As a designer of worship experiences, I have heard my share of complaints if a liturgy goes “too long.” An old catechism says the ultimate purpose of human existence is to love and enjoy God forever, but I have seen people looking at their watches during worship. This is sometimes due to a liturgy’s failure to live up to the task of enjoying God, but it is also indicative of the short attention span of humans at prayer. Our minds wander. Distractions pull on every side like restless monkeys. We have places to go, things to do. Silence and stillness, essential to an attentive, listening spirituality, are such rare experiences in the daily life of our culture that those modes no longer come easily or naturally. It may require a great deal of time, effort and practice in order to slow down and rest in the presence of the divine gaze.
Abraham Heschel, a great twentieth-century rabbi, once explained why he never made luncheon appointments: it was because he always said his prayers in the morning, and once he began a conversation with God, he could not predict what time it might end, or whether his mortal self would even survive its close encounter with the Holy. I imagine he said this with a certain degree of humor, but his understanding of prayer as a risky encounter with uncertain outcome haunts my own spiritual imagination. But alas, I fear I am more like the comically pathetic disciples in Gethsemane, who could not keep vigil with Jesus for the hour of his deepest agony. “Stay awake with me,” he asks them as he goes off to offer his great prayer of self-surrender: Not my will, but yours be done. But when he returns to his friends, he finds them asleep. Three times he goes off to pray, and each time they just fall asleep. Jesus is sympathetic at first (“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”), but after the third time his exasperation shows (“Did you get a good rest? You might want to wake up now that the police have arrived.”). Their slumbering ways were but one of many betrayals that night. Jesus had to walk that lonesome valley by himself.
As we begin the most important week of the year, we are invited once more to stay awake with Jesus, to keep him company on the Way of the Cross. This week is filled with ancient and moving communal rituals that comprise the molten core of our worship life. The wealth of daily rites, particularly the great sequence of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, embody the mystery of faith in transformative and indelible ways. By Easter Sunday we will not be the same. Do we have anything better to do, anything more important? Is there anything more worthy of our absolute attention? May our devices be put away, our screens be dark, our calendars evacuated, our hearts and minds attentive. Stay awake with Jesus. Walk the path with Jesus. The journey is how we know.
—The Rev. Jim Friedrich
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