We have been considering what it means to worship this month. We gather here on Sunday mornings because worship is the practice, the act, the privilege, the right, the "I can’t help but do it" way we have of giving God honor and praise. It is the recognition that God is worthy of all that we offer as we know God, build relationships, and do justice, in gratitude for what God has done for us.

And we worship God as we engage in the practice and process of spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is the "process by which people seek God, come to know God in Christ, develop and mature as disciples of Jesus, and live expanding lives of love and service in the power of the Holy Spirit" (www.gbod.org).

It is a practice because we work at being faithful to God’s call to us to be a community of faith that celebrates the diversity and openness that God desires for the world. It is a process because there is not a moment when we can say, "now we have arrived". Instead, we know moments of greater awareness of the place of God in our lives, and that awareness leads us to want to continue to grow our gifts and use our gifts for the sake of God and in Christ. Spiritual formation gives us direction, it helps us know what in our journey of faith is important. It is about growing in our knowledge of God, about learning, and about fellowship.

When we worship God with all that we have, we enter into the practice of spiritual formation, singers find the melody God put in their voices, people who love to talk and visit discover that what they love to do can become a ministry for them. Outreach, nurture, Christian education, our ministries of communication and management find energy and direction. When we engage in spiritual formation, we are focused on God, mind, body, and spirit, and if that is happening, worship cannot help but be renewed.

Spiritual formation is about knowing God. We can get caught up in what we think is important, just like James and John did. We can ask for what seems reasonable to us, all they wanted was to sit at the right and left hands of Jesus. All we want is that people know who we are, and that they know how important we are to the work of Jesus. That’s all we want.

"When you get to heaven, we want to be the ones above all the others who get to sit on your right and left hand sides. OK?" Jesus received their question and turned their question into a teachable moment, an instant in which they and we learn about what it means to sit where Jesus sits.

Already, he has been talking with his disciples as they make their way to Jerusalem for what will be the final time before the crucifixion. He has told them that death waits for him there. No sooner has he predicted his death, again, these two brothers, called in scripture, the "Sons of Thunder", ask that they be given a special place of honor when Jesus goes to be with God.

Do we know what we are asking? These two brothers are asking for more than they know. They think they are asking for a place of honor because in the ancient world, "the hand was symbolic. It was believed that from it one either bestowed grace or pronounced punishment. The right hand, in particular was special for two reasons. First, the left hand was universally acknowledged to be the one used for sanitation purposes, and therefore, was less respected than its counterpart. Secondly, since most people were right-handed, the right hand was considered to have superior strength and capability. It was the right hand that expressed blessing, fellowship, and comfort. It was the hand used in ordination.

"The right hand was and is used for taking of vows in judicial matters, since it was believed to represent the character, will and actions of the individual taking the vow. In the Old Testament, the right hand represented God’s ultimate strength and provision for his people.

"To be seated at the right hand of a ruler or host meant occupying a place of high honor. Someone who sat at the king’s right hand was, in our terms, his ‘right-hand man’, the one acting in the king’s authority. That is why the Bible talks of Jesus sitting at the right hand of God" ("The Right Hand in Ancient Thinking" in the Archaeological Study Bible, p. 1983).

To sit at the right hand of Jesus as Jesus sat at the right hand of God was to have a seat of honor and power, and to be on the immediate left of Jesus was pretty good too. But that was not the point Jesus wanted them to understand.

Jesus has been telling them, but they are not getting it, that sitting at the right and left of Jesus in glory is not cheap and easy; it is not a matter of making a request, and having it honored, but it requires the commitment of a lifetime.

They think they are asking for some kind of privilege. Jesus wants them to understand what they are really asking for. He tells them, "I am going to drink a cup of radical obedience, faithfulness, and death. That is what I am going to do. Can you do this too? Do you really want to be on the right and left of me there? Can you suffer with me?"

"Yes we can", they say. "You will indeed," Jesus says, "but what you want is not something I can give you. Only God can decide that. Do you know what you are asking?"

We want full pews, a full treasury, a full nursery, a full choir seats, and full and fulfilling ministries. Are we ready to do the work, make the changes, get out of the way so that the Holy Spirit can have its way in this place? Are we willing to worship, learn, and talk and work with each other, and starting here and now to go with God wherever it is that God will lead us? I believe we can say, "yes we are, and yes we will." Knowing as we go that we gather here not for our honor, but for the honor and glory of God. Spiritual formation is about knowing God, and knowing what it means to follow God’s Christ.

Jesus is patient with the disciples and shows us that spiritual formation is about learning. He does not scold James and John, and he does not scold the other disciples who are angry with the brothers for making such a bold request. He is patient with them as he is patient with us, and he teaches them that true discipleship is not about position or seats, but about purpose and service. He teaches them what it means to follow him.

Following Jesus is about looking to Jesus as the one who teaches us that our place as God’s daughters and sons is enough. It gives us a vantage point to see that the world, the nation, the community, somebody in this very room needs the good news of Jesus Christ to comfort, to encourage, to challenge, to console, to liberate, to give to us what we need to be the church. Jesus tells all of them, and he tells us too, not to be like those who flaunt their place in society. If you want to be great, be a servant. It is not about titles or seats, it is about how we represent Jesus to the people we encounter through our offering of service and community.

Spiritual formation is about fellowship. We have called it building relationships here, but fellowship, koinonia, and getting to know each other. It is about respecting each other and ourselves, not trying to assume a place of prestige, it is reaching out to others, understanding God created us all, Jesus redeems, ransomed us all; the Spirit in-spires us all is what fellowship is about.

It is doing charity and justice and it’s little things like speaking to people by name, and discovering a rallying point for us. The rallying point is something wonderful we can do together as a church, while we invite people to join us. I have told the story here of Pilgrim Congregational Church on the west side of Cleveland. They spent one night a week over several months, cleaning and painting and replacing the pipes for their organ. The thirty members of the church invited their friends and family to help and they did. They saw the possibility in that big, beautiful, underused building, and they began to worship there. They expanded their programs and ministries and the church began to grow and those thirty people are nearly sixteen years later a congregation of more than 400.

Their work is our work, it is to know God and to learn and to practice service and ministry, and to grow in relationship with each other. The disciples didn’t always get it, and we do not either. We get caught up in the glory and miss the part about suffering and sacrifice. But those twelve still followed Jesus, and we do too. They did not give up, even when they fled in fear, the love of Jesus for them brought them back. We still follow Jesus, even as we continue the process of spiritual formation.

"For Jesus, a life lived for others was the only life consistent with God’s reign. The church exists to increase among us the love of God and neighbor, and to build within us the deep conviction that we are beloved, valued, people of worth" (Gathered by Love. Lavon Bayler. Cleveland. United Church Press, 1995, p. 149).

The ministry we do here, the outreach we offer, the support we give to each other, the prayers we send up to God, the traveling mercies we extend, our offerings of our money and of ourselves is what service is about. It motivates our worship and it is what spiritual formation is all about.

Spiritual formation is about knowing that our worth comes from knowing that the model for our formation is not the one who glories in titles and center court and front row tickets, and front row center seats, but is Jesus himself. He is the one who came to serve, who gave his life so that we would have ours forever. Spiritual formation leads us to praise God, it leads us to know that God is with us.

Now is the time to let our spirits grow. Will we share in suffering, yes we will. But we will also know suffering for the cause of our faith means the risen Christ who has overcome suffering and death itself. So we will share not only in the suffering of Christ, but even more in the joy of knowing Christ, and we will worship him in celebration of his life with us our life with him.

Spiritual formation is knowing, learning, fellowship. Thanks be to God. Amen.