Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-211

MIND AND SPIRIT

From ‘Sunrise Sunset’ (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco), Rowland Croucher’s book of daily meditations. Feel free to use or adapt it.

Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift! 2 Corinthians 9:15.

Rudolf Otto explored the non-rational in religion and coined the word numinous to describe ‘the holy’ after words have failed. The numinous cannot be taught; it can only be felt. It is ‘thanking God for his unspeakable gift’. The numinous, says Otto, encompasses boundless awe and wonder, fear and fascination. The raw material of religious humility is the tremenda majestas, or awe-inspiring majesty of God. So we must resist the temptation to ‘domesticate the holy’, whereby our solemn assemblies become informal, friendly, social gatherings.

Our worship may also be too intellectual, moving exclusively in the realm of thoughts and words and ideas, and addressed to the ears rather than the eyes. Our world is ‘word-weary’. We are slaves to the printed word. Perhaps we need printed guidance for worship, – the middle-classes are comfortable reading – but let us not forget less well-educated persons who may not be.

For them particularly we should encourage ‘folk arts’ which open new avenues to express worship and praise, provide new methods of teaching and instruction, and draw people more into an atmosphere of enjoyment and festivity. In charismatic/pentecostal churches where the Holy Spirit is invited to take over the worshipper, we have moved sometimes from the rational to the mystical. Worship needs to be rational (Romans 12:1-3) and spiritual (John 4:23), both.

My God, I worship you with both my mind and my spirit. Amen.