that Isaid today, and that is the word
adiapra. It's one of my favoritewords. It's Greek for it
technically means in differentthings or things not necessary
for worship. And I say sometimesthat adiaphora is Greek for who
gives a fudge, because it doesnot matter if you wear robes and
(16:11):
candles and process that's alladiaphora guitars or organ
music. Adiaphora pre writtenprayers or extemporaneous ones,
if you do something that's beenaround for 2000 years, or
something that you've only beendoing for two weeks, all
adiaphora. But the things thatare necessary for worship is
(16:32):
what Pastor Joe's been talkingabout in this series, about that
ancient gathering, word meal,sending what matters in worship
is that we eat together, andthat we hear God's word, and
that we gather in community, andwe feed one another, and
remember Christ's death on thecross and His love for us, and
(16:53):
then we're sent out into theworld to proclaim God to love
All. And this is why I getannoyed at liturgical police,
like that one pastor got mad atme about Pascal candles, because
you don't need to know that aPaschal candle is a giant white
candle that is in the churchservice, and that it's only
written. It's only lit duringcertain seasons of the year. You
(17:15):
don't need to know that Pascalcomes from the term for a
sacrificial lamb at Passover, orthat some people feel like you
have to bow when you light it,and other people don't. It does
not matter that's all adiaphora,just as you don't need to only
have organ music or only guitarmusic, because in Matthew 1820
(17:39):
Jesus says that whenever two orthree are gathered in my name,
I'll be there. So what do youneed for worship? To be in
community, to gather together,to hear the Word of God, to feed
one another, and then be sentback out into the world. In our
Gospel lesson today, Jesus tellsthe disciples that people will
(17:59):
know that they are His disciplesbecause they worship in the
correct not because they worshipin the correct way. And Jesus
doesn't say that. People willknow that they are His disciples
because they wear robes and bowand preside and parade a Bible
around. Instead, people willknow that they are His disciples
because of love, and part ofloving another person is loving
(18:22):
them for and accepting them forall of their habits and all of
their hobbies. My husband hashis PhD in Ancient Near Eastern
mathematics and the history ofscience. He is currently in
Germany, working on an academicproject that involves something
to do about transferring ofmathematical knowledge from one
(18:42):
community to next, and alsoinvolves canals. For some
reason, I don't tell him, I'msorry, love, I can't I'm sorry,
husband, I can't love you unlessyou study something that I can
easily understand and explain toothers. Instead, I say, No, you
do you? You love this, you gofor it, and I love you because
(19:04):
you love this, and as long assomebody is willing to pay you
to do it, that's even better.
Yet, churches, for years, havebeen playing this like worship
wars about traditional versuscontemporary or modern worship
and which one is better. AndChristians judge one another,
and they judge congregationsthat they've never worshiped at
(19:26):
because of their worship style.
And while that's not veryloving. Have you ever heard of
the phrase, don't yuck someone'syum? That poo pooing someone
else's preferred worship styleis yucking someone else's Yum,
telling them that what theylove, yey can't aren't allowed
to love, and it's not veryloving. And the gospel lesson
(19:46):
today, Jesus tells His disciplesthat he is not with them much
longer than he is God and wherehe he is going they cannot come.
Worship brings us closer to God.
God, and yet it does not bringus to heaven. And regardless of
what style of worship youprefer, you will never earn your
(20:08):
way to heaven faster thansomeone else who worships in a
different style, because worshipwill not take us to Heaven. Love
Will people will know we areChristians when they come to
church, not because there's aband or a pulpit upfront, but
(20:29):
people will come, will know thatwe are Christians, and they'll
experience Christ when they areloved, when they are loved for
who they are. People experienceChrist, and people experience
love. They then experience God,and that includes a love of
worship. And that's what I enjoyabout traditional worship, or
(20:53):
even high church liturgy, isthat when it's crafted and
planned with love, when worshipleaders take time to think about
the liturgy and which one makessense for this liturgical
season. Or they look at thelectionary readings and they
adjust them because of the needsof the congregations when
prayers are adapted to includethe people who are sick in the
(21:14):
congregation, but also naturaland disasters and political
events that are happeningthroughout the their community
and the world, when communionpractices are adapted for the
needs of the congregation,whether that's bringing
communion to somebody with mostmobility issues, or making sure
(21:34):
that there's alcohol free andgluten free options for people
who need it. I love it when itwhen people take time to plan
worship, and when we also taketime not just to do the
traditions, but to explain thetraditions. Like the reason why
a lot of traditional worshipservices wear white robes is not
(21:55):
so that people can look fancierthan others. It's a reminder of
our baptism because in theancient church, people who were
newly baptized were given whiterobes, white garments, as a sign
that they were cleansed fromtheir sin. And still today,
often people are given either awhite garment or a white cloth
when they are baptized to remindthem that they are set free from
(22:20):
their sin, that they arecleansed from their sin. I love
worship when it is done withintention, when it is done with
care, when it is done withpurpose, because it is then that
it shows that love was put intocrafting the experience for
others. And through that love, Ihope you are able to experience
Christ. I hope that you cansense the love that is put into
(22:42):
worship each week here at theneighborhood, be that this
traditional service but or themore typical style of worship
that is here, may you feel thatlove. May you experience Christ
through that love. May you knowthat Christ is here because of
that love, and then may you goout and share that love with
(23:06):
others, not yucking someoneelse's yum because their style
of worship preference isdifferent than your own. Amen, I
invite.
Oh, our holy gospel this morning is
according to John the 13thchapter. We do have a response,
but I guess you aren't going
Pastor Joe Liles (00:08):
to do it. Your response is, glory to you, oh
Lord. Glory
Bishop Becca Middeke-Conlin (00:12):
to you. Oh Lord. GOSPEL this
morning is according to John the13th Chapter, glory to you. Oh
Lord, good. You got it, alright?
Cuz that is level one. Afterwashing the disciples feet,
predicting his betrayal and thenrevealing his betrayer, Jesus
speaks of His glorification onthe cross. This is not the
(00:32):
gospel. When he has when he hadgone out, Jesus said, Now the
Son of Man has been glorified,and God has been glorified in
him. If God has been glorifiedin him, God will also glorify
Him in himself, and will glorifyhim at once, little children, I
am with you only a littlelonger, you will look for me.
And as I said to the Jews, I nowsay to you where I am going. You
(00:55):
cannot come. I give you a newcommandment that you love one
another, just as I have lovedyou, you must, you should also
love one another. By this,everyone will know that you are
my disciples. If you have lovefor one another, the gospel of
the Lord, praise to You, OChrist may be seated. How good
(01:16):
choir may be seated too. Howgood Lord it is to be here. I
bring you greetings from theentire Arkansas, Oklahoma
Senate. I especially bring yougreetings from the shared
Ministry of north centralOklahoma, where I was at last
week, which is Saint Paul's UCCand Marshall Oklahoma, Perry uh,
(01:38):
Zion Lutheran in Perry,Oklahoma, and Prince of Peace in
Ponca, City, Oklahoma. And theysend their greetings, their boo
Hoos, their Alleluias there.
It's good to do ministry withyou as part of the Senate. Can I
send your greetings, your boohoo your Alleluias to where I'll
be at next week, which isUniversity in Norman. I like it
(02:01):
when you all start withenthusiasm for this, and I don't
have to ask for the secondversion of it. So thank you all.
So as pastor, Pastor, Joe said,I am Becca Mitch Conlan. I'm the
Bishop of the Arkansas, OklahomaSenate. There are 41
congregations between our twostates that are part of the
ELCA, the Evangelical LutheranChurch in America. And I am not
(02:22):
Joe's boss. I don't want to beJoe's boss. I just kind of help
oversee those 41 congregationsand how they work. And so when
Pastor Joe invited me to comeand preach today and we're going
to have this traditionalservice, I realized I'm probably
not the best person to have aconversation about traditional
worship. Part of it was, I thinkI might have gotten a little
(02:46):
annoying to Joe trying to figureout what he meant by traditional
worship. Because I'm like, arewe going to do all the pomp and
circumstance of all the smellsand bells that happens in like
high church liturgy? And Irealized being here today, he
it's like, oh no, he wants thechurch that he grew up in.
That's what he meant. And Ithink that's a problem, because
(03:08):
every church does things alittle bit differently, such as,
you know, level three, five, youknow, sacred Sunday. And one of
my least favorite answers when Igo to a church and I ask, and
I'm leading worship, and Ihaven't been there in a while,
and I'm asking them somethinglike, Hey, how do you do
communion? My least favoriteresponse is, oh, the normal way.
(03:31):
Normal for you. What does thatlook like? Please. Are you doing
bread or wafers? Are you doingwine or grape juice? Are you
doing that? You dip into the cupor you drink out of the cup, or
do you have little cups? And ifthe little cups are they pre
filled, are you going to pourthem? There's a bunch of
different ways to do worship.
And one of my problems withtraditional worship is that once
we get into the habit ofsayings, then things are set for
(03:55):
us. And many worship leadersactually don't start stop
planning worship, because wehave a liturgy that is already
picked out. I'll get to whatliturgy means in a bit. Don't
worry, there's going to be somebig words here. I'll define
them. We also have a lectionary,so the readings are already
picked out. The prayers havebeen written often by our church
(04:15):
publishing houses, like twoyears ago. And then we have just
we do things by rote, by memory,and we don't actually take time
to plan worship. And it's soeasy to move into this process
where worship then becomes staleand dry. Another problem that I
have with traditional worshipcompared to whatever the
(04:39):
neighborhood's Normal style ofworship is. I don't know what
you want
Unknown (04:44):
to call that modern worship with traditional
elements. Okay, the
Bishop Becca Middeke-Con (04:48):
modern worship with the traditional
elements is that many people whodo traditional worship,
especially higher churchworship, and by that I mean all
the smells and bells, theprocession. I. All the garments,
all the things, is that thosepeople often feel like there's a
right way and a lot wrong way todo worship, and they're doing it
(05:08):
the right way. And I'll give andI so I often call these people
liturgical police. And I'll giveyou one of my favorite stories
about interacting with allliturgical places. Years ago, I
was at a pastor's conference,and this was like a late night.
We already had closed the barconversation. We were at the
hotel lobby at this point, and Igot stuck talking to one of
(05:31):
these liturgical police people,and I really did not want to be
in the conversation like I wouldrather have talked to the person
managing the hotel desk thanthis guy. I was just done
talking to him, and he startsgoing on this rant about Pascal
candles and Christ candles andAdvent wreaths. And I am not
following Him again, Pascalcandles, I'll define later.
Don't worry. And I thought Iasked what was like, an
(05:51):
appropriate question. Like, so,are you mad that people put the
Paschal candle in the Adventwreath? Are you mad that they
call it a Christ candle to beginwith? And he looked at me, and
he said, haven't you ever read abook? There was a word in
between there and that pause,yeah, you figured it out. And I
(06:14):
was just dumbfounded, like, whocares? And so I said, adiaphora.
Adiaphora, another big word I'llget to it. Don't worry. So let's
define these big words that I'vetalked about. One of the words
that I said was lectionary.
Lectionary is the set ofreadings that many congregations
(06:34):
follow week to week. A lot ofmainline Protestant
congregations follow it. TheCatholic Church follows it, and
not just here in the UnitedStates, but across the world. We
currently are using a lectionarycalled the Revised Common
Lectionary, which is came outwhen I was two years old. So
it's old, but not that old, butit also follows what was the
(06:57):
Common Lectionary and otherlectionaries that have been
around for hundreds of years,which church bodies have gotten
together and said this is ourpattern of worship and reading
so that we can get to a lot ofScripture over the time. And so
the Revised Common Lectionaryhas a three year cycle. Year a
normally follows the Gospel ofMatthew. Year B normally follows
(07:20):
the gospel of Mark. Year Cfollows the Gospel of Luke. And
you all are going, but whatabout John? Right? Well, what
was our gospel reading fromtoday? John? That's we're in
year C. And what happens is Johnjust kind of gets smooshed in
between all these places.
There's also those three otherreadings that happen. The first
(07:42):
one is almost always from theOld Testament or the Hebrew
Scriptures. And today you'regoing wait we did acts, right?
Well, that's because we're inthe Easter season. And during
during the Easter season, wealways read that first lesson
from the early church in Acts,and then the second is a psalm
that normally responds to thefirst reading, and then we have
(08:03):
an epistle reading, normally,something from one of Paul's
letters, though, again, in theEaster season, we read from
Revelation. Instead, Easter justmesses everything up. Doesn't it
like the world with Jesus'sresurrection? And so these
readings normally all tietogether as well. There's some
theme to it. So today's themefor our reading has been, how
(08:26):
you know that somebody belongsto God. Our reading from Acts
today is we hear of Peter sayingthat you don't have to be kosher
or circumcised in order toworship God, and then, therefore
order to worship Jesus. Sotherefore everyone can worship
God. Our Psalm today was aboutall of creation. Worshiping God.
(08:49):
Praise the Lord from the highestheavens. Praise the Lord from
the earth. His glory is abovethe earth and the heavens, aka,
everyone should be worshipingGod. Our reading from Revelation
says that God is making a newthing, that God He will dwell
within them as God, and theywill be his people, and God
himself will be in them, andthey will be their God. Again.
(09:10):
All of creation should be theones worshiping God. All belong
to God. And then our Gospellesson today, from John talks
about how people will know thatwe are Jesus's followers because
of love, that all who lovetherefore and every time we
share love, is a way that weshare God with one another. Now,
(09:37):
one of the pastors that I metwhen I was in seminary loved the
fact that there was thelectionary because it kept him
from preaching on the prodigalson 25 Sundays a year. So if you
ever think that Pastor Joe ispreaching on the same text over
and over again, maybe it's timeyou say, Hey, Joe, we need the
lectionary. Yeah, um, however, Iwill also say that there's times
(09:58):
that I don't understand the.
Dictionary, there's times thatI'm like, I don't understand why
this reading got paired with theother readings, or why we are
reading this reading during thispart of the liturgical year. So
the liturgical year, again,definitions is this church year
and the seasons of the church.
(10:19):
So we have Christmas and we haveEaster, the two high points of
the church here. And thenthere's the season before and
the season of because Christmasand Easter are not days, they
are seasons. How many days isChristmas? There's a song about
it 12, yes. So there's 12 Daysof Christmas, the entire season
(10:40):
of Christmas, and the seasonbefore is Advent, and the last
day after Christmas, just today,is epiphany. And then we have
Easter. And the season beforeEaster is lent for 40 days. How
long is Easter? Not one day 50.
And the last day of the Easterseason is Pentecost. And then we
have on the rest of the calendaryear what we call ordinary time.
(11:02):
Isn't it the best name ordinarytime. And ordinary time
sometimes is also referred to asthe long green season. And it's
called that because each ofthose seasons have a color to
represent them, so that whenpeople come into church based on
the vestments that pastors arewearing, such as the stole, or
my coat that I'm wearing, or thepyramids, which is what's on the
(11:25):
altar. People know what seasonthat we're in. So right now
we're in the Easter season,because Easter was, this is only
the fifth Sunday of Easter. Weare not yet at at 50 days of
Easter, um, and so we have thewhite for Easter and white for
Christmas. We have purple orblue for Advent. We have purple
for Lent. We have green for thelong ordinary time, and we also
(11:48):
have red for PentecostReformation Day and other
celebrations of the church. Soif you come back here on
Wednesday, when we have soon tobe pastor Tom's ordination,
instead of white, we'll bewearing red, because it's a
festival of the church. So theother one of the other words
(12:10):
that I talked about earlier wasthe word liturgy. Now we use
liturgy a whole lot intraditional serve worship. We
use the term liturgy a whole lotin traditional worship, but
every church has a liturgybecause liturgy just means a
pattern of worship. So thetypical pattern of worship here
(12:31):
at the neighborhood lookssomething like gathering, hymns,
prayers, scriptures. At somepoint, the kids leave, the kids
there's a sermon. The kids comeback. You have communion.
There's more sending out withannouncements and more music,
right? The liturgy that we areusing today this morning comes
(12:52):
from the Evangelical Lutheranworship, the cranberry hymnal,
and it actually is oftenreferred to as the lovely,
uncreative name of elw settingfour. It comes from LBW setting
two, for those of you who grewup Lutheran and used the green
hymnal growing up, and it waswritten in the 70s, but a lot of
(13:13):
the parts, the sung parts thatwe will and the spoken parts
come from scripture, and theyare ancient. So we will hear a
Holy, holy, holy that comes fromIsaiah, six, three, right before
communion, or like the words ofinstitution that are said, not
just in the spoken liturgy andtraditional service, but also
each week here at theneighborhood, comes from first,
(13:35):
Corinthians, 1123, through 26where Paul actually quotes what
happens in most of the Gospels.
And the purpose of the writtenliturgy is to create patterns
and repetitions so that peoplecan easily learn what is
happening, even non readers.
When I was a kid, my brother andI used to whisper compete the
(13:57):
entire communion liturgy to eachother to see who could get it
most correct, because it kept usentertained during worship. And
just so, you know, I am twoyears younger than my brother,
and I always won, and guesswho's now a bishop.
(14:17):
There's also the sung liturgy,and just this weekend, I heard a
pastor tell me that his fiveyear old, four year old child
knows the canticle of praisethat we sang earlier, and will
sing that while serving tea toher dolls. So the part of this,
the purpose of it, is so thateven young kids can participate
(14:38):
in worship, because they knowwhat is happening, and these
patterns help people understandand participate in worship. And
it can also feel like a littlebit like comfort food. How many
of you grew up with traditionalworship? How many of you are
having a little bit of like,it's like eating a big bowl of
macaroni and cheese right now?
Yeah, a little bit of comfort.
(15:00):
Comfort to it. There issomething about when you hear
the Lord be with you, that it'shard you can do it, and it's
hard not for your hearts to liftup a little bit, even if you
haven't been to worship fordecades. People know that
because it's ingrained in them.
And there's also the times thatsometimes you just aren't
feeling like worshiping. And youcome to worship and those words
(15:22):
that are so ingrained in yoursoul, you're able to say and
participate in, and then youleave worship feeling a little
bit more uplifted, because yoursoul needed to hear what was
deep down within it. There aresome times that this spoken
liturgy that comes week afterweek can be so inviting. But
(15:43):
there's one more big word that Isaid today, and that is the word
adiapra. It's one of my favoritewords. It's Greek for it
technically means in differentthings or things not necessary
for worship. And I say sometimesthat adiaphora is Greek for who
gives a fudge, because it doesnot matter if you wear robes and
(16:11):
candles and process that's alladiaphora guitars or organ
music. Adiaphora pre writtenprayers or extemporaneous ones,
if you do something that's beenaround for 2000 years, or
something that you've only beendoing for two weeks, all
adiaphora. But the things thatare necessary for worship is
(16:32):
what Pastor Joe's been talkingabout in this series, about that
ancient gathering, word meal,sending what matters in worship
is that we eat together, andthat we hear God's word, and
that we gather in community, andwe feed one another, and
remember Christ's death on thecross and His love for us, and
(16:53):
then we're sent out into theworld to proclaim God to love
All. And this is why I getannoyed at liturgical police,
like that one pastor got mad atme about Pascal candles, because
you don't need to know that aPaschal candle is a giant white
candle that is in the churchservice, and that it's only
written. It's only lit duringcertain seasons of the year. You
(17:15):
don't need to know that Pascalcomes from the term for a
sacrificial lamb at Passover, orthat some people feel like you
have to bow when you light it,and other people don't. It does
not matter that's all adiaphora,just as you don't need to only
have organ music or only guitarmusic, because in Matthew 1820
(17:39):
Jesus says that whenever two orthree are gathered in my name,
I'll be there. So what do youneed for worship? To be in
community, to gather together,to hear the Word of God, to feed
one another, and then be sentback out into the world. In our
Gospel lesson today, Jesus tellsthe disciples that people will
(17:59):
know that they are His disciplesbecause they worship in the
correct not because they worshipin the correct way. And Jesus
doesn't say that. People willknow that they are His disciples
because they wear robes and bowand preside and parade a Bible
around. Instead, people willknow that they are His disciples
because of love, and part ofloving another person is loving
(18:22):
them for and accepting them forall of their habits and all of
their hobbies. My husband hashis PhD in Ancient Near Eastern
mathematics and the history ofscience. He is currently in
Germany, working on an academicproject that involves something
to do about transferring ofmathematical knowledge from one
(18:42):
community to next, and alsoinvolves canals. For some
reason, I don't tell him, I'msorry, love, I can't I'm sorry,
husband, I can't love you unlessyou study something that I can
easily understand and explain toothers. Instead, I say, No, you
do you? You love this, you gofor it, and I love you because
(19:04):
you love this, and as long assomebody is willing to pay you
to do it, that's even better.
Yet, churches, for years, havebeen playing this like worship
wars about traditional versuscontemporary or modern worship
and which one is better. AndChristians judge one another,
and they judge congregationsthat they've never worshiped at
(19:26):
because of their worship style.
And while that's not veryloving. Have you ever heard of
the phrase, don't yuck someone'syum? That poo pooing someone
else's preferred worship styleis yucking someone else's Yum,
telling them that what theylove, yey can't aren't allowed
to love, and it's not veryloving. And the gospel lesson
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today, Jesus tells His disciplesthat he is not with them much
longer than he is God and wherehe he is going they cannot come.
Worship brings us closer to God.
God, and yet it does not bringus to heaven. And regardless of
what style of worship youprefer, you will never earn your
(20:08):
way to heaven faster thansomeone else who worships in a
different style, because worshipwill not take us to Heaven. Love
Will people will know we areChristians when they come to
church, not because there's aband or a pulpit upfront, but
(20:29):
people will come, will know thatwe are Christians, and they'll
experience Christ when they areloved, when they are loved for
who they are. People experienceChrist, and people experience
love. They then experience God,and that includes a love of
worship. And that's what I enjoyabout traditional worship, or
(20:53):
even high church liturgy, isthat when it's crafted and
planned with love, when worshipleaders take time to think about
the liturgy and which one makessense for this liturgical
season. Or they look at thelectionary readings and they
adjust them because of the needsof the congregations when
prayers are adapted to includethe people who are sick in the
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congregation, but also naturaland disasters and political
events that are happeningthroughout the their community
and the world, when communionpractices are adapted for the
needs of the congregation,whether that's bringing
communion to somebody with mostmobility issues, or making sure
(21:34):
that there's alcohol free andgluten free options for people
who need it. I love it when itwhen people take time to plan
worship, and when we also taketime not just to do the
traditions, but to explain thetraditions. Like the reason why
a lot of traditional worshipservices wear white robes is not
(21:55):
so that people can look fancierthan others. It's a reminder of
our baptism because in theancient church, people who were
newly baptized were given whiterobes, white garments, as a sign
that they were cleansed fromtheir sin. And still today,
often people are given either awhite garment or a white cloth
when they are baptized to remindthem that they are set free from
(22:20):
their sin, that they arecleansed from their sin. I love
worship when it is done withintention, when it is done with
care, when it is done withpurpose, because it is then that
it shows that love was put intocrafting the experience for
others. And through that love, Ihope you are able to experience
Christ. I hope that you cansense the love that is put into
(22:42):
worship each week here at theneighborhood, be that this
traditional service but or themore typical style of worship
that is here, may you feel thatlove. May you experience Christ
through that love. May you knowthat Christ is here because of
that love, and then may you goout and share that love with
(23:06):
others, not yucking someoneelse's yum because their style
of worship preference isdifferent than your own. Amen, I
invite.
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