01-The Significance of Worship
CHAPTER I THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORSHIP
MODERN communities will support generously only those institutions which serve them in a large way. Can the church justify its appeal for maintenance on this ground?
It conducts “services” indeed, but is this “service”? To feed the poor, find work for the unemployed, provide lunches for underfed school children is service. But most churches do little of this. They merely gather people together for prayer, and praise, and instruction in religious subjects. And not a few arise to inquire if any vital need is met by such exercises. What can be said in reply to the charge that ministers and other religious workers are parasites on society who live off the labor of others without contributing to the common supply of wealth? Clearly, we must be able to assure ourselves concerning the value of public worship.
We may remark, in the first instance, that worship is a necessary expression of man’s sense of the Infinite. Given a belief in God, prayer is man’s instinctive response to that belief. And this belief is universal. “Go back as far as history extends and man is religious... The pre-faistoric remains in Europe and elsewhere, as far as they prove anything, show man possessed of certain ideas and performing certain acts which give strong evidence of being religious.” 1 Worship then appears inevitable. By the very constitution of their being men relate themselves to the invisible world of spirit and power which lies behind the temporal order.
They provide for worship as naturally and instinctively as they provide for supplies of water and food. This was noted long ago by a pagan historian, Plutarch: “You will, Edmund D. Soper, The Religions of Mankind, p. 27.
9 io THE PASTORAL OFFICE perchance, light upon cities without gates, without a theater, and without a palace; but you will find no city without a temple.” “As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God,” is ever the cry of man famished for the Infinite. That an exceptional person here and there seldom expresses this hunger for God does not affect the general fact. He only emphasizes the normal by showing how far he varies from it.
Again, reflect upon the value of worship as a method of renewing moral and spiritual forces. Who has not grown weary in well-doing? Who does not know what it means to have his margin of self-control grow perilously narrow? Who does not find his confidence weakening in the worthwhileness of his finest ideals? Who has not lost his appetite for life through the monotony of life? Above all, who does not know the experience of remorse for sin and moral failure? “The internal decay of the incentive of work, the drooping of the sails of ambition, the falling out of humor with one’s own humor” this is a part of the history of every man’s inner life. And in searching for means of refreshing the weary spirit we must reckon with worship. It is not the only device by which something of the joy and zest of life may be recovered. A vacation, a favorite book, the companionship of men and women, an evening at the concert, an afternoon on the golf course may give the desired variation in the daily routine which is needful to “restore the soul.” There are two defects, however, which make it impossible for these ever to take first rank as means of spiritual renewal. First, they are purely external aids.
One who depends upon them exclusively soon loses all power to refresh himself from the springs of his own inner life. Pity that multitude who find it necessary always to go outside themselves for relaxation and excitement, and who, in the absence of accustomed pleasure, are not only cast down but also destroyed! Moreover, these restorative measures have little power to affect the supreme cause of spiritual fatigue sin. They can only anaesthetize the THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORSHIP n troubled conscience by inducing a temporary f orgetfulnessv They are unable to remove permanently the sense of guilt, or create a consciousness of strength which will make victorious living possible in the future. But it is at precisely these points that worship attains to primacy among all other methods of recuperation. Its strength comes from within, and is independent of outward circumstances. One may not always be able to take a vacation from his work, but he may always pray at his work. When changes on the outside cannot be effected by prayer, one may change his attitude on the inside so as to rest himself while he works. And because he does it for himself he never becomes dependent upon outward aids. The great mystics affirm that worship will do all that friendship, amusement, food, medicine, or even sleep can accomplish for the refreshment of the spirit. Furthermore, it relieves the tension of overtaut nerves, not by inducing forgetfulness, but by creating the sense of Another Presence, AllLoving and All-Strong, who has come to help us face the facts of life and energize our weakened wills. In prayer the sin-tortured soul is soothed by the conviction that sin is forgiven and by the assurance that in future conflicts he shall have power to overcome sin. In worship as in nothing else “a self hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior, and unhappy becomes unified and consciously right, superior, and happy in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities.” 2 Thus the greatest American psychologist confirms the findings of an ancient prophet: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31).
Consider a third suggestion as to the value of worship.
Men not only grow weary, but they become confused and lose their sense of direction. They require not only means of refreshing themselves but instruments for ascertaining their moral and spiritual bearings* The line be a William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 189.
Reprinted by permission of Longmans, Green & Co.
12 THE PASTORAL OFFICE tw-een virtue and vice is very faint on occasion. A technique is in demand for sharpening such lines. Worship proves competent for this. Everyone who prays knows what it means to have a perplexed mind become quiet and assured in the act of prayer, forming judgments, reaching conclusions, taking new points of view as one worships. The writer of Ephesians had this in mind when he prayed “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (i. 17). A distinguished American physician understands it who affirms that to pray is to do what the woodsman does, who, uncertain of his whereabouts, climbs the highest tree to take a look around. 3 The mystics uniformly describe an experience which they call “the illumination of the soul” in which the ordinary powers of perception are heightened and insights deepened.
Psychologists may refer all this to the “unconscious mind” out of which suggestion is supposed to come when the nervous system is relaxed. This does not satisfy the true mystics, however, who are philosophers in search of reality, and scientists describing their own states of mind, as well as devotees. They are convinced that the cause of these enlightening experiences does not lie wholly within themselves. They have a feeling of “otherness.” “Another” instructs, suggests, inspires, and guides. They are overwhelmingly sure that they have established communication with the Infinite Source of all life and being. The “unconscious mind” cannot be more than the organ of the Holy Spirit.
Mr. H. G. Wells is not accustomed to defend traditional views in religion. But on this matter he writes very much like Saint Paul. “Then, suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is the attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in oneself. It is 8 R. C Cabot, What Men Live By, p. 277. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORSHIP 13 as if one were touched at every point by a being akin to oneself, sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in aim. It is complete and more intimate, but it is like standing side by side with and touching some one that we love dearly and trust completely. It is as if this being bridged a thousand misunderstandings and brought us in touch with a great multitude of other people... The moment may come while we are alone in the darkness, under /Tthe stars, or while we walk by ourselves or in a crowd, or we sit and muse. It may come upon the sinking of a or in the tumult of battle. There is no saying when it P. may not come to us. But after it has come our lives are “ /changed. God is with us and there is no more doubt of God.
Thereafter one goes about the world like one who was lonely has found a lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution. One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us and against the confusion and evil within us and without. There comes into the heart an essential and enduring happiness and courage.” 4 Now, the experience of the mystic does not differ in kind om that of all who genuinely worship. It differs only in ^Q degree. Everyone is a mystic to whom God is consciously ^^real as he prays. To worship is to go on a great adventure that brings up at last in the very presence of the Father, and in this adventure we acquire knowledge about God and our relation to him.
Again, consider the contribution which worship may make /^toward the solution of our social problems. The most impressive fact about modern society is its high degree of U’ “mutualism.” Never were men dependent upon each other pJas now. Professor Ross describes this condition accurately, if imaginatively: “Nowadays the water main is my well, the trolley car my carriage, the bankers’ safe my old stocking, the policeman’s billy my fist. My own eyes and nose ’Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company from H. G.
Wells, God, the Invisible King, p. 2$L The italics are the author’s. i 4 THE PASTORAL OFFICE and judgment defer to the inspector of food, or drugs, or gas, or factories, or tenements, or insurance companies. I rely upon others to look after my drains, invest my savings, nurse my sick, and teach my children. I let the meat trust butcher my pigs, the oil trust mold my candles, the sugar trust boil my sorghum, the coal trust chop my wood, the barb-wire company split my rails.” 5 He might have added that we look to others for the opportunity of earning a living as men never have done before. For the first time in human history the tools of industry are too expensive for the workers to own, so that the man who uses the instruments of economic production must ask the privilege of others. On the whole, this interdependence of each upon all and all on each has greatly multiplied our comforts and increased our happiness. It has increased also the number of friction points and thereby the possibilities of misery. Men are in each other’s power and at each other’s mercy to a degree altogether unprecedented. This is the very essence of “the social problem.”
Now, we may safely assume that our social organization will never be less intricate than at present. On the contrary, it may become more complicated. The “solution of the.social problem” obviously calls for a higher degree of intelligence to administer this complex social organization.
More imagination and more technical knowledge will help us greatly. But chiefly we shall need more good will. Our confusion is due less to lack of knowledge than to lack of brotherliness. A little selfishness now may work greater hardship than much selfishness in a simpler social order. A method must be found to generate altruism, to increase the sense of brotherhood and obligation to our human kind. In the search for an agent to accomplish this spiritual transmutation, we find nothing more promising than worship.
Humility, reverence, affection, kindliness are all essential B E. A, Ross, Sin and Society, p. 3. Used by permission of Houghton MifBin Company. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORSHIP 15 to the prayerful frame of mind. The mood of worship cannot tolerate any sentiment of ill will. To worship is to love. To admit any unsocial feeling while one prays is to dispel the worshiping ftiood. As a generator of altruism worship has the very greatest social significance. No one is doing more to promote the spirit of brotherhood and increase the available supply of social sympathy than he who induces his fellow men to pray.
Yet again, consider the significance of worship for physical health. The early history of the Christian Church is “permeated with a sense of conquest over sickness, disease, and moral ills of every kind.” Gibbon mentions “the miraculous powers of the primitive church” as the third cause for the spread of Christianity though personally he deemed it an unworthy cause. And while our theories of disease have changed radically, the history of the modern church supplies incontrovertible evidence of the therapeutic value of faith and prayer. Doctor McComb declares “that throughout later history the appearance of any great religious personality synchronized with an outburst of healing power. Francis of Assisi, Luther, George Fox, and John Wesley were not only great spiritual thinkers but also, by the strength of their faith, were able in certain cases to set up a powerful physical stimulus which resulted in the restoration of health to the sufferers; and whenever there has been a revival of religious life it has been accompanied by a more abundant sense of well-being both in soul and body.” 6 The explanation which modern psychology gives of the process of psychical healing is entirely acceptable to orthodox believers both in medicine and religion. Mind and body are one. Their relation is so intimate that each reacts upon the other definitely and promptly. Physical conditions affect the mind, and mental states in turn influence the body. Anxiety, worry, grief, fear, anger interfere with “Worcester, McComb, Coriat, Religion and Medicine, p. 299.
Used by permission of Moffat, Yard and Company.
16 THE PASTORAL OFFICE the proper working of almost every organ in the body. On the other hand, faith, hopefulness, confidence, trust, love, good cheer stimulate helpfully every organ. Whatever will induce and make permanent thdte latter states makes for health and long life. Worship is such an agent. Practically every psychologist and physician agrees with William James in affirming that under certain circumstances prayer may contribute greatly to recovery from illness and should be encouraged as a curative method. This recognition of the restorative power of prayer in illness carries with it no approval of the extravagant claims of faith-healing cults which have sprung up outside the church, setting themselves against scientific medicine. In sickness one’s first duty is to consult a reputable medical man. We are insisting on no more than this that the sense of peace, and rest, and confident ’hope that is inspired through worship will greatly assist the physician in his work and facilitate the patient’s recovery. The failure of the church to recognize this value in worship has opened the way for certain religious bodies, usually regarded as outside the pale of the Christian Church, to grow powerful through capitalizing the idea.
It is the one good thing in a blend of false philosophy, pseudo-science, and bad theology. By it “all these cults heal the sick, dissipate various kinds of miseries, afford moral uplift to the depressed, and create an atmosphere of faith, hope, and courage in which achievements are wrought that recall the early springtime of Christianity/’ Is it not time that the church should proclaim again her earliest message, since physicians and psychologists of first rank encourage her to do so? That message is contained in the following paragraph of Religion and Medicine, “The prayer of faith uttered or unexpressed has an immense influence over the functions of organic life. It is significant that a great English newspaper in an article on sleep recommended sufferers from insomnia to betake themselves to prayer. The advice was eminently sound, for in true prayer the mind is in a receptive attitude. It is open THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORSHIP 17 to the inflow of the divine forces that bless and heal. Now, the great hindrances to sleep are worry, anxiety, remorse, shame, sometimes fear of not sleeping. Prayer calms and soothes the soul, lifts it into a higher region than the earthly, and thus conduces to the state in which sleep becomes possible. Suppose, now, that our whole waking life were to be lived as Christ’s was lived, in an atmosphere of prayer; that is, in a sense of oneness with the Infinite Life, the Soul of our souls, so that we should become channels through which the thought and love of God might have unhindered course. Must not the body so closely connected with the soul feel a new uplift and virtue? This is especially true of all nervous disorders, because the mind has especial relations to the brain and nervous system.” 7 In the light of all this, the need for prayer is imperative.
It is not quite evident, however, that a community is under obligation to provide facilities for social prayer. Is not individual prayer adequate for all spiritual needs? Great souls in all ages have nourished their spirits on private devotion. Jesus bade us enter into our chambers and pray in secret, and was himself accustomed to go into the mountain and the solitary place apart for prayer.
What legitimate demand is there for public worship?
We answer, “The demand of the social nature which caused Jesus to form the habit of joining his prayers with his fellow men in the synagogue as well as going into a secret place for solitary communion with God.” He took upon himself the form and nature of a man and man was not made for solitude. It is impossible for him to develop normally except in the midst of his kind. Companionship is quite as necessary in his worship as in his work. Private devotion alone cannot satisfy his total need. The lonely soldier on outpost may hold himself heroically to a proper performance of his duty in spite of the terrors that fill his imagination. But his steadiness and clear-sightedness and, in Worcester, McComb, Coriat, op. cit, p, 312. Used by permission of Moffat, Yard and Company.
18 THE PASTORAL OFFICE cidentally, his usefulness will be greatly increased by the presence of comrades in arms. With insight Doctor Cabot remarks that it means as much for believers as for soldiers to touch elbows. The benefits of private prayer are magnified many times by social worship^ which exposes us to the contagion of other men’s faith. An atmosphere of belief is created in which our own faith is strengthened through the realization that others share enthusiastically in those beliefs.
Moreover, fellowship in prayer is the only corrective for eccentricities of belief which inevitably characterize those who do not join with others in prayer. On our Western ranges may be found the sheep-herder who lives alone so much that he becomes unlike other men in some essential respects. An air of detachment and aloofness distinguishes him in the centers of population on the occasion of his rare visits. A similar difference is seen among believers.
One who lives in religious isolation may be genuinely devout, but he will almost certainly be “queer” in his devotion, varying from the normal in doctrine and belief. For the standard for faith must be set by the worshiping group rather than the worshiping individual.
It must follow, then, that to “conduct services” is to render service of the highest sort. It need not be a serious fault that the church does nothing except gather the people for worship and instruction, provided it does this effectively.
It may well be that some churches should close their doors, but never those which create an atmosphere quickeningly religious in -the place of public prayer. To such churches men will ever turn as to their best friends for inward comfort and strength.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY* R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By. Part IV.
Worcester and McComb, Religion and Medicine.
8 Any desired book in these lists at end of chapters may be secured from your own publisher. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORSHIP 19 Washington Gladden, The Christian Pastor, Chapter VI, Harry E. Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer.
E. Herman, Creative Prayer.
B. H. Streeter, et al. t Concerning Prayer, Chapter XI.
H. S. Coffin, What Is There in Religion?