Worship in Reverse

Worship is always a bit of a challenge when it is conducted in a language that you don’t understand. While the songs are often different and the sermon unintelligible, there are still rhythms and rituals that prompt you. If you are open to it, the community, no matter how foreign, can carry you along in their love for God.

The Presbyterian Church in Zahle, Lebanon

It was fitting that this first day in Lebanon began with worship in a Presbyterian Church. Like other Arab Christian congregations I have seen, the men and women sang and prayed with passion. The first song we sang was a standard: How Great Thou Art. While they sang in Arabic, I belted out this familiar hymn in English. The Lord’s Prayer was easy to pick out too. Abana allazy fe al samawat /Our Father who art in heaven . . .

But my favorite moment was when communion was offered. When the bread is broken, the cup shared, we all speak the same language of need and love. The difference was the sweet taste of cardamon that perfumed the bread and the red wine standing in for Christ’s blood.

Try and read the music!

But some differences are jarring. It took me a while to figure out how to find the hymns in the hymnal because while you read Arabic from right to left, the numbers are written like we write them, from left to right. And then when trying to sing, I was completely flummoxed because the musical notation is also written opposite to ours - right to left! Worship in reverse!

Most of us prefer worship in the genres and liturgies we know. We critique and are annoyed when something or someone unfamiliar is unexpectedly introduced. Today, I was distracted by the dissonance and was eager for the end of the service to come. 

The Presbyterian Hymnal in Arabic

I found this curious. I fondly remember worshipping under similar circumstances when I lived in Palestine on sabbatical years ago. I also remember tears streaming down my face when I worshipped with an Arab Christian congregation in Nazareth a year ago. Perhaps the demands and busyness of past few weeks have numbed my soul to the Spirit’s disruptive work. 

Even though I wished for an end to the service, I was also aware of a longing to return. I will have one more Sunday in Lebanon, and two more in Palestine. I expect these other services will serve as further invitations to embrace and enter into the worship at a deeper, non-verbal level.

Psalm 95 prompted me to consider the warning . . . 

O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness.  vs 7-8

while the beginning of the Psalm spoke the invitation I need to head . . .

O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!  vs 1-2

The true reversal in worship is the one that is needed in me.

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