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Jan. 9, 2005
The Shape of Meaning
Each Sunday we gather here for worship. Different motivations bring us here. We each arrive searching for something unique, or perhaps arriving to share something unique. Once here, we share this common experience of celebration and reflection — we worship together.
But what exactly do we worship? Given our commitment to freedom in religious thought, or the right of conscience, knowing that we do not all believe alike — how do we worship together?
Francis David's famous quotation, “We need not think alike to love alike” reminds us we share a common commitment to humanity, a shared responsibility to build a better world, to build better relationships among people, and a more sustainable balance with nature. These values bring us together. Most noticeably, what we share is our outward work in the world. This is seen in our outreach to this community through Arts and Lectures, the Farmer's Market, work with ACTION. Previously, it has been In Praise of the Arts, beginning a food coop, and basement organizing around issues. On the national level it has been our support of the right to marry for same sex couples, and previously it was civil rights and women's suffrage. Given our strong commitment to the world, the value we place in creating a better world today, what role does Sunday service play in our lives, and in the life of our religious community?
First let us consider what it means “to worship.” The word worship derives from two Middle English words, weorth meaning value, or worth, and scipe, or ship, meaning to shape. When we think of the verb to worship, the common understanding (and even the dictionary definition) is to bow down, pay reverence to a divine being, or to offer great devotion or admiration to something. However, the root of the word suggests a different definition — to shape value, to create and shape meaning.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian himself, wrote:
A person will worship something-
Have no doubt about that.
We may think our tribute is paid in secret
In the dark recesses of our hearts —
But it will out.
That which dominates our imaginations
And our thoughts will determine our lives, and character.
Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship,
For what we are worshipping we are becoming.
Here, Emerson broadens the understanding of worship to include whatever it is that we value most, “that which dominates our imagination.” He opens the realm of worship to anything, from god, or goddess, to money, success, joy, love, life, tragedy, friendship, family (it could be anything). What I find most compelling is that he insists that as humans we will worship something. We are creatures of desire, of imagination, we necessarily create value, hold certain ideas, feelings, things above others — and by doing so — we, in a sense, worship these things. It is too easy to say, I don't believe in any higher being, therefore I have no use for worship. Emerson reminds us we cannot avoid it, whatever desire dominates our thoughts — that is what we worship. His caution, therefore is to be careful about what this is, for “what we are worshipping, we are becoming.”
Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, it just behooves us to be careful and thoughtful about where we place value. On Sunday morning, we do some of this cautious work. Our services provide an opportunity to reflect on what is truly important, to hear new perspectives, to learn new understandings. Through this we remember, or even discover our values. Each week, when we gather for worship, we reflect on our lives and do the work of meaning making, creating and shaping value out of the joy and struggle of life. In remembering what is important, we renew our intention to live our lives according to what we value.
The act of worship on Sunday morning is not necessarily about devoting ourselves to one thing, it is about being open to discovering a new truth or seeing things a new way. Too, it is about the experience itself and sharing this time with each other.
Worship is a shared experience, an opportunity for reminding us of what we hold in common. Each Sunday, we work to create an identity for our congregation — even as that identity is organic, changing when new people join our community, or when others leave, organic and changing in its acceptance of diversity and difference. When we arrive on Sunday and see one another, we see who we are. As Kathleen McTigue says, we are “taking time to look into one another's faces and see there communion: the reflection of our own eyes.” Different reasons may bring us here, but together on Sunday morning we meet one another, we share a common experience — and from and through that, we build a community.
The metaphor of communion resonates throughout the readings for this morning. McTigue uses it directly, but Kenneth Patton invokes it as well, when he writes, “We feed our eyes upon the mystery and revelation in the faces of our brothers and sisters . All life flows into a great common life, if we will only open our eyes to our companions.” In a traditional Christian sense, communion is the act of being nourished or fed by the spirit. From these two Unitarian Universalist ministers, the message is we are nourished and fed by the people around us — in them we find understanding of the divine, of ourselves, of the mystery.
On a more personal level, community is built during conversations at coffee hour, activities during the week, gathering in each other's homes. On Sunday morning, when we all gather together, we are reminded of our larger presence and our greater diversity. Our worship services offer a service to the community. On Sunday morning it is not just about us. It is about the new people who anxiously arrive at our door to see what this Unitarian Universalism is all about. We open our doors, and make welcome all those who arrive seeking a place to worship in a new way, “not in bowing down, not with closed eyes and ears,” but with “the opening of all the windows of our beings, with the full outstretching of our spirits.” Ultimately, as Kenneth Patton puts it, to worship is to learn to love.
In the two readings I chose for today, one as a reading, and one for the meditation, both authors described the experience of worship. Kenneth Patton's description tended toward the communal experience of corporate worship, of what happens when we gather together for service. Jacob Trapp on the other hand, describes more of the solitary experience. “To worship is to stand in awe under a heaven of stars, to worship is to be silent, receptive, to worship is to work with dedication and with skill . it is an inarticulate silence yearning to speak, it is the window of the moment open to the sky of the eternal.” These moments are available to us at all times, they arrive in moments of quiet, and moments at work, with music, with nature, with a “loneliness seeking communion.”
There is that word again, communion. Trapp uses it to express a more personal and solitary experience. And, in a sense, worship on Sunday is both a solitary and a shared experience. There are moments we experience just for us, a message, a thought, the silence of the meditation.
“Worship is a loneliness seeking communion; it is a thirsty land crying out for rain.” The reality of living is harsh and often tragic, even as it too can be beautiful and inspiring. In moments of worship, whether they be on Sunday, or on any day, there is the need to be refreshed. Our strength, courage and hope need to be renewed to continue living. Worship as communion is a time to find rest and renewal both through solitary moments of healing and moments of sharing with others. This is what I hope we all find on Sunday and a renewed energy for greeting the world. That we hear spoken and see lived those values that help us become that which in us is most true.
Marge Piercy wrote, “The work of the world is common as mud, botched it smears that hand.” To worship is not limited to offering devotion to something, at times it is the reaching out for inspiration and for hope, for opening ourselves to be inspired by one another to make of this common living, something beautiful. “Let us worship, and let us learn to love.”
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