Sunday Worship

Back in the bad old days, when I used to post on Saturday and Sunday, just to keep up the false pharisaical image that I posted all the time, I would put up a pretty video of a boy choir here and there or a little small Amy Carmichael meditation from His Thoughts Said…The Father Said. I never actually wrote anything. The usual Sunday way is to work a whole lot and then collapse. Not, as I said yesterday, words and writing and thought.

Still, all morning and afternoon long I fussed in the background about the Blogging. And on a Sunday. Hmmm. I thought about trying to catalogue the whole day by snapping pictures on the hour. Like, at seven, I could have taken a selfie as I was insisting to Baby Elspeth that she couldn’t wear bright pink shoes with her red dress because they were two different shoes and as I was arguing I was thinking “who cares, she’s going to take them off in thirty seconds..still…standards.” And then Elphine was upset about her hair being all staticky and so I put some of my really nice stuff in her hair and tried not to feel grudging because it’s expensive and she has no idea. And then Alouicious was prepared to tear up because I asked him to put the shoes on the shelf. And then I had to run over and make sure the sermon printed properly as Matt threw on his clothes, muttering to myself that, having waken up at 3am, he should have had plenty of time to get dressed and see if the printed properly himself.

That was seven. At eight the picture would have been making coffee. Lots of coffee. Boiling water for tea. Vacuuming the Sunday school rooms because I haven’t bothered to call the cleaning company to remind them to do it. Putting the rocking horse back in the nursery four times and finally realizing that each time I put it in, Gladys would deliberately take it out. When I asked her why she started crying. !!? What? What did I say? What did I do? Why is shy crying? Children are so weird. Just like Christians.

Nine, Sunday school. Did Eucharistic Presence One which is supposed to be so lovely. You move the sheep from their fold into a new fold with a table and a beautiful linen, candles, paten, chalice, tiny crucifix. The Good Shepherd leads the sheep to the new fold. Relieved the children believed the Good Shepherd to be Jesus and themselves to be the sheep. But when it came to whether the sheep would be happy and full of joy to be in this new fold it turned out that they, the sheep I guess, didn’t really care one way or another. Gave up and passed out loud instruments. Shouted “Jesus loves me” and asked God for some kind of mercy.

Ten Thirty. Church. Worship. Observed that the choir grew in number since last week. Motioned to the acolytes to smile and sing along. Read the gospel. Rushed around and counted before settling in to listen to Matt preach. Rested and internally wept as he walked moment by moment, verse by verse through each injustice and travesty and sin in the Jewish portion of Jesus’ night of trial. Creed. Confession. Communion. Tried to catch people before they could escape out the back when it was all over.

But photographs wouldn’t have been sufficient. Just as words aren’t. I always wonder what visitors think and feel when they spend a morning at Good Shepherd. It probably seems both hysterical and futile. If anyone could see in my mind they would certainly feel that. But, strangely, God wants it this way. He wants us all to come and sing, as best we can, sometimes less well than at other times. He wants the Word to be read and expounded. He wants us to confess our sins. He wants the bread to be broken and passed out and the wine to be drunk. He wants us to talk to each other and sort out our differences and try to love each other. He wants the most wretched of us to come back the most often. To the world it probably looks grossly unjust. That care and honor are given to the meek and broken, that the unglamorous discipline of liturgy is honoring to the creator of the universe, that the moment of greatest cosmic injustice is the weekly remembrance of the saving of the world.

–Anne