September 29, 2024
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Deut. 5:12-15; Psalm 84; Luke 11:1-13
We Lift Our Voices
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
The theme for our fall stewardship emphasis comes from the hymn “We Are an Offering.” Today’s theme comes from the hymn’s first line, “We lift our voices.”
Our voice is an offering. What does the hymnwriter mean by that? I’d like to focus today on one very fundamental element of how we use our voices: the stewardship of our prayer and praise, the stewardship of our worship.
A pastor once told me, “Stewardship is everything we do after we say, ‘I believe.’” How true that is! So often we pigeonhole our understanding of stewardship into time and talents and what we’re going to donate to the church. But it’s really about the whole of our lives. It’s about making our lives an offering.
Among this all-inclusive stewardship response, regular worship of God is the most fundamental faith action we can have. This is the heart and center of all that follows. There is nothing closer to the core of our life of faith than prayer and worship. To me, this is what the hymn means when it begins, “We lift our voices.” We offer to God our worship and prayer.
Our Bible readings today all revolve around this theme. In the reading from Deuteronomy, Israel is poised to enter the Promised Land. Before they do, Moses reads to them the law God gave them at Mount Sinai. The passage we hear revolves around the third commandment. Israel is called to observe the sabbath day. They pause from their regular weekly activities to set this one day aside. It’s a day much different from the rest of the week, fraught with all its frenzied pace and distracting activities and concerns. On the sabbath we rest from all that and we focus our hearts and minds on God. We stop thinking about all that WE do to reflect on what GOD has done.
In the psalm, the writer is on his way to worship God at the temple in Jerusalem. And when he arrives, he marvels at the beauty of the building. “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord!”
I have to admit, I feel like that quite often when I arrive here at Hope! I love the way our distinctive steeple stands out against the blue sky. I have to tell you, when we had the bishop’s installation here last Sunday, several visitors commented on how beautiful our worship space is, specifically how open it feels and how beautifully it’s decorated.
We do have a beautiful sanctuary! But you don’t need a stunning worship space to bring your prayer and praise to God.
Several years ago, I came across the story of a soldier who gathered for worship in a very remote location. There was no grand cathedral, not even a small chapel. But the worship experience was more moving than anything the soldier had previously experienced. He wrote home to his mother:
"I went to church this morning. Church out here is a privilege so rare I shall never forget it. There were only about 35 present, but it wasn’t the numbers. Our altar was a stand over which draped a cloth deep red... The platform was covered with a white cloth... We had a small organ about three feet high, a small hymnal and a service pamphlet which I am sending you in this letter. Behind the altar a canvass screen was set up. We were seated on the sand with no overhead shelter. I felt the presence of Almighty God like I never have before. I think partially because I felt so much in need of an assuring hand. I could not keep the tears from my eyes … If I can only stand by faith as He has by me, I shall never be afraid. You and Dad will never know what blessings you brought on us by bringing us up in the House of the Lord." *
I’ve spoken with several veterans who have voiced similar feelings. Far from home and surrounded by people from varying denominational expressions, they find a unity of spirit that’s beyond compare. It stays with them for life.
This soldier spoke of his immense gratitude that his parents provided him with the experience of attending regular worship. I feel that same gratitude for my parents. This is one of the most important gifts parents can give to their children. By experiencing a worshiping community as a child, by singing and praying together within a congregation, volunteering within the service, children learn to value this experience. And a parent’s personal prayer and devotion highlights to children their own relationship with the Lord.
People will sometimes say that they don’t need to come to church to worship God. “I feel more connected to God in the middle of the woods than I do in church.” And there is a truth to this. Nature is a point of connection with the God who has brought all things into being. But missing is any connection to word or sacrament, to the communion of saints.
In a similar vein, we’ve expanded our worship to include a virtual, at-home connection. For many people, this has become a lifeline. Because of circumstances in their life, getting to church on a Sunday is challenging. We’re grateful for the online worship we’re able to provide.
But I also hear from people who worship virtually how very grateful they are when they do have the opportunity to come and worship in person. They remark that you don’t appreciate the presence of the communion of saints at home in your living room in the same way that you do here for a gathered worship.
This is a part of the stewardship of our prayer and praise, our gathered worship. There’s the old story about The Lonely Ember:
A certain pastor noticed that a member of his parish had stopped coming to worship. Prior to this, the gentleman had been a very regular attender. So the pastor decided to make a house call on the man.
It was a chilly evening in late fall. When the pastor knocked on the man’s door, he found him alone, sitting before a blazing fire.
The man guessed why his minister had paid him a house call. He welcomed him into his home and offered him another chair set before the fire. The two men sat there in silence, watching the play of the fire as it licked the logs.
After some time, the pastor got up from his chair. He picked up the fire tongs and grabbed a white-hot coal from the fire. He placed it to the side of the fire, all by itself. Then he returned to his seat.
The two men watched the fire some more in the silence of the evening. Slowly, the hot ember changed colors from the dissipation of heat. It went from white to yellow, from yellow to red, and then from red to black.
The pastor got up from his chair for a second time. He picked up the now cold ember and placed it again into the middle of the fire. Situated among the other embers, it very quickly began to glow again until it was once more white-hot. Alone, the ember had cooled. But surrounded by the warmth of the other embers, it took on life and vitality.
Then the pastor got up to leave. As he said goodbye to his minister, the gentleman said, “Thank you so much, Pastor, for visiting me tonight. And thank you for the fiery sermon. I’ll be back in church next Sunday.”
The psalmist declares. “A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” He also affirms how we are edified through our worship: “They go from strength to strength,” he says. We are strengthened when we gather together for worship.
We lift our voices in praise, and we also lift them in prayer. In our reading from Luke, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. He gifts them and us with what we know as The Lord’s Prayer.
It’s a prayer we learn as a child, and it stays with us throughout life. I think all of us would admit that our thoughts stray in and out as we say these very familiar words. But they have a cumulative effect as we ponder them over a lifetime. God’s faithfulness in providing our daily bread, God’s abundant grace in the forgiveness of sins, God’s strong protection against evil, these things are instilled within us. The more we pray, the more we trust in the one to whom we pray.
As a pastor, I’ve had profound moments when praying the Lord’s Prayer with parishioners, particularly in situations when their health is gravely compromised. Persons who are unresponsive will begin to utter this prayer as it’s said in their midst. On some level, deep within our innermost self, this prayer is praying itself in our heart and soul. It’s always with us.
We lift our voices in communal prayer every Sunday. We feel a sense of unity as a congregation when we come together as one mind in the prayer of the church. Together we pray for the world and its inhabitants. We lift up prayer for particular individuals, and our sense of care about them grows. This time of joint prayers draws us closer to each other as much as it does to God.
We lift our voices. Our most basic form of stewardship is that of our prayer and worship. We lift our voices, and when we do, we’re like a church bell, calling into the world.
My father grew up on a farm near Luck, Wisconsin. A neighboring church, West Denmark, had a bell, as many rural churches do. But this bell had been engraved with a saying. Many bells, actually, are marked with a saying. The statement inscribed on a bell is intended to resound into the world whenever the bell is rung.
The bell at that West Denmark church was inscribed with this statement: “To the bath and the table, to the prayers and the word, I call every seeking soul.”
As we lift our voices in prayer and worship, we are like that bell. May our voices call every seeking soul. We lift our voices.
* from the Office of the Chief of Chaplains, Washington
