This overly long post — overly long because of too little time to make it shorter — tries to pull together two difference experiences to comment on a third. Perhaps you can make it all make sense.
First an allegory from baseball: Last week, my family and I were sitting in the Ballpark in Arlington during a two and a half hour rain delay. It was misting a little (okay, a lot), but still was enjoyable enough. People played everywhere, with kids and parents enjoying time out together. On the whole, it was a beautiful time, and it reminded us of the grace that meets us everywhere if we are still long enough to notice it.
But as we sat talking, I started to think about the people around me, and being a theological educator, began to muse a bit about what the experience might say about worship, which after all is a human event (to which the Holy Spirit puts in an appearance, to be sure). The ritual of baseball, with its numerology, focus on proper administration of rules, and appropriate acknowledgment of the keepers of the story (umpires and sportscasters and wise old players) inevitably reminded me of worship. But that’s an old story, and there are lots of books on the theology (or Zen or whatever) of baseball. So that’s not worth pursuing much here.
What is interesting is how much pleasure we all took in a game that is steeped in ritual and has been performed countless times before. We did not know the precise outcome, though we did know that after nine innings or so, someone would win and would do so in a way that has been done before, maybe many times. There is comfort in that mix of predictability and unpredictability.
So it is with Christian worship. Some things are expected, and we know that the meaning of what we do lies not in our own volition or desire but in something far older and deeper and more beautiful. And yet within the context of a tradition, a set of practices by a community over time, lies room for the unexpected and even the startling. In worship, we become better people because we learn to care for things that matter, and thus for each other.
Watching families at the ballpark teaches you something else about worship, the importance of caring for one another. I got to explain to my daughter about triples and infield flies, just as on Sunday I can initiate her in the far deeper and more holy experiences of God’s grace. Care for the other before God figures prominently in Christian worship. It is part of how that experience makes us better.
Second, a citation from a delightful article: In the current issue of Harvard Magazine (www.harvardmagazine.com), the anthropologist Arthur Kleinman talks about his life with his wife Joan, formerly a leading scholar of classical Chinese, now stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. He writes about his experiences, “… caregiving is a foundational component of moral experience. By this I mean that we envision caregiving as an existential quality of what it is to be a human being. We give care as part of the flow of everyday lived values and emotions that make up moral experience. Here collective values and social emotions are as influential as individual ones. Within these local moral worlds — family, network, institution, community — caregiving is one of those things that really matters, but usually not the only thing.”
For me, this call to give care in order to be fully human (which, for Christians, means made in the image of God) clarifies what worship is about too. It is prayer for those in need, whether Christian or not. It is proclamation of God’s tender care for the least of us. It is celebration of our togetherness. It is defiance of the silences that cripple lives and keep us from each other. Worship knits together the insecure and lonely teenager with the widow who has no one to talk with. Worship humbles the proud and exalts the humble because it allows us to see ourselves, to some extent, as God sees us, neither more nor less. It is thus the ultimate act of caregiving. Often it is painful, often it is difficult, but always it is an experience that pushes us from our comfortable seat and allows us to slow down enough to find grace.
Next time, worship as a means of grace. Your comments to this post, meandering as it is, would be appreciated!
Dr. Mark W. Hamilton
Associate Professor of Old Testament and
Associate Dean
ACU Graduate School of Theology
Abilene, TX 79699
Editor, The Transforming Word