Worshiping Like the Apostles

Today's Mass reading from the book of Hebrews is powerful. Powerful enough to make me realize, many years ago, that I was falling short of what God wanted. Here is how that happened. Twenty years ago, I was a presbyterian pastor, in a small denomination, serving a small congregation. I had this longing desire to make sure that the worship that we offered to God was in full accord with everything in the Scriptures, and with everything that the Apostles' intended for us.

Then I came across this passage from Hebrews. In it, the author describes a worship experience that is quite startling. He says that when they came together for worship, they entered into Heaven and were in the presence of God, the angels, the Saints, and the fulness of Jesus' offering Himself to God the Father. After reading through this passage multiple times (almost lectio divina style!), I found that it was nothing at all like what I or any of my fellow pastors in the presbyterian churches experienced or even really believed. In fact, presbyterians (and most protestants) essentially deny this is even possible, so it is rejected from anything to do with their "worship" services.

To put it more directly, I realized that I was not worshiping the way that the Apostles or Church Fathers had worshipped. I realized that there was an entirely new perspective on what was involved in worship, and it had very little to do with the supposed wonderful liturgy that we were using (a prayer, some music, a scripture reading, some more music, a sermon, a prayer, some more music, and a closing prayer). I spent the next few years seeking to understand better what had changed, and it became clear to me that it was us, not God. We, presbyterians had moved away from the Apostolic pattern of worship.

As I tried, by my own wisdom, to find how to restore that form of worship, it was also made very clear to me that although my congregation was behind me in this, the denominational authorities were not. They did not like the "move" I was making, and some even told me outright that if I kept reading the early Christians, I would end up Catholic (they really knew this was true!). I asked a "bad" question: "If it is true, why wouldn't we want that?" Oops. I was eventually told (not asked) to leave the denomination.

Worship is a turning point. How we worship: how much our worship (actually) fits with the Scriptures and with the early Church, makes all the difference in the world. The early Christians all viewed worship the exact same way that Catholic theology has always taught. To seek to modernize, simplify, or soften worship, is to step away from the Apostles. It is to step away from God, and that always leads down the path of worshipping something other than God; and that is called apostasy.