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What do we mean when we talk about “worship”?  In class today, we talked about worship as praising God, as a time of fellowship and communion, as prayer, as service . . .  Worship is all these things.

Martin Luther, in a sermon preached at the dedication of the first church built for Protestant worship said, “that nothing else be done in it than that our dear Lord Himself talk to us through his holy word and that we, in turn, talk to him in prayer and song of praise”.  Archbishop Cranmer said that the purpose of worship services should be the “setting forth of God’s honor or glory”, and “reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living”.  More recently, Pope Pius X wrote of worship as being for “the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful”.

What struck me about these and other comments on worship I read during the past few days is that all of them have a common theme — that worship is not just about us and what we do or feel; and it’s not just about God and knowledge of God.  It’s about an exchange and an affirmation that God is with us — that the risen Christ is in out midst as a congregation and that we affirm his presence through a renewal of our commitment to live like Him.

And, thinking it over, that’s really “the brief history of worship” that I wanted to talk about in class today — that we are all participants in the communion of the saints: from those 1st Century Christians meeting in each other’s houses, through every parish church, basilica and cathedral since then, right up to the services today at the corner of Main Street and Green.  As such, we have work to be done.