Why Worship?

There are two different sets of expectations at work in this little scene, and they revolve around the question: Is the subject of this time together you and me, or is the subject God?

These days, the expectation clearly is that we are at the center of anything that is important.

--Some may expect a warm feeling of some sort.

--Others expect fellowship and gentle conversations to be the key element.

--Some may expect worship to be therapeutic, saying “It helps me get through the week.”

--Others expect a sermon that stirs the intellect, making us think about things in a new way.

--Some see it as a pep-rally for the latest program, for Stephen Ministry, the Way, Family Promise, Catechetical study, or whatever other good thing we are doing.

--And then some may have given up on worship entirely and may be saying “Well, I don't go to church much anymore, but I try to do right and to live a good life, and help people when I can, and isn't that what the Christian faith is all about anyway?”

In one sense, all of these expectations are founded on the same basis.

--Their focus is on me, my feelings, my wants, my thoughts,my guilt.

--I am at the center of my worship, a carefully scripted series of events, designed to do something for me.

--with my head carefully bowed, I end up looking at myself.

If that is the basis of thinking, no wonder that Sue could be disappointed on any given day of the week.

--Maybe she was distracted by someone fidgeting during the service.

--Maybe she was thinking about what she was going to eat later.

--Maybe she had a touch of illness.

--Maybe she is angry with someone in the family and dwelling on that.

--There are so many other things that can get in the way...

--and so on this particular day Sue says, “Well, I certainly didn't get anything out of that service.”

Now can we understand the Pastor's response: “That's OK, Sue.”?

Whichever variety of “getting something out of it” that Sue is chasing today, she may get it, or not.

That is a secondary thing.

The primary thing here is that God is worshiped.

The subject which matters here is God, not Sue's wants!

To get the right frame of reference, let's do something very familiar.

Let's sing the Doxology at hymn 564. Praise God from whom all blessings flow....

The subject of our singing, and indeed of this whole gathering is clear.

No matter what I'm thinking or feeling at the moment, we praise God anyway.

Perhaps you think that is hard-hearted, but not so!

It is immensely freeing!

There are so many things that are not right in our lives:

--family strife

--health issues

--employment concerns,

--disagreement with some person, perhaps even the pastor.

But we come together for worship anyway, as we are commanded, as church has always done, and as synagogue before it.

And in the process, we are changed,

shaped and molded by the Holy Spirit, bit by bit each time we gather as the church.

We don't have to wait for us to achieve a level of perfect unity.

We praise God, and in the midst of it, a different life is given.

When we get together, we have a job to do, no matter what we are thinking or feeling at the moment.

And it may well be that in the discipline of giving honor to God many of those wants and needs will be opened to us as well:

peace, guidance, strength, fellowship, intellectual stimulation, the resolve to do what is best, and all the rest.

But that is secondary, as Jesus made clear to Peter on the mountain of Transfiguration.

Peter, good old take-charge Peter!

--Trying to organize the fantastic experience of witnessing the Transfiguration!

--Trying to get something out of it, all on his own terms, of course.

“We'll have special places: Jesus you sit here, and we'll be there....”

--and he babbles on until the voice from heaven sounds “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him.”

Then, finally, Peter is silent before the majesty of God.

T. Norman Mansell, the architect who designed this nave, clearly wanted us to remember the majesty of God.

Everything about this room is

--to lead us to contemplate the wonders that God has done in Christ Jesus our Lord,

--to give thanks for them,

--and then to respond in lives of worship and service.

Just as Peter was was trying to make something out of the Transfiguration and God had to step in and remind him that God was going to make something out of Peter,

so also in our worship, we who worry about what we are getting out of the worship service need to be quiet and listen carefully for what God might we wanting to make out of us and our time and our abilities.

Why worship?

Why bother with all of this singing and praying, and listening, and receiving?

As the very origin of the word “worship” indicates,

--because God is “worthy” of our devotion.

--because he commands it,

--because he attaches promises to it,

--just because...and that should be reason enough.

The world thinks all of this is ridiculous.

Increasing numbers around us cannot be bothered.

Still more think they know all that they need to know already.

But the invitation is there to us all

--to be silent for a time

--to pay attention

--to discern what God intends to make of this time together, and us.

The question “What am I getting out of it?” may turn out to be a rather shallow one.

A much deeper one might be “What is God getting out of this time that we are spending together in Jesus' name?”

And we may only get some hints at the answer to that question.

The Charles Wesley text we sing next may point us in an appropriate direction:

Visit then this soul of mine,

Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;

Fill me, radiancy divine,

Scatter all my unbelief;

More and more thyself display,

Shining to the perfect day. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.