Silent, Expectant, Waiting Worship
November 8, 2022 § 1 Comment
We worship in silent, expectant waiting.
Silence
Why the silence?
To make room for the voice of the Spirit. We remove all the business that other churches fill their services with—hymns, Bible readings, set ritualized speech and behavior, prepared messages—
- so as not to crowd out or shout over what is usually such a still and small voice within us;
- so as to give us time to clear our own minds and hearts enough to have ears that hear;
- so as not to guide the movement of the Spirit within us and among us with outside direction, but to give it the full freedom it needs and deserves;
- and because outward forms, least of all ones that are both habitual and rote, rarely usher in the inward grace that is holy communion.
Expectancy
What do we expect? “Expect” is a strong word, stronger in a way than faith or hope. Perhaps, faith and hope are more apt.
Is it not presumptuous to expect something of the Spirit? We expect something to happen when the laws of nature are involved, when we trust the one who has promised it, or when experience shows us its likelihood. We expect the sun to rise in the morning. But trust is faith. And what is our experience?
For some of us some of the time (most of us most of the time?), our meetings for worship seem a bit bereft of Spirit. We have faith that the Spirit is working within us and among us as we worship. We hope that we sense this movement and heed its message, its direction. But do we expect it?
Or are we like Jacob, willing to wrestle with the Spirit until it gives up its blessing?
Perhaps we expect something of each other. Perhaps we expect Friends to come to meeting for worship prepared, minds and hearts turned already toward the Light and seasoned in its grace from regular and vital personal devotional life. Perhaps we expect Friends to exercise faithful discernment, bringing with them spiritual buckets ready for lowering into the well of Living Water from which they will pour out Spirit-led vocal ministry.
“Expectant” waiting may rather be aspirational. And perhaps questioning the integrity of our expectancy in the context of worship will foster the faith, the hope, and the experience of its fulfillment.
Waiting
What are we waiting for?
We are waiting to know the Eternal Presence. We are waiting for continuing revelation, for the love and the healing and forgiveness and strength and guidance and renewal and creativity that is always seeking its way into our hearts and out of our hearts. We are waiting for the true prompting of the Holy Spirit to minister to our fellow worshippers, that still small voice heard and brought forth in faithfulness.
But this “waiting” is not a passive stance in which we fill an interval of time with whatever until the spiritual bus arrives. It is an active attention, like that of a waiter in a fine restaurant, whose eyes are always on his tables and who is poised ready to serve when a glass needs filling with Living Water, or when the food is ready to serve to the diners at the eschatological banquet, not bread alone but every word that flows from the mouth of God.
Waiting can be even more engaged than such active attention. Waiting can be the wrestling with the angel of the Lord, a mighty struggle to pass through our obstacles and faults and regrets, our wounds, so that we may sink down into the Seed in our depths.
If we listen in the silence with open minds and hearts, if we give our full attention to the movement of the Spirit, if we give ourselves to the inward struggle in the Light, if we come with a bucket ready to lower into the depths, then we can, in fact, expect some revelation of Divine Love. At least that’s my experience.
Through the Flaming Sword 
Friends used to generally have a practice of a daily “time of retirement” which would probably be called a devotional time in other traditions. This would include silent waiting as well as perhaps some Bible or other devotional reading. This individual – or sometimes family – practice was seen as needed preparation for the corporate meeting for worship. Those unprepared would be less likely to recognize the Spirit’s presence in corporate worship. What proportion of those who attend your meeting worship come thus prepared?