Worship

Note: If you haven't read the post Our Hope, you should probably read it first -- if you do, this one will make more sense.

Continuing on from the earlier post today, the second question that the comments on the poem bring to mind is the question of worship. What is worship? If our hope is through Christ, then is one of our responses to God meant to be worship? And what does that mean?

Here, again, are just my thoughts:

• Worship is meant to be God-centered. That might sound a little obvious, but sometimes I think that we may forget that.
• Worship is not passive. We are meant to be INVOLVED in worship. While a wonderful fruit of worship is that we become energized to go out in service of God, our own edification is not the goal. We aren't to come to worship as sponges, but instead of children of God, prepared to glorify God.
• Worship is to be authentic. I always have trouble understanding what this means, but it might be clearer for me to understand if I remember that worship involves pointing toward God and saying, "God is God, and I am not." -- submission to the authority of God. When we recognize that God is God, then our worship becomes real worship, not "lip-service."

Understand in the comments that bjs is discussing Mass as worship while I am not. I know nothing about Mass, and and certainly not going to comment as to the "proper" attitude for Mass. What I will share is my own beliefs as to how I think I am to approach worship.

First of all, worship doesn't require a sanctuary. I may have said before, I love the santuary of our church. It truly defines the word sanctuary for me. I walk in that huge, beautiful room, and I feel the presence of God. It seems to me to be a holy place. Having said that, it's not a requirement for me to experience worship. Just in our building, I have been part of worship in our parlor, for example (see this post). This past weekend, two of the concerts -- Casting Crowns and Michael W. Smith -- were worship experiences for me. Those "experiences" were not even IN a building.

I would agree with bjs that reverence is a requirement for worship. I think we might disagree as to what that means. I kind of like the definition, "to consider or treat with profound awe and respect." Does that mean that we must demonstrate a quiet and somber attitude? No, I don't think so.

Who defines what worship is? I think God does. I believe, that God, working through his spirit, is going to guide us to an understanding of what we need to do to please God in worship.

We talked a few posts ago about loving God with our all of our head, heart, and hands. Is one of those more important in worship than another? Should worship be intellectual, emotional, or service? Yes, all three.

So, worship is God-centered, God-defined and God-lead.

All right, then, can it involve applause? Yes, and more. Applause, laughter, tears, joy, sadness, contrition, confession, gratitude, singing, dancing, kneeling, praying, proclamation, witness, meditation, offering, accepting, fear, acceptance, sitting, standing, and communion.

Did I leave anything out? That's OK -- God hasn't. He wants it all from us.

Update on July 11: I knew I should have waited until today to write this one. I read a devotion this morning based on 2 Samuel 6:12b-19. In this passage, David is bringing the ark into Jerusalem. By doing this, he is transforming a political city into a spiritual one -- by bringing the presence of God into the city. From the devotion, "As the annointed king leaps, dances and sings before the ark, all of the house of Israel joins him in the sheer joy of worship." His wife, Michal, from a window (notice she is not taking an active part in worship) only sees her husband acting in a way she thinks is despicable. She doesn't see worship at all.

The author of the devotion quotes a Guatemalen poet, Otto Rene Castillo:

Being ahead of your time
means much suffering from it
But it's beautiful to love the world
with eyes
that have not yet been born.

May we, too, see the world with the eyes of the future -- seeing what CAN be -- and the work of God to transform us. Amen.