Worship Alone or In Company?

Don: In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives, we saw the humanity of Jesus as he faced the most difficult, immediate, intimate, and personal crisis of his entire life. He wanted his closest disciples to watch for him as he prayed there, but they failed him.

Who had anything to gain by watching? Was it Jesus, worried about his physical security as the soldiers came to arrest him? Was it the disciples, who (Jesus hinted) were supposed to be delivered from temptation by watching him pray? If so, what was the temptation; and by their failure to watch, did they then succumb to it?

One thing they failed to see was the agony of Jesus as he struggled between his own will and the will of God the Father. We all face this same dilemma; we all must accept either doubt and despair or the will and the the grace of God. The temptation we face is the temptation the disciples faced and the temptation Jesus faced: It is the temptation to surrender to doubt rather than to the will of God. To say, as in the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil” is to acknowledge the supremacy of God’s will. To fall into temptation is to put one’s own will first.

Is acceptance of God’s will the end product of worship, and of so, is it easier to accept it in a setting of corporate worship than in individual worship?

On the Mount of Olives, before three sleeping disciples, Jesus manifested his humanity in struggling to accept God’s will. On the mountain of Transfiguration, before the same three (but wide awake) disciples, Jesus had previously manifested his glory and divinity:

Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.

As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” (Matthew 17:1-9)

At the Transfiguration, Peter asked for permission to worship the glory of the God who appeared to them and declared Jesus to be his Son. In Gethsemane, the Son asked his Father for relief, but was answered with silence. Both events ended up with Jesus alone: At the Transfiguration, after “lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.” In Gethsemane, they awoke to find Jesus alone, both physically and in being destined for the cross.

Jesus was at the center of both events: At the Transfiguration, he was the object of God’s love; in Gethsemane, he was the object of Man’s indifference (the sleeping disciples) and hate (his Jewish enemies). It seems there may be times and places when and where worship of God’s divinity is appropriate—or not. At the Transfiguration, the disciples wanted to worship the glory of God but were guided to worship Jesus alone.

In Gethsemane, the disciples wanted God to reveal his glory by sending down legions of angels to come to the aid of Jesus. In short, they wanted to harness God’s power. But Jesus told them:

Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26:53)

To Jesus, harnessing God’s power was and is not the appropriate end product of worship. The appropriate end product, as he demonstrated at Gethsemane, is to submit to the will of God—even if it means suffering on the cross. In our own lives, we find it troubling to think that worship could more easily lead to suffering than to relief; that either outcome is the will of God; that to lash out as Peter did with his sword is not the way or the will of God; and that God will deliver his grace regardless of our human failings, as he did in healing the soldier whose ear Peter’s sword severed. This is not the kind of happy outcome we tend to envision when we worship.

Perhaps a benefit of corporate worship is to reduce our individual fear of this outcome by not being left to face it alone, by having others alongside to strengthen one another. We are judged (Matthew 25) not on how many prayers we have said or how many sins we have overcome, but on the recognition that the end product of worship is Jesus alone—in submitting to God’s will as he did, and in trying to be like him:

You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. (Acts 10:38)

Is the end product of worship to be like Jesus alone, to go about doing good, to be known as a person of the Spirit, as a person in the company of God?

David: When Jesus told the three disciples to “watch” while he prayed at Gethsemane in the dark of night, perhaps he meant for them to watch with their ears—to listen. Had they stayed awake, they would have heard the prayer and the line: “Not my will, but thy will be done.” I think this tells us not just about the end-product of worship but also about the form of worship—about how we should worship. That is to say: We should worship God by listening to Jesus and emulating him; we should try to live our lives as Jesus lived his.

Donald: Is prayer properly a perpetual act of allegiance to God rather than the periodic corporate act of ritual and symbol? If it is, then it must be personal. Whether one is praying in distress or to give thanks, is it important to do so in private, as a normal part of life, or in public, as a part of corporate worship?

Anonymous: Jesus was so alone in his suffering in Gethsemane, yet he brought us salvation through it all. We know therefore that we can depend upon him, no matter what.

Don: Is personal worship of value in and of itself, in making us feel good or reassured, in taking away our fear, in helping us to be better people, etc.? Or is that not enough? Is it even selfish? Or does it have value in equipping, tooling, educating us to be better corporate worshipers (defining that as doing good to others)?

Donald: Where your mind goes to on a regular basis probably shows you where your allegiance lies. If it only goes to Christ or God at corporate moments, to which you have to bring yourself, then it suggests that it may not be your top priority.

Jay: If the end product of worship should be service to one’s fellow Wo/Man and if that means being aligned with the will of God, then it should shape both personal and communal worship. Personal worship of God tends to be more self-centered—more selfish, whereas corporate worship tends to focus more on selfless service and ministry to others. Recognizing this could have a profound impact on worship and on our alignment with the will of God.

David: It seems to me the ultimate product of worship is judgment, and that judgment is personal. Jesus will not divide people into whether they voted Republican or Democrat; he will divide them based upon what they have done personally for others. I want to agree with Jay that personal worship is self-centered but even the ultimate personal worshipers such as Simon Stylites and the anchorites served others by getting others to serve them! They were not entirely selfish in cutting themselves off from society to further their own relationship with God. They did some good, but it was not on the basis of corporate worship. I can see the value of corporate worship in terms of fostering communal fellowship, for instance; but it seems to me to have no value in achieving personal fellowship with God.

Jay: There seems to me to be a call to action. We see it in the Beatitudes. We are told to let our light shine, not to let it remain hidden. It might be more effective to achieve this in the corporate than in the personal setting, and there is the additional benefit that the light can be magnified through the lens of other people.

David: The Daoist in me sees a call for inaction rather than a call to action. At the Transfiguration, the disciples wanted to act—they specifically wanted to worship; yet God completely ignored their request. To me, he was saying” “Don’t bother trying to do anything except look at what is in front of you; look at Jesus!” All they had to do was observe Jesus, and that’s all they had to do in Gethsemane. Observation is a passive state—a state of inaction. But it seems to me impossible to observe Jesus and his life—his way, his Dao—and be unaffected by the observation, and I don’t think one needs corporate support to observe.

Jay: I think the disciples were mistaken in what they thought they were being called upon to worship. They wanted essentially to worship by idolizing God, whereas God wanted them to worship by serving others in and through the person of Jesus. I would venture that if the disciples had said instead: “Let’s get out of here so we can start serving others!” God and Jesus would have responded: “Yes! Now you get it!”

David: But are we really called to serve? Clearly, in Gethsemane we are called to watch, to observe what Jesus does. By so doing, we see what is right and know thereby what is not. We are incapable of acting just like Jesus, though some of us can get closer (a few, much closer) to it than others. To recognize that is to recognize our failings, our sin; and to me, that’s what Jesus wants, that’s what his judgment hinges upon. The problem with those judged unfit for the kingdom of heaven was not that they didn’t serve the poor, etc.: It was that they wouldn’t admit it and repent.

Reinhard: We want to be aligned with God’s will in living our lives, but in personal prayer we tend to focus on building that relationship to suit our own needs, our own will.    While corporate prayer may include personal elements, it also has beneficial common, communal, elements.

Robin: I think the personal and the corporate go hand in hand. We know from the example of Jesus that we should serve others. But we cannot do this if we are spiritually empty. To be of corporate service, we have to have the Spirit to show us the will of God. We get that Spirit through our personal relationship with God. Some people are encouraged to develop that relationship as children, by their families; others may only be introduced to the possibility of that relationship through participation in corporate worship. Absent a spiritual upbringing (and “upbringing” necessarily implies the involvement of family or other people) we might never realize that God loves each of us individually and personally, that he wants a relationship with us, and that we need to empty ourselves of selfishness and self-will to make room for his Spirit to enter and fill us. I don’t think we can have personal worship without corporate worship, or vice versa, though different personalities may strike the balance differently.

Jay: Can we align with God’s will on our own, or only in communion with others? We were not created to be solitary. God created Eve because it was not good for Adam to be alone. A relationship with others is foundational. Without it, we cannot reach our full potential—which is to become in alignment with the will of God. Corporateness is thus foundational.

Don: …Corporateness in the sense of sharing with others, not going it alone. In that sense, this class is engaged in corporate worship—sharing thoughts concerning things of the spirit. It is different from being by oneself, thinking one’s own thoughts, and never sharing them—missing the potential to have one’s thoughts be honed by the interchange.

Chris: I tend to be a proponent of personal worship, but I think the question hinges on the issue of outcome. The ministry and life of Jesus was generally public but at certain times it was intensely personal and alone. Why? I think of it as a need to recharge his spiritual batteries in order that he could return refreshed to perform his corporate, communal service. I cannot imagine performing perpetual communal service without being spiritually recharged at the personal level from time to time. We can achieve that through observation and quiet contemplation of what we observe. But if that’s all we do all the time, never going back to serve the community and share our enlightenment with others (thereby magnifying the light), it is ultimately selfish and non-productive.

Donald: In the church we are taught that active service is evidence of our goodness, but I am not sure that corporate calls to active service necessarily get it right. We are called to instill faith in our children and keep them in our faith community but we don’t all succeed. Is our failure evidence of our lack of goodness? A corporate origin may not be a guarantee of good service.

Don: One wonders why, at the Transfiguration, did Jesus insist that the disciples not reveal his divinity until after his resurrection, whereas in Gethsemane he issued no prohibition against their sharing with the world his mortal mortification?

Jay: Gethsemane was about his hour of need, and he wanted that to be shared and worshiped in the form at least of compassion. The Transfiguration was about the glory of God, and it appears he did not want that to be shared or worshiped.

Don: If so, our concept of worship would seem in need of drastic review.

Reinhard: I think communal support matters when we are in emotional distress.

David: The concept of worship as observing and being on the lookout for opportunities to serve is no doubt valid but I think somewhat parochial. There might be a deeper, Process Theological, meaning and message behind the two events: At the Transfiguration we were presented with God the Being, and at Gethsemane with God the Becoming. The will of God is key to it all. Someone said corporate worship helps us to become like-minded, but what if it’s a group mind out of alignment with God’s will? Alignment with God’s will, in my view, can only and exclusively be achieved individually and personally. As Chris indicated, at times Jesus went off alone, to the desert and so on, to make sure he stayed aligned with God’s will. We need to do the same. It won’t lead to knowledge of the will of God in any intellectual sense, though that seems to be what corporate worship seems to think it can achieve. We can only know God’s will at the personal, spiritual level. I am attracted to the Quaker idea of corporate worship, which I understand is to meet as a group with neither leader nor liturgy. If the spirit moves someone to say something, s/he stands up and says it. If not, nothing at all is said. I imagine (I have not participated in one) these to be intensely spiritual meetings.

Donald: I like the idea that aligning with God’s will means accepting it, but not understanding it.

Don: At the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah made a brief appearance as representatives of the Law and the Prophets, respectively, but they quickly disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Jesus alone. The implication is that the proper object of worship is neither the Law nor the Prophets, but Jesus alone. I think that means that instead of trying to worship in words—as we would do for the Law and the Prophets—we should worship by being filled with the Spirit and going about doing good.

Jay: The question for me is whether this worship and this alignment with God is best accomplished alone or if it can only be done through interaction with others.

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