Episcopalian Church at Work

Though Sunday's service was just the regular 10:30 at St. James Episcopal church, I was acutely aware how much loving attention to detail lies behind our worship -- behind in hours and centuries. The form of our worship generates meaningful coincidences both by accident and design.

[Photo: View of the church at rest, late afternoon, St. James Episcopal Church, Marietta, GA -- http://www.stjamesmarietta.com/ ]

A meditative organ piece chosen this week by organist-choir master Peter Waggoner prepared us for something solemn; bells in the tower rang out over our silence.  Peter, with the clergy, chose the opening hymn Truro, a melody from 1789 that takes stately steps upward on the lyric phrase, "Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (436)."  The verses, written around 1600, translated around 1860 by invaluable Catherine Winkworth, take off from a Psalm about entry of "the King of Glory" through the gates of Jerusalem, and end up at a more personal plea that the gates of our hearts might also open wide for our King to enter in.

Our readings from the Bible were prescribed by scholars here and abroad who've devised and revised the lectionary since our church broke from Rome in the 1500s. They chose the readings to fit the overarching narrative of our church calendar, and to relate in some way to each other.  The collect appointed for the day by the Book of Common Prayer, likewise composed for our prayer book to "collect" the thoughts and concerns raised by the readings, also paralleled the outward-inward arc of our opening hymn:

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world:  Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth.... 

By accident, two of our oldest, most frail parishioners were designated Lay Readers on Sunday.  Their conditions added resonance to the substance of their texts. Dave read about youthful Samuel ministering to old Eli saying, "Here I am."  Anna, who needed help at the stairs, read how the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.  Their determination to step up to the lectern was an image of commitment to our worship.

Our choir director Peter Waggoner wrote the chant tone that we used for Psalm 139, appointed for today.  This one expresses God's love for us in terms unusually intimate -- "You have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up.... You press upon me behind and before.... Such knowledge is too wonderful for me."  It seems of the same character as the youthful Samuel.

Fr. Roger picked up on the "light" imagery in the collect and spoke about the Spiritual "This Little Light of Mine" -- appropriate for the Sunday of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.  He had learned the song as a little child, but had always misunderstood it, he said.  The light is not "mine," or mine alone; and, as every light needs an external source to stay lit, we need those words and sacraments; we need each other; we need what this very church service provides. 

Our anthem by Healey Willan, who wrote the organ voluntary at the start,  was his setting of words I recite many mornings, recommended for the daily morning prayer: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee...." (from Isaiah).

Of course, communion is beautiful. Around 200 parishioners walked, skipped, or limped forward to the altar; clergy and lay ministers went out to those who can no longer walk that distance.

We sang two hymns, "What Wondrous Love is This?" from the early American shape-note tradition (echoing the Psalm's phrase, "knowledge too wonderful for me"), and another early tune new to me, Hymn 702.  The verses were rhymed versifications of the day's wonderful Psalm 139:

Lord, thou hast searched me and dost know
Where e'er I rest, where e'er I go;
thou knowest all that I have planned
and all my ways are in the hand.

I saw in the room many others involved in different aspects of the Church's operation and ministry -- ushers, decorators, servers, committee members, Sunday school teachers and adult education students, lay eucharistic ministers who take the sacrament to some 15 different shut ins, choir, acolytes, bell ringers, technicians.  Down the hall were those working on hospitality, and promoting our day care's big fund raiser this month.

While I felt buoyed by the service, in the back of my mind are the money worries that have nagged me as long as I've been involved in the church's vestry, about twelve years.

When the church is working well, as it was this morning, I feel like we've got to keep it going, and, should we need to chip away at the Endowment, well, let the chips fall where they may.