Photo by Sharon Mollerus

By Ajung Sojwal

Who would have thought that leading a worship service involves so much of my physicality! The leap from Baptist parishioner to an Episcopal priest is nothing short of learning a new language when it comes to worship. I fell in love with the Anglican liturgy when I was in seminary. What intrigued me even more was how all my senses were called upon to be involved in worship.

Holy Week, that starts with Palm Sunday culminating on Easter Sunday is, to me, the best week in a liturgical church to experience the demand on every one of my senses toward worship of our God who became flesh in Jesus. The moment I don my liturgical vestments, feeling their weight over my slight frame, I am reminded how the Apostle Paul urges us to see our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit. If I were to picture my body as the dwelling place of God, I would like it to be like the sanctuary on Holy Week. Filled with the joy, welcome and anticipation of Palm Sunday; adorned with red linen, like the blood of Jesus shed for me; waving fresh green palms as we process singing into the sanctuary; incense smoke rising toward heaven like urgent prayers with every puff — I can almost taste the frankincense resin as the incense invades my body.

This is my body turned inside out, as I listen to the heightened drama of Jesus’ sorrow at his betrayal, his arrests and crucifixion. It is the story of every human being born into a world of sin. On Maundy Thursday, I kneel on the floor to wash the feet of parishioners in remembrance of Jesus’ example. The reverse of it always catches me by surprise at how vulnerable I feel as I stretch out my feet to be washed by another. The intimacy of the gesture exchanged in such a public place is like the discomfort of being found out in a lie. Our God, to whom all desires are known, can surely see that my worship vestments cannot hide how far I am, from loving Him with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind and with all my strength or body. The second command is even harder — to love the other as myself. Everything points to the fact that growing into love is my lifelong call from God.

Without the barrenness of the altar and the unadorned sanctuary of Good Friday, the emptiness of my life without God who became flesh would be impossible. My mortality, my finitude, have meaning and purpose because it is good enough for the Divine to inhabit for the sake of relationship. Every year, my skin forms more creases and the smoothness of my face gets dotted with more sunspots, but this is my Lord’s chosen tent. It is a stark reminder of God’s scandalous connectedness to humankind, to me, and humankind to Him, me to Him. As I kneel to venerate the plain wooden cross, I touch the unfinished roughness of the wood and it feels true to life on this side of eternity. There is no singing, no music or prayers to fill the vacuum left by the removal of the Lord’s Supper from this service. As worshippers leave the sanctuary in silence at the end, the whooshing sound of fabric and moving bodies intrude the reverence of the moment highlighting for me our uncertain forays into God’s territory. As I switch off all the lights and prepare to lock up the church, the feeling of isolation is real.

And yet, once again, incense fills the air but this time it is mingled with the sweet fragrance of Easter lilies. All is white and gold in the sanctuary with Alleluias everywhere. Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green. Bells ring and the trumpet blows away the gloom of the past days. Holy Communion is laid out for all, Jesus died and rose again for this, that I might be able to look at the other and perceive that she is my sister called to the same table. I break the fast with the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation: the communion wafer sticks to my tongue as it dissolves slowly, and a mere sip of wine runs down my throat like fire. Who am I for God to cling to me and to fill my life with a passion for Him?

The act of worship is never benign; it is the slow, painful and deliberate reorientation of our senses from an endless pursuit of pleasuring the self toward seeing, hearing, knowing, and understanding the other.

Ajung Sojwal is the Interim Rector at Trinity Episcopal Church, Tariffville,CT. She lives with her husband in Tariffville, CT.