Faith Works: Have mercy: Worship doesn't always have to be 'exciting,' nor should it be

USA Today

31-01-2025

COLUMNISTS
Jeff Gill
Guest columnist
An online etymology dictionary says of 'Mercy (n.): (the origin of the word dates to the) late 12th century, 'God's forgiveness of his creatures' offenses,' from Old French 'mercit, merci' (9th century) 'reward, gift; kindness, grace, pity,' … in Vulgar Latin 'favor, pity;' … in Church Latin (6th century) it was given a specific application to the heavenly reward earned by those who show kindness to the helpless and those from whom no requital can be expected.'
There's been an ongoing reaction to a preacher asking a president to have mercy. Yet she did ask, and there was little if any specific insistence on what that mercy would be. To ask for mercy of a sovereign is a request that still acknowledges their power but asks of them a use that might not be the full exercise of what they could do. What they should do is still up to them. Nothing rude or overbearing about that. Just a simple plea from the pulpit: Have mercy.
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Where I specifically don't agree with President Donald Trump's reaction is in his initial retort to a reporter asking him about the service. His reply on the West Wing colonnade was, "Not very exciting. Did you think it was exciting?" Of course there was more pointed criticism later on social media, calling the bishop "nasty" (his go-to insult for women in any role, it seems), but he went on to reassert, '...the service was a very boring and uninspiring one.'
So, I'd like to focus on his initial response: "Not very exciting." This is a challenge many clergy face, and when leaders press the 'make it exciting" button in such a public setting, it's going to trigger a surge of similar criticisms for local ministers, well beyond any policy-oriented preaching or political overtones.
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Worship is not always exciting. Or as Rick Warren said in his best-selling 'The Purpose Driven Life': "It's not about you." There's a question of spiritual formation here around what people have been taught to expect of an occasion for spiritual assembly. If "Is it exciting?" becomes the primary measure of a quality service, then exciting worship becomes the expected norm. And I can hear the objections already: Why shouldn't it be exciting? Why can't each service be exciting, moving, uplifting and transforming? Isn't that what you preachers and worship leaders are supposed to be crafting and delivering — a compelling service of sermon and song and excitement?
Routine and ritual and regular rhythms of the Christian year, quiet devotion and corporate thanksgiving — all that might be set aside in the pursuit of excitement. Psalmody, unison prayer, even silence might all get tossed onto the ash-heap of history in favor of jarring percussion, driving chords, startling graphics and, yes, fog machines.
When I'm preaching, my walk-up song isn't "Crazy Train," it's more likely to be "Surely the Presence," or even the "Gloria Patri." I think good worship even includes sometimes choosing the live musician that isn't so good versus the recorded track that slaps.
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I know, many of my clerical friends are concerned about other aspects of the aftermath of that "Service of Prayer for the Nation." But I'm haunted in parallel with that reflexive, "Not very exciting." It's a tendency that doesn't need encouragement. Quite the opposite.
Let William Shakespeare have the last word, from Portia's speech in 'The Merchant of Venice':
"The quality of mercy is not strained/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/ Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:/ It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
"'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes/ The throned monarch better than his crown..."
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and preacher in central Ohio; he's preached a few unexciting sermons in his time. Tell him where you think mercy could be a gentle rain at [e-mail], or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.