Why Worship

“I am not happy when I do not go regularly to church, and not (I think) because I am oppressed by the consciousness of wrongdoing, but because I am weightier, having missed the opportunity to meditate, express adoration, contrition and thanks in loving and dignified communion with others.”   Barbara Grizutti Harrison

The original name of this crowd we call the church is ecclesia, a Greek word that signifies those “called out” by God’s address. Let us be clear: we are not talking about organized religion, but about the community-creating reality of Christ’s living presence in the world. We gather on Sunday morning because we long to be addressed, in word or music or silence, by the God who has come to us in a human life. We listen, sometimes desperately, for a word not our own that will tell us of the love that never quits, of the word that counters the cacophony of words we have heard all week long. We come together because we need to sort out what is worth our lives and have been given the means to do so—in scripture, sermon, baptism, communion–means that are designed to work in a crowd that minimally includes two or three.