INVITATION TO HEAVENLY WORSHIP

           Of all the wondrous abilities of man, prayer is the greatest privilege. It is an amazing act for mortal man to reach out and share a conversation with the infinite Creator of the heavens and the earth. Prayer, along with everything that the Church sets before us as a goal and way of life, is an essential tool that unites our lives with the Kingdom of God. As St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain teaches, “There is no other virtue that is either higher or more necessary than sacred Prayer, because all the other virtues—I mean fasting, vigils, chastity, almsgiving, and all the rest, do not unite man with God, but only render man fit to be united. Sacred prayer, and it alone, unites. It alone joins man with God and God with man, and makes the two one spirit.”

            Of all the things we do as Orthodox Christians, nothing is higher than our participation in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. Worship constitutes the very heart and soul of our Orthodox faith and life. When the Church is at prayer, we are most clearly expressing the Kingdom of heaven on earth. This is why we begin the Divine Liturgy with the words: “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and forever, and unto the ages of ages.” Our worship services are divinely inspired; they are a part of our Holy Tradition, meaning that they have developed through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They not only express our holy doctrines, but they also express our participation in the divine worship that is unceasingly happening before God’s throne in the heavens. Just look at Is.6:1-8, Hebrews chapters eight and nine, and the fourth and fifth chapters of the Book of Revelation and see descriptions of heavenly worship. It is amazing to note how many similarities exist between what is happening all the time in heaven and what happens during our own worship services: the same thrice holy hymn (holy, holy, holy…), incense, the altar surrounded by cherubim and seraphim, the throne, the prostrations of the elders, the existence of liturgy and chanting, holy communion on the altar (the burning coal) are just a few examples.

            The calling of man is to be in the world, but not of the world. Of course, the fallen world is understood here. There is always a tension that should exist in the life of each Orthodox Christian—the tension that exists between the fallen world and the heavenly Kingdom, between the “flesh” and the spirit. 

        We were never created to live outside communion with God. The truth is, we malfunction apart from God. Despite how we might try to live independent lives, each human being is in fact dependent upon God. It is through a distorted desire for independence that our forefathers, Adam and Eve, fell into disobedience and were exiled from Paradise. The Christian life, true and abundant life, is precisely a journey back toward communion with God. This is why the Apostle Paul exhorted every Christian to ceaselessly pray and remember God and give Him thanks for all things. The Church, as the Body of Christ, is constantly inviting us to fulfill St. Paul’s above mentioned admonitions. Through prayer, worship, the holy sacraments, the cycles of feasts and fasts, the commemoration of Saints, the study of Scripture and the writings of the Fathers and acts of mercy (almsgiving), the Church is essentially helping us to be in the world but not of the world.

             Part of the tension we experience living in a fallen world is the pressure exerted upon us to overfill our lives with activities. The evil one wants us to stay busy doing so many “good things” that we no longer have time for the essential things. When we become too busy to consistently pray each morning and evening or to attend the services of the Church we can see that the influence of the fallen world upon us has become greater than the influence of God’s Church. God has given us the Church as our helper. She becomes for us like a mother—guiding, teaching, forming, reminding, protecting and even correcting us. The Church, by design, is competing with the world for our time and for our love with the express purpose of uniting us to Jesus Christ. We should not see these invitations by the Church as impositions or dutiful obligations, but rather as essential opportunities to pray and be united to God.

            In addition to having a basic morning and evening prayer rule, which includes the study of Scripture and the lives and writings of the Saints, we need to center our lives on the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. This is truly the heart and soul of the Church. This is our participation in the heavenly Kingdom. This is one of the most powerful ways the Church helps us to remember God and hold ourselves accountable to our Christian Faith. For the majority of the Church’s history, the primary and non-negotiable nourishment of the faithful has been the worship and sacramental life of the Church. If everything else we normally associate with parish life were to disappear—the various programs, committees and ministries—the Church would still essentially be the Church and fulfill its soul-saving mission on earth through its worship and sacramental ministry.

             It is not by accident that Christendom, the further it has moved away from Apostolic Tradition, has radically revised its services and reduced them to the point that they no longer even resemble heavenly worship but cater to the desires of our current society’s pension for entertainment and comfort. There is a vital link between what a community believes and how it worships. If the community changes either its beliefs or its worship the other will necessarily change as well. Since, God is the same yesterday, today and forever, our essential doctrines (what we believe about God) will never change. Therefore, the essential characteristic of our worship will also never change, and our consistent experience and participation in this worship has always been considered the greatest means of our transformation into the image and likeness of God. 

              

             It should come as no surprise that our Orthodox Christian worship is different than the world we live in. It’s as different from our society as the Kingdom of heaven is different from the fallen world, because it represents God and His truths. This is why the Church lovingly and continually interrupts us, getting our attention, and invites us to experience the Kingdom. My hope and prayer for our church community is that we would lay aside our earthly cares and truly make the effort to participate as fully as possible in the worship life of the Church, which is the ark of salvation.