Can I have a Word?

Reduced immunity due to chemotherapy has prevented me from attending worship in church since March. This has been painful, at times viscerally so. If I’m able to identify when the low moments during my illness have occurred, they have all been around the loss of communal worship. Tears have fallen often on Sunday morning, during the times I knew Archdeacon’s Visitation and Ordination services  were happening, on the high and holy days of the church.

Knowing that ordinarily I would be in the company of the people of God, collectively worshipping, giving thanks, sharing lament and joy, listening to and learning from scripture, prayerfully focused on the needs of others and of the world, remembering and receiving in communion with one another – the loss was a sucker punch.

What I needed to do was find other ways of capturing a sense of belonging and participation in worship. So I set out to explore what was out there. I’ve always loved listening to the radio (it’s the freedom of the pictures in my head), and so have really taken advantage of services of morning prayer offered on the CofE Daily Prayer App and to Radio 3. When that all seemed a bit wordy (and, I’m sad to say, ‘home counties’), I found real spiritual solace and encouragement in the international voices leading prayer on the Lectio 365 App and the beautiful northern voices from the Northumbrian Community.

My experience of the Sunday offering from the national church has had its moments – both good and bad. Overall, I found myself rather cross with the poor quality of the services and the impression that it left of a church I found it hard to recognise. What was perhaps hardest was the feeling of observing rather than participating in worship. Have a look sometime and see what you think.

So, I turned next to see if I could find good examples of online worship amongst our own parishes. It was varied and there weren’t that many doing a regular livestreamed service – eye opening given all the skills we gained through the covid pandemic. Some though were excellent and I am so grateful to have been able to join them and for the ministry they offered during a difficult time.

Having been really moved by the livestreaming of services from Chester Cathedral, feeling that I was part of the worship and able to join in as fully as being remote allowed, I decided to visit every Cathedral in England online. Interesting but sad – only one other Cathedral in the country offers anything as excellent as Chester. Many don’t regularly livestream and of those that do there seems to be a lack of understanding of why they are doing it.

I was left with the feeling that they hadn’t asked themselves two really important questions – 1) Who are our online congregation and why are they joining us? 2) How can we help them to worship the living God?

Music has also been very, very important to me and has helped me to worship and enter God’s presence, lifting my spirits and sometimes releasing me to weep. I’ve returned to old classical favourites and found brilliant versions of familiar hymns; singing as though no one is listening is a skill that my longsuffering husband has to live with! I’ve found secular music that has spoken to my soul, hitting the nail on the emotional head more times that I can mention. I’ve explored Spotify and come across worship songs, new to me, which I’ve added to playlists for every occasion.

Of these there’s one I want to share with you –Waymaker by Leeland, the live version, here’s the link on YouTube

If you give it a listen, you’ll be able to identify the moment at which I broke down in tears. Towards the end of the song the singer leads the worship saying, ‘His name is the name above depression, loneliness, disease, cancer’.

As I reflected on my reaction and on the scripture that inspired the song, I realised I had, in the past, missed something important. Philippians 2:9-11(NRSV) states:

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

‘The name that is above every name’. I’d always understood this to mean that Jesus’ name is above all the names of all other people who have ever lived and will ever live, both powerful and famous, ordinary and anonymous. Jesus is the pinnacle, above all of us, and there is power and healing in His name.

Now I can see that Jesus is the name above (deeper, more powerful, more beautiful, more important) every name – every thing that is named – ALL of them. That’s Jesus above every philosophy, faction, political movement, government or regime.  Above all the things that we name and whose names can, if we allow them to, dominate our thoughts and take over our lives, both positive and negative.

It made me think really carefully about what I think about first when I wake up in the morning. It made me reassess my own situation and how much headspace and energy I was allowing cancer to take up. I made a determination to refocus (not for the first time) on the name of Jesus.

Let me challenge you to spend time thinking about which word/name dominates your thinking at the moment? It’s so easy for it to be the thing that is most worrying you or even exciting you: loneliness, family, addiction, disease, your phone and social media, arguments, relationships, mental health, friendship, worry, money, employment, death, retirement, anxiety, holidays, exam results, etc. etc.  How might things change if the first name you thought about every morning was Jesus? When we make ‘Jesus’, the Word above every word, the word that is the first in our minds, it becomes a prayer, a direction, a purpose and a blessing. It brings healing and perspective and sets our priorities.

We need to think carefully about where we focus our thinking, our obsession, our energy, our time and our devotion. I considered whether my dissatisfaction with online worship was because I was coming to it with a critical eye, rather than determined to find Jesus – who is always there. The worship song I found so moving also contains these words, ‘Even when I don’t see it you’re working, even when I don’t feel it you’re working’.

On 14th July I received the news from my oncology team that I am cancer-free! The surgery and chemotherapy have worked, and I am so thankful and grateful for your continued prayers and support. As I wrote to a friend recently, ‘even as a positive and determined person of faith I didn’t realise the shadow cancer was casting over my soul. The light is stronger now and the end of the tunnel is in sight’. I’m now being referred back to the colorectal surgical team to begin the process of stoma reversal, which I hope can happen soon. Prayer is powerful. God is good. Jesus saves!

God bless

The Venerable Jane Proudfoot, Archdeacon of Macclesfield