The word “liturgy” means the work of the people, that is, what we do in our community worship of God. When I read the lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures for today, I was struck by the liturgical actions described there that continue to be part of our liturgy today. We have the word of God, the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai carried in the ark of God, being brought in procession by “David and all the house of Israel,” just as we process with the gospel book Sunday by Sunday. There’s the music: “with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals . . . and with the sound of the trumpet.” There’s the offering of their substance in the “ox and fatling” as “burnt offerings (Lev.1:1-17) and offerings of well-being (Lev.7:11-18).” And then we have the blessing and feeding of the people. It all sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? Yet who cannot be amazed by the joy and delight of their worship, the exuberance of their “dancing before the Lord with all their might” in comparison with our more staid, formal liturgy? In fact, we Episcopalians pride ourselves on doing liturgy “decently and in order,” as it’s said. In the Episcopal Church, the liturgy for our various worship services is set forth in the Book of Common Prayer, which has its roots in Thomas Cranmer’s first English-speaking Book of Common Prayer in the 16th century. While we’re grateful for our long liturgical history and tradition, perhaps the story of David’s “leaping and dancing before the Lord” today may give us a greater appreciation of the scriptural provenance of the liturgy of those who worship God more spontaneously, who demonstrate the joy of the love of God in more lively ways than we tend to in our liturgy. What delights God is our coming together with others, joining our hearts and minds, our bodies and spirits, to worship him in spirit and in truth. We humans have such a tendency to think, “My way is the right way; my way is the only way” in all areas of life. Fortunately, the love of God is broader, stronger, deeper, richer than the measure of our minds (I know that is almost a quote from some hymn, but I can’t find it—if you know it, I hope you’ll share it with me). God loves each of us and all of us and our various worship communities regardless of our particular worship styles, “for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (I Sam.16:7b) Thanks be to God!