Daily Worship

L - Liturgy

Amanda MacQuarrie July 14, 2023 3 0
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Ephesians 5: 18-20 (NRSVA)

18 Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20 giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Sing songs from your heart to Christ” (from Ephesians 5: 18-20 in The Message).

 

Scottish lore tells us that Jenny Geddes famously threw her stool at the minister in St Giles Cathedral on Sunday the 23rd July 1637 in objection to the use of the English Archbishop Cranmere’s Book of Common Prayer in public worship for the first time, a moment that went down in history as a rejection of a formalised spoken liturgy within the Church of Scotland.

 

The thing is though, all worship services have a liturgy whether it’s set words spoken throughout the service to give it a framework or whether we go with the flow.

 

Worship is the conversation between us and the Holy, that is the liturgy —

 

The shape, the words, the flow – whether formed or free flowing.

 

Perhaps sometimes you enjoy freedom of expression, or maybe sometimes there is comfort to be found in the repetition of familiar words and phrases.

 

Perhaps it depends on the tradition with which you are most familiar…

 

C.S. Lewis says that “worship works best when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it” (quoted in Hart, Post Modern Evangelical Worship p457).

 

Are there particular words or phrases that you like to hear or use in worship that help move you into a space of communicating with the Divine?

 

PRAYER:

 

Lord,

Help us in our days to create a space and stream of conversation,

That our hearts would sing to you all day long…

Of our sorrows and our joys,

Of our doubts and our faith…

Of our fears and our hopes…

Of our thankfulness…

But may we also find space to hear…

Your songs of love sung over us,

The reassurances of who you are,

And of what you have done for us…

May it be as ceaseless as the waves,

A to-ing and fro-ing between the shores of us and you,

A quiet conversation between lovers,

The liturgy between our souls and you.

Amen.