Prelude Roots and Wings by Elizabeth Harley
Opening Words We meet on holy ground by Richard S. Gilbert
We meet on holy ground,
For that place is holy where we meet one another.
Where lives touch, where love moves,
Where hope stirs, there is holy ground.
How much we need this moment before the Eternal,
The time to be in reverence before the ultimate,
The pause that renews, the interlude that refreshes,
The space that gives us room to be.
We meet on holy ground,
Brought into being as life encounters life,
As personal histories merge into the communal story,
As we take on the pride and pain of our companions,
As separate selves become community…
We meet on holy ground.
May our souls capture the treasured time.
May our spirits celebrate our meeting
In this time and this place,
For we meet on holy ground.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point). (words by Cliff Reed)
We light this chalice
to bring light to our minds,
wisdom to our souls, and
warmth to our hearts:
light to show us the Way,
wisdom to walk it truly,
warmth to enfold our fellow
pilgrims with compassion.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
be with us as we gather for worship,
each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
in this world in which Covid has not yet gone away,
and the clouds of war hover.
May we keep in touch however we can,
and help each other, however we may.
May we remember that
caution is still needed,
that close contact is still unwise.
Help us to be grateful for the freedoms we have
and to respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
who are grieving, lost, alone,
victims of violence and war,
suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading from Leading Congregations in Worship: A Guide by the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Commission on Common Worship (adapted)
Worship can have different purposes and functions. For example:
Much traditional worship is viewed as a drama depicting the divine-human encounter. It is directed upward to God, inward to the individual, and outward into the worshipping community and the world at large. The Roman Catholic Mass, for example, represents in ritual form the coming of God into the human sphere. The worshipper is called to be part of the sacred event and to be transformed by it. This view of worship is sacramental. Words and actions are believed to participate in the divine reality.
Many traditional Protestant services may be described as educational. Their main purpose was to proclaim and interpret “the Word” to the congregation. Scripture reading and the sermon were central, the latter being an extended interpretation of a Biblical text. The appeal was to the intellect and the will rather than the senses.
And these are our roots. Most Unitarian worship today is educational and verbal. …Most Unitarian worship is [also] thematic, expressing a particular idea or message. Its goal is to move people, and through them, society—to help create community, justice, equality, and to widen personal horizons.
Worship as celebration emphasises the artistic. It attempts to reflect all of life, taking note of the realities already present in the worshipping community. Its purpose, however, is not to create community, inspire social responsibility, or teach a lesson, but is simply to reflect, to celebrate.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
may we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
and may our shortcomings be forgiven,
as we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
the inspiration and guidance to do right,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
and receive whatever life brings,
with courage and trust.
Amen
Reading from Leading Congregations in Worship: A Guide by the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Commission on Common Worship (adapted)
A very different form of worship can be called liturgical. The word “liturgy” comes from the Greek leitourgia, which means “the people’s work”. Typically, much of the service is read or responded to by the congregation. Familiarity with the material is important. The worshipper enters as a spectator. Liturgical worship usually follows a pattern that attempts to touch certain human needs, rather than to express a theme. The material used gives opportunity for people to give praise, express gratitude, acknowledge errors and shortcomings, experience healing and forgiveness, feel connected with the church community, … be intellectually stimulated, affirm and dedicate themselves to common values, experience something of the transcendent etc.
Liturgical worship need not be sacramental in the traditional sense, nor need it imply a conservative theology… [But] the service [is] a drama, an orchestrated event – a blending of responses, litanies, and… prayers. The sermon [is] integrated into this pattern. The repeated elements [become] for the worshippers a common body of devotional material made familiar through frequent use.
Prayer Worship by Cliff Reed, from We Are Here (adapted)
Spirit of Life and Love,
Once more we have gathered to worship,
to bring our praise and thanksgiving to you,
Source and Symbol of all that we hold to be good and true.
Once more we commune with each other,
to affirm and celebrate the life you give us,
and all that makes it creative and eternal.
Once more we commune with you,
opening ourselves to your Spirit,
rediscovering the divine dimension of
our own being, blending mind and spirit
in the quest for truer service.
Once more we bring our fractured, fractious
selves to this sacred place.
Help us to make peace with each other.
May all enmity and resentment be
consumed in the furnace of your love.
Amen
Reading from Unitarian? What’s that? by Cliff Reed
Most Unitarians would say that worshipping together is at the heart of all that we do. Most Unitarian communities gather in their churches, meeting houses and chapels on Sundays to worship. In worship, we affirm the faith and the values that we share, while being respectful of our differences.
Unitarian worship seeks to engage the whole person as well as the whole community in what goes on. Thus, while the spirit and the soul are addressed, so too is the mind – the faculties of thought and reason. Even the body is included – singing is, after all, a physical activity! Sometimes the body is involved in other ways too, in movement and dance, but this is much less common.
The form that Unitarian worship takes varies considerably. There is an increasing wish to explore new forms. It is still the case, though, that most Unitarian services take a form closely akin to the hymns / prayers / readings / address format long familiar in Nonconformist churches. But while the form may be similar, the content is usually rather different, often markedly so.
Time of Stillness and Reflection (words by Eila Forrester, from A Fair Field Full of Folk)
We gather here to be quiet and to pray, to find a time for our inner selves,
our souls and spirits which lie hidden and often neglected within us.
Let us now sit quietly and wait for the voice within us.
Let us listen and be still.
Some of us will feel empty and tired, grey and listless.
But emptiness and tiredness are also prayer,
A cry for spiritual food and an aching need
For soothing refreshment and strength to go on.
Some of us feel alone, aware of our need for someone to love us.
This too is prayer without words,
A longing and a sorrow which seek for the healing spirit of love,
The embrace of God’s concern for us in spirit and soul
And in the practical hands of people.
Some of us are happy, some content, some have hope
And plans for tomorrow: all these are prayers –
Prayers of giving, prayers of gratitude,
Prayers of creating thoughts and dreams.
Let us gather with our wordless prayers –
Prayers of our inner selves, our inner truth.
[silence]
May God be with us in these prayers,
Sustaining them and enabling us to grow
More aware of our wordless selves and
The waters of our own spirit,
Which are always there for us to drink,
If we will sit still, wait, and listen.
Amen
Musical Interlude A Welsh Wedding by Elizabeth Harley
Address The Purposes of Worship
During the Autumn Training Day last Saturday, Simon Hall asked the participants why we engage in worship. This service is an attempt to answer that question. Because of course there may be many reasons. As Cliff Reed wrote in our final reading, “Most Unitarians would say that worshipping together is at the heart of all that we do.”
We are a faith community, not a social club, nor a pressure group, nor any other kind of community. The ground of our shared community is that of being fellow pilgrims on a spiritual journey. And communal worship is an important part of that journey. Although many Unitarian congregations may offer diverse “other than Sunday” events, the one which all congregations offer, is Sunday worship.
Our first two readings, from Leading Congregations in Worship: A Guide by the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Commission on Common Worship, explained some of the many different kinds of worship that we might find in a Unitarian community: sacramental, educational, thematic, celebratory and liturgical. Although some are perhaps less common than others. And various rituals, including chalice lighting and candles of joy / hope and concern / sorrow, flower communion, and Christian communion are also part of the worship experience in many Unitarian congregations.
But this morning, I am more interested in exploring the purposes of communal worship – why we do it, every Sunday (or however often our congregation meets). There can be many reasons, for example, to share our doubts and questions, to mark the rhythm of the seasons (many Unitarian congregations will have celebrated either the Pagan festival of Samhain or the Christian festivals of All Saints and All Souls last weekend), to share our stories, to be in connection with each other and the Divine, to search for a deeper truth and meaning in our lives, to pray together, to learn and grow as people, to learn about our faith and ourselves, and to inspire us to be better people. For me, it meets a deep need for connection with the Divine, which I do not get in the same way when I pray alone. There is something about sharing a time of worship with others which deepens the experience, I think. A good worship service needs to be relevant to the lives of the congregation, and should include “worshipful” elements, such as hymn singing, prayer, and times of stillness and reflection.
There were three questions about Unitarian worship (and more specifically, about the use of ritual and liturgy in worship services) in my 2017 survey of contemporary beliefs, values and practices of Unitarians in the UK. The words “ritual” and “liturgy” seem to have much baggage for Unitarians, although I think we often do ritual without realising it – for example, I lit our chalice candle this morning, which I do every week. That is a ritual. And some would argue that liturgy is “everything we do in worship”. As we saw in the second UUA reading, the literal meaning of the word “liturgy” is “the people’s work”. It is all the bits of the worship service in which we, the congregation, participate, rather than being passive listeners.
There are many different elements in a typical Unitarian worship service – gathering words, chalice lighting, prayers, readings, hymns, a time of silence, an address and closing words. Over the last forty or so years, I have noticed a move away from purely word-based services, towards services with more ritual and liturgy. Because they do add another dimension to our worship. But some Unitarians feel inhibited about being asked to participate in rituals, which take them out of their comfort zone. Especially if this comes out of the blue, with no prior warning.
But the majority of the respondents to my survey questions either enjoyed the chance to worship with all their senses and/or loved being able to participate more in worship services. As I explained in the book, “Respondents who liked ritual and liturgy did so for three reasons. First, they were seen as providing some structure and familiarity to a service. One person commented, ‘I appreciate the value of ritual – the bonding that comes with hymn singing’. A worship leader stated that, ‘a familiar form (whether ritual or liturgy or both) used regularly is a comfort for a congregation’ and ‘those who come from a background where liturgy was used seem to welcome that in a Unitarian service.’ The second reason… was that it, ‘creates a sense of community, common purpose.’… The third reason was that ritual can introduce a non-verbal element into the service: one wrote, ‘I think some ritual (colour, sound, movement) has value / mystery.’ Another suggested that it may have ‘a role in establishing a feeling of a ‘sacred place’…. Quality and relevance are seen as key factors (to whether a particular ritual or liturgy works as part of worship).
One of the most fascinating aspects of Unitarian worship (for me) is our strong desire to mark the rhythms of the year. Many Unitarian congregations enjoy following the basic round of the Christian year, including special services for Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost (or Whitsun), Harvest (although that is, strictly speaking, a Pagan festival) , All Saints and All Souls, Advent and Christmas. Others much prefer to follow the Pagan Wheel of the Year, and celebrate its eight festivals: Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Spring Equinox, Beltane, Midsummer, Lughnasadh, and Autumn Equinox. And of course there are also civil occasions such as Holocaust Memorial Day, various LGBT memorial days, and Remembrance Sunday that are also commonly celebrated in Unitarian worship services. It seems that the impulse to mark the circling of the year is a deep one in many Unitarian communities.
Perhaps one way of examining the purpose of worship is to ask ourselves, ‘What would I miss if I didn’t do it?’ As a worship leader who rarely gets the chance to participate in worship as a ‘bum on a pew’, I miss the regular nourishment that receiving worship brings. The painter Vincent van Gogh once wrote, “One should never let the fire in one’s soul go out, but should stir it up.” And I believe that this is advice that all ministers and worship leaders, who spend their lives giving to others, should heed. Because we will not be able to give of our best, from our souls, if we do not also nourish those souls by receiving what we need – worship, inspiration, knowledge, hope.
Which is one reason why the time I have just spent at the Nightingale Centre at Great Hucklow, attending the Autumn conference of the Ministerial Fellowship, was so important to me. It was such a joy to experience worship without being responsible for it. I strongly believe that all worship leaders, whether lay or ministerial, need to regularly recharge their spiritual and emotional batteries by doing this. Because it’s not possible to nourish our congregations if we ourselves are empty inside. And I believe that is the most important purpose of worship – it enables the participants to recharge those spiritual batteries, and to return to their everyday lives refreshed and strengthened. The fire in the soul, which Vincent van Gogh talks about, can be stirred up by new experiences, by worshipping with others, so that it burns brightly again.
I believe that participating in worship can help to enable us to grow into the best people we can be. It can give us a foundation of love and connection, which can feed our deepest selves during the weekdays between services, so that we are able to respond to others in the best, most compassionate ways, and also care for ourselves. So that we can live with our whole hearts, authentically, creatively, and deeply.
I’m going to finish by repeating part of the beautiful words of stillness and reflection by Eila Forrester, which formed our time of stillness and reflection, as for me, they sum up the true purposes of worship.
“We gather here to be quiet and to pray, to find a time for our inner selves,
our souls and spirits which lie hidden and often neglected within us.
Let us now sit quietly and wait for the voice within us.
Let us listen and be still.
Some of us will feel empty and tired, grey and listless.
But emptiness and tiredness are also prayer,
A cry for spiritual food and an aching need
For soothing refreshment and strength to go on.
Some of us feel alone, aware of our need for someone to love us.
This too is prayer without words,
A longing and a sorrow which seek for the healing spirit of love,
The embrace of God’s concern for us in spirit and soul
And in the practical hands of people.
Some of us are happy, some content, some have hope
And plans for tomorrow: all these are prayers –
Prayers of giving, prayers of gratitude,
Prayers of creating thoughts and dreams.
Let us gather with our wordless prayers –
Prayers of our inner selves, our inner truth.”
May our experiences of worship be nourishing and deep and rich. Amen
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
May we come to worship regularly,
So that we are able to nourish our souls.
May we return to our everyday world refreshed,
may we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
now and in the days to come,
Amen
Postlude Lady of Lewesdon Hill by Elizabeth Harley