"Worship Matters" - The Church Year

Why do we follow the Christian year – the cycle of seasons that include: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time?

                     

                      1.      Following the Church year centers our lives on the person of Jesus Christ.

·         5 out of the 7 seasons associated with the Christian year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter, are all about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and help us rehearse, remember and experience the whole story of the Gospel

·         It reminds us that what has happened is both past and present – that “this same Jesus” meets us in new ways, this old story meets us in our time, and while it doesn’t change we do, even as we hear it again and again.

·         Its rhythms help shape our desires and prepare us for his return – it marks us as a people with a different calendar and priorities from the world and reminds us to be watchful. As Don always say, “That the first step toward sin for the Israelites was always to forget.”

                     2.      Following the Church year helps us embrace the whole of our lives in worship - our pains as well as our joys and even the ordinary.

·         It reveals that you don’t always have to be happy and can let your story touch that one – that parts when Jesus wasn’t happy, struggled with temptation, even wept.

·         5 years ago we let this story enfold our own as we walked the stations of the cross using burned out homes of many of our members - giving us the chance to weep and the faith to hope

·         We need reminding that life has a story bigger than our own – that it’s not stuck, or broken, or written solely by our own decisions – that it has a good end

                     3.      Following the Church year helps us read the Bible better.

·         I wouldn’t have preached this text you’re hearing today if it weren’t for the season of Lent and the fact that the lectionary informs me that this is the Gospel text for the day. Not surprisingly, because I didn’t grow up in a tradition that practiced the Christian year, I’ve never heard a sermon on this text.

·       The 3-year lectionary cycle takes us through the Bible so that it doesn’t fall prey to our whim, mood, or our limited vision.