Friday • 6/10/2022
We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days, while I teach with my friends at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. In our Daily Office Devotions this week, we are consider several aspects of worship: corporate and personal. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week.
An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube
“Take to the World”
Go in peace to love and to serve.
And let your ears ring long with what you have heard.
And may the bread on your tongue leave a trail of crumbs
to lead the hungry back to the place you are from.
Take to the world this love, this hope and faith.
And take to the world this rare, relentless grace.
And like the Three in One, know you must become
what you want to save ‘cause that’s still the way
He takes to the world.
Aaron Tate’s “Take to the World” (as performed by Derek Webb) is a profound post-communion song. It resonates with some of the best theological instincts of the ancient church. John of Damascus (8th century Syria) said that the Incarnation means that the Author of matter has taken on matter to redeem matter, the whole of the creation, beginning with us. Thus, worship involves bread and wine – not just words and songs. The 4th century Cappadocian theologians stressed that “what has not been assumed cannot be saved” – another way of saying “you must become what you want to save.” Praise be. That’s what God did for us in Christ.
In practice what the early church did to reinforce its incarnational theology was three things: first, they took the Table to those who couldn’t make it to the Table. As Justin Martyr (2nd century, Rome) said: “Through the deacons (the bread and the wine) are sent to those who are absent.” Second, when celebrating Communion they took up offerings specifically designated for “the orphans and widows, and those who are in want because of sickness or for some other reason, and those who are in bonds, and the sojourning strangers.” Third, they taught believers to worship with their whole lives, including their wealth. Thus, John Chrysostom, the 4th-5th century preacher to the Emperor’s court in Constantinople, reminded believers that the very same Jesus who said, “This is my Body,” also said, “You saw me hungry and did not feed me,” and “In so far as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me.”
We only worship well when we keep the biblical view of the ancient church in mind – when we do take the Table to brothers and sisters who are sick, incapacitated, incarcerated; when we work with church leadership to have “second offerings” (some churches call them “deacon offerings,” usually post-communion) to provide focused help for the poor in our communities; when our corporate prayer includes all the needs of the world, especially the homeless, the lonely, the persecuted, those caught in slave trafficking; when worship leaders are first in line to volunteer for ministry projects outside the narrow confines of what we normally think of as worship; when worship teams do other ministry tasks together, from serving in homeless ministries to taking up hammers for Habitat for Humanity to participating in evangelism projects.
“Take to the World” reminds us that ours is a theology truly worth singing, because it flows from the life of God, and folds us into the life of God. “Take to the World” sums up what we celebrate in the Lord’s Supper, and launches us into a sharing of God’s mission to bring the world to God’s Great Feast.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Image: Wikimedia Commons