The True Spirit of Worship

 

The True Spirit of Worship

Last year, I went to prison for Christmas. I joined a group of chaplains who serve in a forensics unit of a psychiatric hospital to lead a worship service and pass out gifts to the patients awaiting evaluation for mental health issues. Since Hanukkah and Christmas coincided, the chaplains had planned sequential services to celebrate both. 

We arrived at the prison entrance with a choir made up of hospital employees, presented our identification, and walked through the metal detectors. Guards led us through the many locked doors to the chapel. We expected a good crowd since holidays are a welcome break in the monotony of imprisonment. As the choir warmed up, men and women, many with eyes downcast, filed in thanking the chaplains as they offered them bulletins and quietly took their seats. 

A chaplain welcomed them and invited them to join in the call to worship for the Christmas service. The choir began the opening carol. The congregation lifted their heads and voices to sing about the shepherd boy who saw a star that led him to a king shivering in a cold manger. The light of that star seemed to shimmer in each eye.

After the opening prayer, the chaplain asked for volunteers to read scripture passages. Many raised their hands and each read with reverence, sometimes stumbling over the difficult Bible names, but never faltering in their determination to share the good news.

The patient’s voices swelled the choir’s in the next carol. I noticed that the guards gathered in the back sang too. Two women guards, one wearing a headscarf, linked arms as they joined in the song, smiles lighting their faces. “Sing Noel, sing Noel, Sing we all Noel.” Noel — words of joy, a star of hope, a promise of deliverance. 

After the Christmas story was read, everyone joined in singing “Amen,” an American spiritual popularized in the film Lilies of the Field. Hardly had the notes faded when the rabbi took over the service raising his voice as he sang the traditional Hanukkah blessings: Baruch, atta ado-nai…” The choir joined him in a Hanukkah song. The congregation attempted to join in.

As the rabbi lit the candles in the menorah, he recalled the miracles, wonders, and triumphs the Jews celebrate at Hanukkah. The Hanukkah blessings echo their gratitude to God, who has kept us, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season of joy. Everyone in the chapel — patients, chaplains, choir, and guards — heard these words of comfort and repeated the responses of thankfulness led by the rabbi. We thank you, O Lord, for your deliverance… for your promise of peace… for your kindness. Words of gratitude, candles of hope, a promise of deliverance.

After the service, the choir sang a joyful carol as each patient came forward to thank us for the service and for visiting during the holidays. During that short hour, we were not patients and staff, prisoners and guards, Christians, Jews, or Muslims. We were people of faith, thankful for the hope of new birth, the promise of peace, and the miracle of deliverance. 

The true spirit of the holidays joined our hearts together.