5. Let us Stand Well!

Those who lead the worship often gives us this instruction, “Let us stand well!” Its Greek form is more common in traditional liturgy-- Stauman (let us stand)  kalos (well).  

This instruction is often given by the altar assistants. Mostly they use the short form-- let us stand well. But in special situations such as reading of the gospel, and reciting the creed, they use an expanded form with more details. In addition to the instructions given by the altar assistants, the priest also instructs us once to keep our awareness, thoughts, and feelings above at the presence of God. Such numerous repetition of this instruction shows how important it is.   

How do we stand well when we stand before God? I think there are at least three aspects in standing well. One is having a clear sense of purpose. Another one is keeping our attention focused, without letting it wander here and there. The third one is having the right attitude. Let us see them in more detail.

We do our usual activities with a specific purpose. We go to the bathroom and take a shower to make ourselves clean. We go to the market to buy food items. We go to a doctor to find healing. So why do we go to the church? It seems that many of us go to church habitually as something we have been doing since our childhood. Such mechanical participation in worship won’t do us any good. It is like going to the bathroom and coming out without taking a shower. It is like going to the market and returning empty-handed. It is like going to a doctor without finding a solution to our illness. Unless we consciously and purposefully participate in worship as we should, it is a mechanical activity, and it is nothing but a waste of time.

We need to have a very clear purpose in going to worship. We need to have a very clear idea of why we go to the church. We go there to clean our inner being -- which we may call our mind, or soul, or spirit. We participate in koodasha there. This Syriac word means cleaning. Just like we take a shower every day, we need regular cleaning for our inner being. We go to the church to find healing to the illness of our inner being. Just as our body occasionally gets ill, our inner being also occasionally gets ill. Unless we take care of it, it might become fatal. Just as our body needs nourishment, our inner being also needs nourishment. We go to the church for our inner being to get nourished.       

The second sense of standing well is keeping our attention focused. In military parades, occasionally, the commander instructs the army to stand in “attention”. When we worship God we are standing together with the heavenly host, and we need to stand in attention. We present our mind before God, our creator, to clean it and to heal it. Unless we keep it still and place it there right before God, the cleaning and healing cannot happen. Keeping the mind still is not easy. It is an ability we need to develop with practice and exercise. What we call meditation is really an exercise to keep our mind still.

 The third aspect in standing well is having the right attitude. Let us see what makes our attitude right or not. We get a clue when we pay attention to the response. Whenever we are asked to stand well, we utter together “Lord, have mercy on us.” Standing well before God means standing like the prodigal son and like the tax collector-- blaming oneself and justifying God. We are not supposed to stand before God like Adam and Eve, like the brother of the prodigal son, or like the Pharisee. They were not standing well.  

The prodigal son was saying like this to his father: Father, you are right; I am wrong. The tax collector was also saying the same thing to God. However, the older son was saying to his father somewhat as follows: Father, you are wrong; I am right. The Pharisee was saying like this to God in his prayer. Adam and Eve also said the same thing to God.  

The right attitude also involves gratitude. We need to stand before God with gratitude just like the prodigal son. Gratitude naturally flows from us when we realize that God loves us unconditionally and forgives us unreservedly.  

Here we have considered two questions about worship-- why and how. Why --with what purpose-- do we worship? We worship to keep our inner being clean, to heal the illness of our inner being, and to keep the inner being nourished. Each session of worship should make us better and better people. We also considered the question of how we need to worship. We need to stand well with a sense of purpose, focusing our attention, and with the right attitude. 

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