Perfect Worship
When I was a young child, I had a bad stutter. Eventually, I got over it, but I still had a hard time pronouncing my R’s and S’s. For a while, I went to speech therapy and learned where to place my tongue to make the proper sounds. In high school, a friend asked me if I intentionally repeated myself silently after I said something. I had no idea that I did that. I realized that I often silently repeated the sentence I had said as a way to analyze if I had said it correctly. Even to this day, when I am speaking, I can distract myself by fixating on how the words are sounding as they come out of my mouth. Occasionally, this causes me to stumble over the words, lose my place if reading aloud, or make other mistakes. And I wonder, “What was God thinking when he called me to be a priest and talk in front of people?”
God often calls people to do things they can't do on their own, like Moses. When I think of Moses, I often feel a duality within me. Moses was said to be a man “slow of speech and tongue”. Some people take this to mean that Moses had a stutter. Because of his difficulty speaking, God had Aaron accompany him, the same Aaron who would become a high priest. A conflict arises in me because I am both of these men: my name is Aaron, I am a priest, and yet I have the speech issues of Moses. Surely, God has a sense of humor. But why did God give a message to Moses, the person who had difficulty speaking? Couldn’t he have healed Moses or just had Aaron be the one who floated in the basket and grew up to free Israel? Maybe the point is the process, not just the result; it is about dependence on God, faith in his ability. It’s about forming the person and the heart.
In an age of perfection, this is a difficult concept for us to grasp. We have computers that can alter the way someone looks. Machines that can weld and build better and faster. Tools in our hands that can help us fine-tune, achieve results quicker, and correct mistakes as we go. We have hoodwinked ourselves into thinking that we don't have time for mistakes. Within this mindset, having grace for ourselves either devolves into apathy or tragedy. Maybe this is because we are mainly concerned with the outward appearance, or we misunderstand grace. Grace is not antinomian—a release from following laws. Grace is the ability to repent, to turn again, and to receive forgiveness at the foot of the cross. Grace allows us to let go of our idols of perfection, and reorient us to the issues of the heart.
I have been to beautiful cathedrals, but the acoustics don't allow you to hear what is being said. I have been to churches with beautiful liturgies and wonderful choirs, but they are spiritually dead. Form does not equate to function. When we understand perfection not from an outward view but from an interior view, we find the proper starting place. This is the move from morals to holiness.
As we come to church, what do we think perfect worship is? It is easy to get caught up in the exterior perfection of beautiful liturgies, haunting choirs, majestic buildings. That certainly was the concern of Moses, but “I have never been eloquent… I am slow of speech and tongue.”
Perfect worship, the perfect liturgy, is not when everyone sings in tune, you hear every word, there are no disturbances from children or phones, the priest has a marvelous homily, and everything is to our liking. All of those things can be true, and it can still be a dead church. In fact, this was what God had a problem with in the Old Testament. Israel did all of the right things; their worship and buildings looked proper, but their hearts were not in it: “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6). Perfect worship begins with the heart. Everyone can be out of tune; phones and children are making noise; the homily is stumbled through; but if everyone’s hearts are in the right place, they can offer all of that to God in perfect worship.
However, let us not think that grace becomes the grounds for lawlessness. If we have the proper heart and mind, then we will also seek to offer our very best; we will strive for it to be beautiful and reflect the truth and majesty of the service. We will seek to care for our neighbor and be sure that we aren’t distracting them from worship. We will care for our building and all those who enter. In the same way that God still wanted his people to worship a certain way, but if that is divorced from the heart, it becomes empty.
God’s Peace,
Fr. Aaron