Dolly Parton, a saint for our times, whose beautiful voice went silent this past week – Dolly Parton found God in a church.
Well, sure. Don’t we all?
First of all, not always. And second of all, Dolly’s finding God in a church wasn’t the kind of finding God in church that we might think of. Jason G. Edwards tells the story in The Christian Century:
“The religion of [Dolly’s] childhood gave her the Bible, music, and an expectation that God shows up in ordinary life, but it also frightened her… She [talked] about being a girl of around 12 who worried that she didn’t know God in the way adults around her said they knew God. Why hadn’t she felt what everyone else testified about?
“Seeking assurance, Dolly started visiting an abandoned church with broken windows on a hill near her home. Graffiti covered the walls. A damaged piano remained inside. People used it for drinking and other activities that would have scandalized the congregation that once worshiped there. Dolly liked to go there anyway.
“One day she began praying Psalm 23. ‘The Lord is my shepherd…’ She recited the psalm as a prayer, and then something happened that she would remember for the rest of her life. Dolly described sensing God’s presence with a force that finally settled the question for her. Telling the story decades later, she said she’d found God there . . . and she’d also found Dolly Parton.”
To echo this morning’s Collect of the Day – in an unlikely, broken and holy place, Dolly Parton found true religion.
Where do we find true religion? Where do we find God? I hope within the walls of this church, with its stained glass windows and absence of scandals, but I also hope we find God in the unlikely holy places too.
There was Gospel built right into the walls of that little, falling-down church on a hill near Dolly’s house. Dolly knew that God is in many places beyond the obvious ones, and many people beyond the obvious ones. Her story tells us that God’s in the run-down, graffiti-covered, broken-piano places – and God’s in the architecturally stunning, carved-wood and brass, pipe-organ places. And her story tells us that when we find God in God’s dwelling place, we find our own home too – we, like Dolly, find ourselves.
Today at the 10:30 service, we’re doing our annual Instructed Eucharist. If you haven’t experienced an Instructed Eucharist, here at Trinity or elsewhere, and have a little more free time this morning, come back and see what it’s about. In an Instructed Eucharist, we break down the service, and talk a little bit about each part of it as we pray and celebrate and sing and read through the liturgy. Liturgy – which translates as the work of the people, or the work for the people – is a place where we find God, where we find each other, where we find ourselves – whether we celebrate that liturgy inside or outside the walls of a church. Liturgy creates a space for encountering God, each other, and ourselves.
I will wash my hands in innocence, O Lord,
that I may go in procession round your altar,
Singing aloud a song of thanksgiving
and recounting all your wonderful deeds.
Lord, I love the house in which you dwell
and the place where your glory abides.
Today’s Psalm is an appropriate one for a Sunday when we think and talk about the work of the Eucharistic liturgy, the worship we do together on Sunday mornings.
Sometimes during the year, we have the option of going with Track 1 or Track 2 for our lectionary readings, and this is one of those times – we’re following track 2, which are thematic readings. If we were following Track 1, however, we’d be hearing this morning about Moses and the burning bush in the book of Exodus, and God’s voice speaking from the fire, telling him, take off your sandals, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. We are standing this morning, our feet are planted, on holy ground.
On Sundays, our liturgy is divided into two parts – really, two liturgies – the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Table. We’re still in the Liturgy of the Word, and will be all the way up through the passing of the peace. During the Liturgy of the Word, we begin with a blessing, and a greeting: Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We acknowledge the Trinity. We greet God, and then we greet each other. We pray, we listen to the words of the Scriptures, we listen to the sermon, we pray some more. Toward the end of the Liturgy of the Word, we kneel and confess our sins, together as a congregation, and we are absolved, together as a congregation. We reconcile ourselves to God. After that we pass the peace – we reconcile with one another. And when we have done that, we are ready to come to the table to break bread together.
The Liturgy of the Table begins with an invitation to the table – an invitation to dinner:
Let us walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, and offering and a sacrifice to God.
And at that point, we move – the liturgy moves – from the chancel to the altar. We set the table – usually that is done by a deacon, when there is one – many of us remember our beloved Deacon, Shirley Reudy, who is no longer with us. When the table is set, we bring our gifts to it – our offerings of treasure, and our offerings of bread and wine. And then you hear the priest say the familiar words, “Lift up your hearts.”
With those words, the Eucharist begins. Everything that follows, up until the point where we begin to move to the rail and receive the bread and wine, is one long prayer – the Eucharistic Prayer, or the Great Thanksgiving. And while the priest speaks – or chants – many of the words, many are also spoken or sung by the congregation – we are praying together over the shared meal of the Eucharist. While we pray, we are remembering Christ’s life – his teachings in words, actions – his death and resurrection. We’re remembering his final meal – his Last Supper – with his disciples. And the Eucharist is not only a remembrance – it is not a reenactment, or a symbol of what happened 2,000 years ago – it is a sacrament, one of the seven sacraments, and one of two, along with Baptism, that were given to us by Jesus Christ.
In the Eucharist there are four actions that we witness, four sections of the Liturgy of the Table. Take – Bless – Break – Give.
The bread is taken, blessed or consecrated, broken and then given for us – just as Christ’s body was. In the consecration of the bread and wine, we invite the presence of the Holy Spirit – Jesus joins us at the table in a meal we share with each other and the saints gone before, every time we come to the table – we share communion with the body of Christ – we are the body of Christ, taken, blessed, broken and given.
In this church, we are standing on holy ground. This shared table is Christ’s table, and God is in this place. By taking the bread, blessing it, breaking it, giving it – we each take Christ’s body with us back out into the world. It becomes our work to carry God to new holy ground, to find ourselves and each other, and to meet God in each other. Out in that world, we are always on holy ground. For anywhere we are, God is there.
Take. Bless. Break. Give.
Amen.
