For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.
Time. What a strange creation that every human is plagued by! Similar to gravity, we are born under its spell that is only to be broken upon death. How do we even deal with it? What a gift, and what a curse… We hear statements like, “Time flies by so quickly, ” and, “I wish I had more hours in the day!” Each second that ticks brings us closer to our graves, reminding us how mortal and finite we really are.
Throughout history, every civilization has developed their own unique way of interacting with time. The Jews have offered us a very interesting perspective on time and how we can use it in our worship as well as how to be shaped by it. In the book “The Sabbath”, Abraham Heschel says that, “Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year…” He elaborates later by saying, “Jewish ritual may be characterized as the art of significant forms in time, as architecture of time. Most of its observances – the Sabbath, the New Moon, the festivals, the Sabbatical and the Jubilee year – depend on a certain hour of the day or season of the year. It is, for example, the evening, morning, or afternoon that brings with it the call to prayer. The main themes of faith life in the realm of time.”
In the Old Testament we read about their 3 yearly festivals where they would gather in Jerusalem to worship as a people and re-tell essential parts of their story as a nation. We learn about their 3 daily fixed hour prayer times as they recited the Psalms and other prayers like the Shema (“Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One…”). This was a powerful prayer in a time where polytheism and pagan gods dominated the spiritual landscape. We also discover how crucial a weekly Shabbat (or Sabbath) was to their existence. This day of rest absolutely separated them from other civilizations at the time. It was a day connected to their understanding of creation as well as their redemption from Egypt. Shabbat was the climax of their week and ordered their lives. On the 3 days following Shabbat they would thank God for giving them that gift of rest, while the next 3 days were spent preparing their hearts for the next. In talking about this sacred day, Heschel said, “The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the Romans nor the Germans were able to burn…”
What an interesting idea! The thought that similar to how we shape matter, we can shape time. Add to that the notion that how we shape time ends up shaping us… Think about it. Everyone has a “life liturgy”, regardless of their spiritual inclinations. Picture your whole day as a liturgy that plays out. Each part of that liturgy ascribes worth to something. What does our culture’s liturgy say about time and what we prioritize? What cathedrals have we built? What shrines have we bowed down to?
Then I consider my own life. I look over my day from when I rise till I lay my head down. Are the things I say I value and hold dear reflected in how I relate to time? What sort of buildings have I built of time? Are they beautiful and majestic or stained and dingy? Are they sturdy on a rock, or sinking in the sand? Is there substance to them or am I surrounded by thin paper walls? Help me be an architect of time, so that at the end of my days I live in a city whose buildings are forged of gold and not straw!
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