As I’m sure you all know, last weekend I had the privilege and pleasure to lead a group of people on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Apart from a couple of minor troubles on the journey to Walsingham, it was a very good pilgrimage and everyone who went said how much they’d enjoyed it; how physically and mentally refreshed they were, and perhaps even more importantly, how spiritually refreshed and uplifted they were after the pilgrimage. So it was, without doubt, a good pilgrimage for everyone who went on it.
Those of you who’ve been to Walsingham or who know something about Walsingham will know that Walsingham is very much in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England and the worship there is what the Church of England refers to as ‘high’. At the Mass, and it is always called the Mass, the priests wear vestments, much of the service is sung, they use sanctuary bells and incense, and the Hail Mary and Angelus are said. During the healing liturgies, in addition to the laying on of hands and anointing, there’s sprinkling with holy water and an opportunity to use the sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession, as it used to be called. There are processions in honour of Our Lady of Walsingham and processions of the Blessed Sacrament, in fact one of the highlights of a pilgrimage to Walsingham, the highlight for many people, is the candlelit procession of the Blessed Sacrament on Saturday night. And the processions end with Benediction, a service in which the priest raises the Blessed Sacrament in blessing over the people.
Here at St Mark’s and St Gabriel’s we do some of those things, but by no means all. And one question I was asked by a number of people during last weekend’s pilgrimage was, ‘Why can’t we do all these things at our church?’ And indeed, why can’t we? The simple answer is that, in principle, there’s no reason we can’t do these things. The Anglo Catholic tradition and High Church worship is certainly where my own background and preference lies so, I’d be perfectly happy to do all these things. But, when we’re talking about the way we worship, we always have to remember that we’re not all from the same background and we don’t all like the same things. And we have to remember too that, while introducing something into our worship may please some people, it won’t please everyone. And so I think we need to tread carefully before we bring something into our worship that we haven’t done before, because the last thing we want to do is make people so uncomfortable that they decide to leave and go elsewhere, or just stop going to Church completely, which is even worse.
The arguments about tradition and about how we worship are very old, but nevertheless still ongoing, arguments in the Church of England. But, before you decide which side of these arguments you’re on, I’d like you to think about the words I’ve just used in talking about tradition and worship; my background and preference; we don’t all like the same things; what may please some, won’t please everyone. So these are subjective matters. They’re matters of personal preference, of what we like or dislike, what pleases us or upsets us; they’re personal choices based on our own preferences, likes and dislikes. They’re actually nothing whatsoever to do with what’s right and wrong in any objective sense, and yet so many people fall out about these things and, what’s far worse, form opinions about and attitudes towards other members of the Church based on these things. In effect, they fall out with other members of the Body of Christ and criticise them simply because they don’t happen to like the same things that they do.
And people do form opinions about and attitudes towards others based on what they do or don’t do in worship. As I’m sure I’ve said before, one church in which I served was excluded from the local Churches Together Group because we were too close to the Catholics and so, like them, we weren’t true Christians. At the very first Deanery Synod I went to as the vicar of this benefice, one person, someone I’d never met before in my life, refused to shake hands with me when we were introduced because he didn’t know whether I was Church of England or Catholic. I can only assume that person considers themselves a Protestant but, in fact, the Church of England has never, ever claimed to be anything but Catholic, we all profess our belief in that when we say the Creed. So I, along with everyone else in the Church of England is both Church of England and Catholic. And it goes the other way too; I well remember hearing a priest, in Walsingham actually, once talking about his vituperative hatred, his bitter and abusive hatred, for someone because they were in favour of the ordination of women. And another occasion when I heard a priest criticising a local parish for their low church ways and saying that they were ‘lower than a snake’s belly.’ I knew what he meant, but this was said quite publicly so I wonder what those who didn’t know that he was talking about their way of worship, thought he meant?
There can’t be any doubt whatsoever that no one who claims to be a Christian should have opinions and attitudes like these, especially about other members of the Church. And these arguments are ridiculously stupid, they’re evil and destructive, both of those individuals who engage in them and of the Church as a whole; they’re sinful and, ultimately, they’re completely futile.
We simply can’t say, or hold the opinion, that our way of worship is better than another way, someone else’s way. We must always remember that the object of our worship, the one we worship, is God. And the only way that one way of worship can possibly be better than another way is by being more acceptable to the one we worship, by being more acceptable to God. And so, by extension, if we think our way of worshipping God is better than someone else’s way, we must believe that we are more acceptable to God than are those who worship differently than we do. And what is that other than the sin that Jesus condemns more strongly and frequently than any other, the sin of spiritual pride?
Spiritual pride is the very first thing Jesus speaks against in the Beatitudes when he says that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit. It’s what he criticises the scribes and Pharisees for so often in the Gospels. He teaches against it in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector when he says it’s the humble, penitent tax-collector, the one who knows himself to be a sinner, rather than the proud, holier-than-thou Pharisee, who is justified before God. And this morning’s Gospel can teach us about the danger of spiritual pride in our worship.
The object of our worship is God and so what we do in worship becomes part of our offering to God. But in the Gospel, it’s not those who make a great show of what they offer to God who are praised by Jesus, it’s the poor widow who, to outward appearances offers much less to God, whom Jesus praises. The rich offer to God what they can afford to spare, but the widow offers everything she has. So, whilst to outward appearances the rich offer much more to God, in real terms, in God’s eyes, the widow offers much more and so her offering is the more acceptable even though in worldly terms it’s so little and it’s offered without show or ostentation.
What this tells us is that, in our worship, it’s not really what we do that matters, but the intention that lies behind what we do. It tells us that what’s important in our worship isn’t how much show we make of our worship, but what’s in our hearts when we worship. It tells us that worship that’s truly acceptable to God, isn’t about how we worship but that when we worship, and however we worship, we truly are offering to God the very best that we can offer. We’re putting our all, our very heart and soul into it, if you like.
We have to remember too, that our worship of God isn’t confined to the four walls of our churches. If our worship of God in church is going to have any meaning at all, if it’s going to be acceptable to God, it has to extend into our lives outside the walls of the church too. There’s no point in swinging clouds of incense in church if, when we leave the church the only thing that’s going up in smoke is our commitment to the Gospel. There’s no point in waving our arms around in ‘Alleluia’ in church if, when we leave the church, we wave our arms around as we throw the Gospel to the wind.
Whatever we do in worship, it will only ever be good enough if it’s the very best we can do. And what we do matters much less than the intention behind what we do. What really matters is that what we do comes from our hearts. So, if you’re sitting near the top of the candle, don’t look down in disdain on those on the candle stand and tell them they need to climb up because that’s where you think God is. And, if you’re on the candle stand, don’t try to cut the candle down to bring those at the top to where you are because that’s where you think God is. God is in both places and in all places in between and above and below wherever we happen to be. And God is out there in the world too, not just in church, and so we have to worship him in our lives and with our lives, not just in church and by what we do in church. And if we can worship God in lives and with lives lived in accordance with the Gospel then what we do in church will be coming from our hearts and then, whatever we do will be worship truly acceptable to God.
Amen.
The Propers for the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 