Moses ascended the mountain and came face to face with the living God. That is a true image of worship – that worship is at the top of the mountain, and it takes effort to get there. But lets run with this image a little bit.
The top of the mountain is the ‘best’ worship of which we are capable. It is rich, it is thick, it is edifying and transformational. It is the presence of the living God.
That is where we all want to get to.
Are there different mountains? Possibly. I remember many of my Anglo-Catholic brethren getting very worked up when John Sentamu played his Ugandan drums in between consecrating the elements and distributing them.
Truth is, though, that English people still have a sufficient common culture that there’s no need to talk about different mountains. There probably are such.
So the top of the mountain is that presence of God – and it is that image of God expressing itself in us in triune harmony.
Nobody disputes that that is where we need to get to.
It seems to me that the issue lies in a different direction.
We are roped together, on the climb. The climb has become more difficult; heavy and inclement weather has set in; the blizzard is heavy; the world is being remade around us.
Some of our party are lost. We were tethered together – now we’re not. Don’t know why.
We need to fix our pinions in hard and pay out some more rope – extend the line from where we’ve reached on the mountainside down to those lower down beneath us. We can’t leave them behind. They’ll freeze to death. We’ve got some essential supplies of food for our journey – they haven’t got much.
So we pay out the rope. Some of our number go back down; we find the others – some of them at least.
There are voices from above. The weather is too hard. Let’s just stay where we are. Hunker down. Wait for this storm to blow over. We’ve got the food. We’ll be alright.
From below it’s clear that that won’t work. The lead party are in danger themselves. They’re stuck – and if they stay stuck then they will die. For the mountain itself is moving. What seemed to be rock is in fact a frozen ledge. And the weather will change; that which seemed to be solid will melt – and there is nothing beneath it but the pit.
The group below have found some more rope. It’s good rope; different quality to what we’ve been using but it’ll hold people fast.
If we tie all of us together, we’ll make it through.
Nobody needs to be lost.
The eye cannot say to the hand “I don’t need you!”
If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.
And now I will show you the most excellent way….
