Reoriented to Aslan's Table
One of the secrets of seminary life is that we worship together everyday. One of the keenest losses for students upon graduation is that the everyday community worship is gone, and they will experience this heavenly banquet only once-a-week in most places. I can joyfully say that one of the greatest blessings in joining the faculty at Western Theological Seminary is that I worship with others each and everyday. This includes glorious music, biblical preaching, and centering prayers. Today, during worship, I was overwhelmed by this worship gift.
(I invite you to consider finding a local seminary in your area and occasionally stop by for the daily worship - most schools worship at least twice per week. This participation will both center your life in Christ but even more, you will have a new understanding of what exactly a seminary is concerned with - forming leaders to lead the church deeper in Christ).
Today I was made new again - I was re-oriented. I want to borrow from President Tim Brown, who during the sermon, invoked Walter Brueggemann's important and helpful concept:
(I invite you to consider finding a local seminary in your area and occasionally stop by for the daily worship - most schools worship at least twice per week. This participation will both center your life in Christ but even more, you will have a new understanding of what exactly a seminary is concerned with - forming leaders to lead the church deeper in Christ).
Today I was made new again - I was re-oriented. I want to borrow from President Tim Brown, who during the sermon, invoked Walter Brueggemann's important and helpful concept:
Orientation is that initial confession - that "yes"- to God and all that God is to us.
Disorientation is that space in life where we are at work in and with things of this world that are not always the way they are supposed to be. In the worst moments, disorientation is that space where we feel like we are "living in the depths."
Re-Orientation is that amidst the confessional yes and the principalities and powers of the world, we find a new way fo being toward God that is an echo of our confessional "yes" yet with the expansion of that yes into a deeper sense of living with Christ toward his Kingdom.
Oriented to be Re-Oriented, and gladly so.
When I arose from my desk chair at 9:37 to walk down to worship, I was saying "yes" to my orientation to God and arising from the labor and toil (disorientation) to find confirmation that my orientation to God was indeed in-tact. As an act of being oriented amidst a disoriented world, I removed my watch (released from the disorientation of slavery to time), placed my phone on my desk (released from dependency of being exhaustively accessible), and walked away from my labor and toil (released from the narcissistic thought that if I'm not working the world will stop revolving). I entered worship centered on my confessional orientation.
I entered worship to a buzz of gathering. I noticed the music worship team was preparing, the preacher centering, the sound guy attending, and the gathered chatting. Finally, a voice came over the speaker asking us to join him for worship. He explained what we were to do, and then a new voice - Beth - opened her mouth and what emerged was a holy new. There were three such vignettes that re-oreinted me, and I will not return to my confessional "yes" - my initial orientation - the same way again.
The power of a singing voice.
Beth is a new student to the seminary. She has an elegance and sophistication that commands respect. She was one member on the music team, yet her voice was unknown to the gathered body on this day, so when the maestro Ron invited her to lead us we had no idea what to expect. What emerged from her center was a depth of voice that situated itself between the heavens and earth in a deeper Jazz volume. I looked around the sanctuary and recognized that I was not alone in my surprise and delight. The music team alongside Jarvis' voice were the redeemed Sirens of Homer - mesmerizing us toward the Kingdom banquet and not toward themselves.
The dancing of an orderly student.
Amidst the opening song, a calming flutter occurred over my right should as a Senior student (one of my former students), Stephanie, gazelled liturgically from chair to pulpit to table and to font. She opened worship with her movements that re-oriented our yes from a personal point of agency to God's point of agency - moving us from ourselves as the actors in this drama to God, whose word, feast, and washing welcomed us originally to our orienting "yes". The rhythm was unexpected and I was re-oriented to the agency of God and away from myself.
Participation in Aslan's goblets.
The final re-oreintation came through President Tim Brown's sermon. I desire good preaching, and if I could only hear a good sermon once a season, I would be content. Yet, here at Western Theological Seminary, I hear good preaching almost everyday, and today was no exception. Preaching from Psalm 81 - "open your mouths and I will fill it", I knew that going to the Table for the Lord's Supper would, indeed, be fulfilling.
Before I was able to join the Table, however, President Brown invited us to the Chronicles of Narnia - The Last Battle - and recounted the hospitable work of Aslan amidst the inhospitable dwarves. He retold the story of how Alsan shook his mane and created a feast for the dwarves. Each dwarf had a glass filled with rich wine, yet they could not appreciate it, and initially compared it to donkey water. Their inability to receive outsiders and their myopia towards their own judgments and criticisms, left them to under-appreciate Aslan's goblets, though they admitted there was something wonderful there.
In the midst of the story-telling, my mind missed the last portion of the story as I was focused on Aslan's goblets. I was re-oriented that when we come to the supper table of Christ, we release myopia, we release exclusion, we release criticism and drink deeply from the blessings of Aslan. I heard the last word of the tale - TIME, and I considered for a moment that each Friday we should be making time to move from Dwarf-hood to Aslan's table. The image of the goblets invited me to consider inviting a few good friends (and maybe some enemies) to drink a glass of wine from Aslan's goblets. Our drinking would not focus on the "fancy drinking water out of a trough that a donkey's been at" but instead at the events of the week where we "found something nicer than [we] had" - this would be a time to recount our blessings - to share gratitude in a disoriented world that too often shares criticisms.
I ended at the Table today - with strangers and new friends - it was a Narnia moment - the singing, the dancing, and the feasting. I enjoyed this re-orientation and look forward to unfolding God's salvation again and again through the weekly worship at Western Theological Seminary and each Sunday at Harbert Community Church. I enjoyed the journey today that was Further Up and Further In.
In the midst of the story-telling, my mind missed the last portion of the story as I was focused on Aslan's goblets. I was re-oriented that when we come to the supper table of Christ, we release myopia, we release exclusion, we release criticism and drink deeply from the blessings of Aslan. I heard the last word of the tale - TIME, and I considered for a moment that each Friday we should be making time to move from Dwarf-hood to Aslan's table. The image of the goblets invited me to consider inviting a few good friends (and maybe some enemies) to drink a glass of wine from Aslan's goblets. Our drinking would not focus on the "fancy drinking water out of a trough that a donkey's been at" but instead at the events of the week where we "found something nicer than [we] had" - this would be a time to recount our blessings - to share gratitude in a disoriented world that too often shares criticisms.
I ended at the Table today - with strangers and new friends - it was a Narnia moment - the singing, the dancing, and the feasting. I enjoyed this re-orientation and look forward to unfolding God's salvation again and again through the weekly worship at Western Theological Seminary and each Sunday at Harbert Community Church. I enjoyed the journey today that was Further Up and Further In.
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