FAITH AND WORSHIP

I always enjoy taking a little time on Saturday mornings to read the religion section of the Statesman.  Used to be that I’d look forward to meditating on Bob Lively’s weekly column, so I was really bummed out when he stopped writing, but I suppose every good thing comes to an end.  That being said, I applaud the addition of the new faith and religion editor Eileen Flynn.  The extended article on the Emergent Church in last week’s paper was really interesting and informative.  If you didn’t have a chance to read it, I definitely encourage you to do so.[3]  I’ve got a copy in my office if you’re interested.  One thing that hasn’t changed about the religion section is the listing of religious communities and their respective worship schedules.  It literally runs the gamut from Adventists to Zen Buddhists which I think points to the tremendous diversity in the kinds of worshipping communities here in the Austin area.  It’s a pretty remarkable thing, especially for those of us who remember growing up in communities where the Lutheran church was situated on one street corner and the Roman Catholic Church on the other and never shall the two meet!  

And yet, with all this diversity even within the Christian Church the question inevitably arises as to whether there is a “right way” a right way to worship.  Now, if you go online or drop into the nearest religious bookstore, it’s a sure bet that you’ll find someone who for $19.99 is more than ready to set you straight, to settle the question once and for all.  But before we spend our twenty bucks we might do well to consider the message from Isaiah this morning.  Writing to those who had recently come home after years in exile, Isaiah declares the word of the Lord.  “If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; they you shall delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth.”  So, just what is the right way?  Consider the Word of the Lord.

Now, if we’re hoping that somehow we’re going to find a definitive answer to the ongoing questions, a resolution to the debates and out and out battles about settings and style, the right script to the right kind of worship, we’re sure to be disappointed.  Wouldn’t we all like to know if God prefers traditional or contemporary?  Sorry folks, it ain’t going to happen, at least on this side of the kingdom!  If you want my opinion, I think God has bigger fish to fry.  God’s concern, God’s desire is, it seems to me, goes much deeper. 

During the time of restoration after the Babylonian exile, there arose a group of super religious types who sought to be hyper correct in all of their observances and rituals, who were happy to show others just how religious they were, but who in so doing missed the essential all important point.   God’s desire for justice and compassion, for the well being is not for a select few, but for all nations, every tribe and race.  Instead of an outward looking religion, faith was turning into an entirely private matter of study and ritual, of their own personal walk with God and nothing else.

But though God’s servant Isaiah, God calls God’s people are called to remember, to remember who it was that set them free from bondage, who it was that fed them in the wilderness and who it was at long last that gave them a place to call home.  God isn’t in the business of coddling the comfortable and privileged.  As Mary reminds us in her stunning Magnificat, God is in the business of setting people free, of comforting the afflicted and lifting up the lowly.  “It is,” as commentator Paul Hanson suggests, “a rigorously moral understanding that places the one who would be true to God on the side of the same ones whom God reached out to help and empower, those suffering injustice at the hands of authorities, of those imprisoned for acts of conscience, those denied their fair share of the land’s produce, those denied housing and proper clothing, those turned away even by their own relatives.”[1]  Faith that fails to recognize the needs of others is no faith at all and that is a message for today as much as it was centuries ago.     

I confess that on one of my first Sundays in Nicaragua, I played hooky and went to the Pacific Ocean.  Our hour and a half journey took us down pot hole ridden roads through dilapidated and sad looking villages rendered more miserable that particular day by rain that fell by the buckets.  On the outskirts of one community I caught sight of something that will stay with me for a long, long time.  There on the side of the road was a fairly decent looking building behind a fairly studying looking locked gate.  The sign out front read “Instituto Agua Viva” or “Water of Life Institute”.  It was some sort of church worship and outreach center I guess, but from the looks of things whatever worship and outreach was happening there didn’t have much connection to what was going on just outside the locked gates.  Anyway, there, outside the “Water of Life Institute” in the river of red mud, stinking garbage and raw sewage flowing towards the sea, a group of young children were playing, one of them probably not more than a year old toddling around in a dirty soiled diaper.  As we sped on by I couldn’t help but reflect on the absurdity of it all!      

One of things, I think that the church has perfected to an art form is completely missing the point.  For years, centuries maybe there’s been an ongoing debate about the nature of faith.  Is faith something we experience merely in a personal way, or is it to be lived out visibly in the world?  It’s the old activist / pietist distinction, that somehow, faith must be one or the other.  It seems to me though that faith, true faith embraces both distinctions.  “At a time when Israel was being rebuilt following the Babylonian Exile, those who promised obedience to God were to be blessed.  Such obedience took at least two different forms: providing for the needs of others and worshipping God on the Sabbath.  Thus, worship and justice are joined together…Worship and justice have been deeply connected throughout the church’s history as well, a point made clearly by Justin Martyr, one of the early church fathers.  ‘The wealthy’, he writes, ‘who are willing make contributions, each as he pleases, and the collection is deposited with the president, who aids orphans and widows, those who are in want because of sickness or some other reason, those in prison, and visiting strangers—in short, he takes care of all in need.’”[2]

The Statesman article,[3] I mentioned earlier highlighted several of the so called emergent Christian communities in town.  One of them over on the east side spends a considerable amount of time and energy focusing on community based projects.  One Sunday morning instead of gathering for worship, they went out repair the homes of some of their low income neighbors.  When they were finished, they all retired to a local eatery where one of the food servers asked them where they’d all been, to which one of them replied, “To church, of course.” 

Sadly, I think that in many ways we as the church fail to recognize the connection between true worship and genuine engagement in the messiness of our world.  I have to confess that one of the few disappointments I experienced while in Nicaragua was in the church.  Now in all fairness, I know that there are lots of really great things go on in the name of Christ by dedicated church working types including Lutherans.  Unfortunately though, those things weren’t happening in the neighborhood where I lived and studied.  I was really surprised because I’d always assumed that the church in Central America was a hotbed of activism where the prophetic word rang loud and clear.  But whether in the traditional expressions or the more recent fundamentalist or Pentecostal arrivals, the message was basically one of two things, put up with the world as it is because one’s real reward is in heaven or that God wants you to be rich and if you just have enough faith, that’s exactly what will happen. 

After sharing my observations with a colleague of mine, she offered up her own observation, that things aren’t all that different here either, that faith is more or less a private matter between me and Jesus and as the old country western song declares we “got it all worked out.” 

I once heard it said, I don’t remember where, that faith is personal, but never private.  Clearly that’s the word for us today, that faith, that honoring God in our worship has nothing to do with serving our own self interests, with pursuing our own affairs.  What is the end of worship, that is - what is its purpose?  It’s a crucial question for us as the church to hold before us!  The message of the cross is hardly a private matter, but the very giving of God’s own self, not for a gaggle of individual souls, but the supreme act of divine love, that all who believe shall not perish but have eternal life. 

“For the reign of God, and for peace throughout the world…for your people here who have come to give you praise…let us pray to the Lord….go in peace, serve the Lord.”  One of the great gifts of the liturgy is that it serves to keep us on track, to see that what we are about here in this place for a brief time on Sunday morning is not a pause in the action, a break in the week, an hour removed from the realities of our lives and the world around us, but a time to be renewed, to be fed and to sent out into the world once again.  And in so many ways, that is exactly what happens…feeding the hungry… satisfying the needs of the afflicted…we become a light that arises in the darkness.

In the name of the one who leads us forth in joy, who satisfies our needs in dark places, who makes our bones strong, let us go forth now in peace.  Amen.   

 

Pastor Brian Peterson