[Dialogue] The Three Moods in Christian Worship

[R Williams]

Colleagues,
 
A couple of weeks ago we had a conversation on this listserv about the acts of Worship.  I remember distinctly that in the RS-1 short course on worship we said there are 3 overarching acts; Confession, Praise (or Thanksgiving) and Dedication.  You may confirm this by reviewing the Daily Office that we did every morning.
 
My focus has been more on what we said are the 3 "moods" associated with those acts of worship: for the act of confession the mood is humility; for thanksgiving, gratitude; and for dedication, compassion.  I've been keeping journal notes on these for several years.  I think they are key to our being profoundly human.  I want to share some brief reflections and invite you to share your thoughts.
 
The opposite of humility is arrogance.  Tillich told us that "sin" is less about immoral acts and more about the state of "separation" in which we all live.  I have concluded that confession in humility is not self-depreciation in light of our imperfection but is rather acknowledgement that we, in our separated state, are incomplete.  We deny our interdependence on the "other" in our quest for self-sufficiency and self-determination, which are delusions.  When we own up to our incompleteness (i.e. confess) in humility, this opens us, at the very least, to learning (i.e. having our hearts and minds changed, metanoia), and to entering into new relationships and friendships and partnering with all creation.
 
The opposite of gratitude is greed.  Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has suggested that in our culture we need to move from a paradigm of scarcity to one of abundance.  We may thus come to acknowledge that life is not a zero sum game, and that there is plenty for all as long as no one has more than her, his or its share.  Gratitude is acknowledgment that we have all we need to live with dignity and to respond to our calling, as long as we are willing to share rather than hoard it, like the magician's urn of water, the more it's poured out, the fuller it becomes.
 
The opposite of compassion is insensitivity to the suffering of the other, and gracelessness, the inability to be responsive to those who suffer.  This, of course, plays off H. Richard Niebuhr's understanding of "church" as the "sensitive and responsive" part of society.  So to be compassionate is to be "sensitive and responsive," which leads to living an active life service.  I think of compassion more as something we "do" rather than something we "be."
 
There is a sense in which all of these are inter-related to the extent that you can't talk about or embody any one of them without the other two.  Humility leads one to be both grateful and compassionate.  Gratitude has a prerequisite for humility, and is ultimately expressed in compassion.  Compassion is humility and gratitude in action, i.e. the life of empathic service.  We can see clearly how these three "moods" or "attitudes," as we called them, are appropriate to the 3 acts of Christian worship as we practiced it.  But because we understand that worship is a rehearsal of, and is therefore transparent to, all of life as encountered in the world, we understand that there is nothing religious about humility, gratitude or compassion, but that these qualities are exhibited by all who decide to be "profoundly human."
 
Randy
 

"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires."
-Martin Buber (adapted)
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