This past Sunday our livestreaming encountered technical difficulties. When this happens – or when we just want to hold a quiet time without turning on electronic devices - what can we do with our time to keep the Sabbath and rest in God’s goodness and love?
As people who are shaped by the regular pattern of assembling on Sunday mornings for worship – what earlier Christians termed “keeping the Sabbath Day” - it is good to be reminded that people from different households coming together for worship at one central location has not always been the case. The first century church seems to have enjoyed multi-family gatherings (think synagogue worship) as well as home-church assemblies. For the first several centuries of the church, home-based small groups were the principal means of meeting together, with a decentralized leadership structure not concentrated on a rigid division between lay and ordained clergy, and during time when there were no church buildings to speak of.
Even today across the world, the house church movement is a vital part of the church’s life, especially in places of persecution or government restrictions on gathering such as in China, or some Muslim-majority countries for example. Remembering this can set our current context into perspective.
Yet on those occasions when technology fails, I suggest the following simple practices.
Centering and Responding to God’s Grace
The first practice is to use the time you have set aside for a kind of centering prayer.
I find the so-called Serenity Prayer to be helpful.
Here is the Serenity Prayer –
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next. Amen.
After you have centered (however that is done best for you), you might focus next on listing the things for which you are grateful –
Your heated home, food in the fridge, network of family and friends, hope for the future, your cat or dog, an anticipated walk, or a cherished novel you are working your way through, or the people who are keeping the doors of the church open week-to-week even if you cannot be present at this time. Whatever it may be, name your gratitude.
Light a candle before, during or after you have done these things, and then pray a psalm of praise together – I often think that our response to the chaos of the world around us would be better kept in perspective if we centered on praise or even lament rather than always leading with our intercessions.
One such psalm is Psalm 118.
And then when this is completed, enjoy the day that the Lord has made!
Use our Episcopal Resources
The second practice that I think we can observe is this. We can observe the Sabbath and keep worship front and center on Sundays by going to the Book of Common Prayer.
Use your copy of the Book of Common Prayer for Morning Prayer or what is called Ante-Communion. Rite II Morning Prayer is found on pages 75-102, or it can be easily accessed online here. Additionally, you might run a website search for a special favorite hymn on YouTube to play during Morning Prayer. You may also find brief devotionals for individuals and families on pages 137-140. There are one-page prayers and readings for In the Morning, At Noon, In the Early Evening, and At the Close of Day.
Ante-Communion refers to the first half of the Eucharistic Service, up through the Peace, on pages 355-360 in the prayer book. Again, you can access this here.
These are more formal ways of worshipping together in a household or on your own. If you live alone, you may wish to call up a friend and together with the prayer book service opened, you can pray together.
I hope these suggestions are helpful for you. I appreciate that we have been in this situation for 12 long months. We do not know when we will be given a green light to resume joyfully gathering as many of as possible in one place. In the meantime, let us celebrate what by God’s grace we will continue to have in the days and months to come - whether that is through technology such as livestreaming or through the basic means of grace that we have been given in the older technologies of books, candles, and simple music.
Joyfully –
Let us worship the Lord!
Thanks be to God!
-Chris Ditzenberger