Worship Rap (without baseball cap)
Back
The Communion Meditation:
Prose Introduction:
The summer series has been to encourage members to find
in their "life gifts" a spiritual application in bringing people closer to
God. Two examples will be given of that, but the focus became the gift of
worship itselfÐwhat it is for us, and what it does. How is it John's
continuing Bread of Life? The form of the rhyming just came out, whether or
not it amounts to a poem, it remains a short sermon, a meditation before
communion.
Examples were given of a woman who, despite a very angry and flawed life,
has an intuitive gift of choosing and arranging objects that can become
symbols and create context for prayer and reflectionÐshe has a natural
liturgical vocabulary. Another woman in another church has been the
hospitality person, helping everyone feel like guests welcomed ultimately by
God, made feel welcome with introductions, explanations, and food and
thoughtfully remembering names and life stories. Then the story of David
dancing with great abandon (almost naked) before the ark disapproved of by
his first wife. Worship can involve ecstasy, but also puts pressure on
spouses to see if they share a worship sensibility as well as sense of God's
love.
WORSHIP RAP (WITHOUT BASEBALL CAP)
Worship's purpose, who can tell?
Is it still to save from hell?
Or is it more our souls to lift,
above attention's daily drift?
To lift us up above our own nose
much as we need to see beyond our foes?
Worship is not all vision clear,
it is more to feel God's
presence here.
The ancients were more dogged with fear,
pain and illness were so often near.
Then worship seemed to provide escape,
but it did, in truth, their world reshape.
The habit of reverence too imbued
became to God a bit unglued
Princes, dukes and bishops, too
were given deference way beyond their due.
In our time of constant stimulation
worship prevents our soul's strangulation;
the world we enter or seek to show,
when to church we steadily go,
is a world with a different glow,
where we see the God we've come to know.
Our model is not a priest run sacrifice,
nor is our prayer a roll of dice,
Our model is more quest and conversation,
words and music for transformation.
We seek each day a path to follow
faith's eyes trained
to see through all that's hollow
Holiness in this world lies fallow
but awakens when by care each act we hallow.
So the Christian sees beneath the shallow;
we don't confuse the candle with the tallow.
We find true feelings that still run deep
unless we lie in the pew and sleep!
Holiness comes in true connection
overcoming heart-blocks and misdirection.
The test of worship is not excess
but seeing and bonding with God's process
The highest goal is to be inwardly bright,
with radiance from God's eternal light,
To find in Christ the self put right
with courage for the mortal fight
To move us in repentance to confess
to give us a cause valiant to profess
tears and shouts alone are not success
but signs we are blessed and can bless.
Can worship create prayers that are new--
has all been said that can be true?
To us Reformed, Christ is God's great norm
and so our faith must always reform.
The Spirit blows where ever she will
Throwing tyrants from the hill
causing life's meaning to overspill
as our lives with God's purpose do fulfill.
In the middle ages, the Holy Ghost
confused with Pope or Mary or with
sometimes lost,
heretics tossed,
For the Spirit's pronoun is hard to find,
when to the new we've all been blind,
The growing truth we now can see,
is that the Spirit can be addressed as She.
Still Holy and one of the Trinity,
the Feminine can image the One in Three.
Rather than seek to scandalize
we see in her ancient sophia wise,
She is the anima in whom the soul cries,
and that's not very scary to realize.
Now when you pray, will you be rewarded?
Yes, for God's grace is never hoarded.
But what about the forms of worship,
the choice, say, to sprinkle or to dip?
We listen first for the Word of God
confuse it not with language odd,
Our translations must be exact and clear
So God's many deep meanings may appear.
The Lord's Supper we can not take alone,
nor hold back baptism till we're grown,
A congregation, new family, we all need
Priests to each other, a common word to heed,
Covenant rules our people lead,
we must have companions to truly feed.
The preacher's words can be our guide,
only to help Christ's Spirit work inside.
Worship gains from strength of rhythm
not just guitar and rocking folk-hymn,
but the rhythm of days well spent
serving God in callings with His intent.
Too much folksy we don't like,
nor with screaming our feelings spike.
Rational process must have some form,
so with confidence whole selves may warm.
To take our places as in a (cosmic) dance,
and not on sermon put all chance,
We may see glory in private trance,
but worship helps us all advance.
So, should worship just to create a mood,
or to a greater end are we being wooed?
To each inner yearning pay attention,
and do not anxiously avoid contention,
anger has its place revealing,
boundaries broken, wounds for healing,
worship must be that safer place
to recover balance is a work of grace.
The Spirit calls us with Jesus' voice,
to persuade us to rejoice
We celebrate the resurrection,
we break the bonds of false dejection,
we enter into holy light
God casts out guilt and mortal blight
We come out with hope at sun's arising
we find in God our heart's surprising
The truth is something we did not invent,
The truth to us is heaven sent.
The veil of the Temple has been rent
We know God's will has oft been bent,
But believe God's love will not relent
till all can enter God's great tent!
Back