A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 17

Chapter 17 – Right Worship

 

Worship is central to our identity and mission as God’s people, since is it our worship that shapes our response to God as Jesus Christ. The pattern of our weekly worship service reflects our relationship with Jesus Christ and with our community – the relationship we hope we have now and the relationship we hope to have going forward. We are called to worship together, we listen to the word together, we eat together, we pray together, and we sing together. Worship is all about relationship with one another, with Jesus, and with God.

 

When thinking on Matthew 5 verses 23-26, it brings to mind the fact that each week we called to confess before God our sins and transgressions. According to Matthew, in order to experience right worship, one must also experience right and reconciled relationship. So the call for confession is a way to reconcile your heart in order to have a complete experience of worship.

 

Having taken part in both Lutheran and Anglican liturgies, it is interesting to me where that confession falls in the order of worship. In the Lutheran service, confession and absolution opens the service, whereas, in the Anglican service, it falls immediately prior to the Eucharistic prayer. In asking questions, this is what I have learned. Luther believed that, in order to be faithfully present at worship, a person needed to be cleansed and forgiven for their sins and transgressions. A cleaned heart was needed so as to be fully present for worship. In the Anglican tradition, a clean heart was required to partake completely in the Eucharistic celebration. Therefore, a person needed to ask forgiveness for their sins so as to have a clean and renewed heart before accepting the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

 

It is an interesting difference, and I’m positive that I’ve over-simplified the matter, but when considering Matthew 5:24, it enforces the fact that, before being concerned with worship, we need reconciliation with our fellow siblings in Christ, and in the world. In order to have right worship with God, right relationship with God, we must first have right relationship with our neighbour. And when we hand over our sins and transgressions to God through confession, we will receive eternal forgiveness from our ever-loving God.