Today, we move from the Augsburg Confession into the Bible to work towards answering the question: Why are we here? And the first thing we notice in the Bible is how often we are commanded and told that we are to worship. It’s all over the place in the Old Testament, and it’s all over the place in the New Testament. We worship God.
Now, this might seem like a no-brainer. Duh! Of course the church worships. We have worship services every week. Isn’t this just obvious? Why do you need to take the time to even talk about worship?
Here’s why. I’m going to take you back 20 years ago. That’s when I started working in congregations. I was on internship at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Waco. As I think back to that time, I remember numerous people coming up to me throughout the year I was there, and they all had something very interesting to say. Maybe you have heard this said before. They would say, “Intern Kevin, I just need to tell you that I hate to miss worship. If I miss worship, the week just doesn’t feel right to me. Everything seems out of order.” Have you ever heard such a thing?
Two years later, I heard this and similar comments when I was first ordained and began my first call at Emanuel’s Lutheran Church in Seguin. Numerous people would say, “I hate to miss worship. When I miss worship, everything seems out of whack!”
And maybe it’s because I’ve been here for so long, but I rarely if ever hear anyone say such a thing today. Something seems to have changed over the past 20 years. Maybe it’s just my perception, but I don’t think so. Fewer and fewer people are worshiping in churches these days. The societal numbers bear this out as most churches have experienced a decline in worship attendance, and, most folks who attend church believe that they are regularly attending worship if they worship once a month. Organized religion is taking it on the chin when it comes to worship. Just this week, I read an article that 1 in 4 young people, that’s 25% of young people claim no religious affiliation. In 1996, that number stood at only 6%. That is a massive jump!
But, here is the kicker, that doesn’t mean that people aren’t worshiping. Everybody worships. You may scratch your head at that one. You might say, “Pastor, I’ve got a friend who hasn’t set foot inside the door of a church for 30 years. How can you say that he worships?”
I’ll respond with a question of my own: what does your friend live for? What does your friend orient his or her life around? Because whatever it is that he or she lives for or whatever it is that he or she loves the most is what he or she worships.
Let me try and explain this with an illustration that I was given this week by one of our members. It’s pretty powerful in my opinion. It is an illustration written by James Finley in his book: Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God.
As part of my doctoral training in clinical psychology, I worked at a thirty-day inpatient treatment center for alcohol and drug addiction at a large Veterans Administration hospital. The patients in this treatment center had devised an initiation rite. By the time I was there, this rite had become an ongoing tradition, part of the process a person had to go through to be admitted to the unit. The initiation rite was held in a large room in the ward. The fifty or so members in the unit sat with their chairs facing inward around the four walls of the room. The middle of the room, around which the members sat, was empty of all furniture except for two chairs facing each other about four feet apart. The alcoholic seeking to be admitted to the unit was led into the room by one of the members, who instructed the newcomer to sit down in one of the two chairs. As the newcomer was led into the room, the alcoholics seated along the four walls of the room would all be looking downward, providing no eye contact, no smiles, and no indication to the newcomer of what to expect.
Once the newcomer sat down, the member of the unit presiding over the rite would sit down in the other chair across from him, look him straight in the eye, and ask, “What do you love the most?” The newcomer, who was, in most cases, fresh in off the streets, still shaky from the effects of alcohol abuse, would often blurt out something like “My wife.” At which point the silence of the room would be abruptly shattered by all the men lining the four walls loudly yelling out in unison, “B--ls--t!” Startled and unnerved, the newcomer would find himself sitting in the midst of the collective, surrounded by the serious-as-death silence of all the men around him still looking downward, giving him no point of human contact except their abrupt challenge to his self-destructive self-deception.
The interviewer would then, without delay, repeat the question: “What do you love the most?” The newcomer, this time with some trepidation, would often say something like “My children.” At which point the group would once again yell, “B--ls--t!” This would continue until the newcomer would, finally, say, “Alcohol.” At this point everyone in the room would break into applause. The newcomer was instructed to stand. The members of the unit would line up, single file. In complete silence, each would approach the newcomer to hold him for a moment in a sincere embrace, welcoming him into their midst.
Now, in the above case, can you imagine how that person worshiped before joining AA? Can you imagine where his cathedral was? Can you imagine his worship music? Can you imagine his liturgy? Every day, his life revolved around a bottle, a bar, or a flask. He needed time with his god–his one true love–the thing he looked to for comfort, safety, security, and fulfillment. Every human being has this one true love. Every human being has something they live for. Every human being has that one thing that he or she looks to to provide comfort, safety, security, and fulfillment. There are no exceptions. And whatever this is, is the object of your worship. This means, you give it ultimate value, and engaging it energizes you.
And it will energize you until it kills you. That may sound harsh, but I’m not the one who discovered this. There have been numerous people throughout history who came to know that if you worship an idol; if you worship a false god, that false god will ultimately consume you. Even atheist writers have come to this conclusion. The following quote has been circling around for quite some time, but it’s truth cannot be denied. It’s by David Foster Wallace, and it was delivered in an address he gave to Kenyon College at its graduation. Just to be clear, Wallace was an atheist which makes it even more amazing that he penned these words, “Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship, and the compelling reason to maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual type thing to worship is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you choose to worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age starts showing you will die a thousand million deaths before they finally grieve you. Worship power and you will end up feeling weak and afraid and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect being seen as smart and you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is they are unconscious. They are default settings.”
The last two lines are probably the scariest lines of this insight shared by Wallace. “The insidious thing about these forms of worship is they are unconscious. They are the default settings.” This means, we are essentially programmed to worship idols. We are essentially programmed to chase after the things that will eventually eat us alive. We are programmed to seek comfort, safety, security, and fulfillment in things that will give us no such thing in the long run. It’s no wonder then why so many young people are leaving organized religion. As parents, we generally give them the option to turn away long before their brains are fully developed. When we give them the option, they will naturally turn away from church. They will naturally turn away from Sunday School. The other false gods out there are much more flashy; much more entertaining; much more inviting. Worshiping them seems fun, and it fulfills their natural tendencies. And they–and oftentimes we–are blind to the long-term consequences.
This is why the first and greatest commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before me,” and “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” I mean, I think we in the church can make a great case for this just based upon what has been said about worship. I think we can lead people to this point very easily and help them see why they should center their lives on God and make Him their ultimate value. But if we just leave them right here, we encounter a problem.
You might scratch your head and wonder, what problem do you mean, Pastor? We’ve made the case that God should be worshiped. What more do we need? Well, if you decide to worship God because in doing so, you won’t be destroyed; if you worship God because you want safety, security, and fulfillment; then worship becomes an obligation. It becomes something you have to do to earn God’s favor. You understand deep in your heart: I am worshiping God because I want to receive something in return. And if I go into it with this mind-set, then things will eventually go south. Because, I might not get that job that I wanted. I might end up with a severe health problem. I might end up going through a rough time with my family. A host of other things might go wrong in my life, and I will be left bewildered. I will ask, “God, didn’t I worship you? Didn’t I attend church on Sunday morning? Didn’t I give an offering to you? Didn’t I come to you in faith? Why did you break my heart?” All those slick televangelists have an answer for you in regards to this. They will look at you with all sincerity and say, “Well, maybe you just didn’t have enough faith. Maybe you didn’t put enough money in the offering plate. Maybe you just didn’t trust God enough.” It’s pretty vicious.
This is why we have to understand the Gospel. This is why we have to understand sheer grace. This is why we have to understand what God has already done in Christ Jesus. For the Gospel says that God has already done great things for me. God has already acted in history to show me great compassion and care. God has already given up the greatest thing He could have given up for me. God has already died for me–even when I didn’t deserve it.
The Gospel says that my heart was born corrupted. It says that I was born seeking other gods. The Gospel says that I wanted everything for my own care and comfort–that I was selfish. And being selfish, I didn’t love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Being selfish, I cared much more for me than I did my neighbor. But God wanted to win my heart. God wanted to transform my heart, and He didn’t want me to live in fear of Him. Instead, He wanted me to love Him. And so, He took my sin upon His blameless self. He took my filthiness upon His spotlessness. He offered Himself as a sacrifice of atonement for me, and then He gave to me his spotlessness. He gave to me His righteousness. He gave to me His status as beloved child of God. And He did this not because of anything I did but because of sheer grace. And when I comprehend what He did, my heart melts. I understand the great sacrifice that He made to save me, and I turn to Him in love and admiration. I turn to Him and want to do everything that I can to please Him. I long to worship Him and Him alone.
When I come to worship with this attitude, I am doing so because I am filled with joy and awe. And nothing can shake me. Nothing can take away my fulfillment, safety, security, and comfort because all of that is not based upon something that I think has to happen out there, it is based upon something that has already happened and can never be revoked.
And as I wrap this sermon up, I want to talk to the people who are not here. I know that sounds strange, so that means those of you who are here will have to tell those who you know what I am about to say. Or, you will have to give them the link to this sermon on Youtube. I specifically want to talk to those of you who are at home right now, dead tired–or those of you who are working right now because of the demands of your job. I want to talk to those of you who have spent 70 or 80 hours this past week at your job, and this is the only day off that you have. I know that the last thing you want to do on this day is get out of bed. I know that the last thing you want to do his come into a building where they play music that hardly anyone listens to. I know that you don’t want to listen to some guy drone on and on about this strange stuff of forgiveness of sins and Jesus dying for those sins. I know that it seems to have very little impact or relation to your life. I know it seems like most of what we say here in the church has very little relevance to your life, but it does. I know that you oftentimes wonder if everything you go through is worth it. I know you wonder if working as hard as you do will eventually pay off. I know that you realize in the back of your head that the day you walk away from your company, they will replace you with someone else and move on as if you never even worked there. And I know you try to push that thought out of your head because we all want to feel valued. We all want to feel like our lives mean something.
When you begin to worship the true God, things might feel strange to begin with. You might not see any connections to your daily life to begin with, but over time, you will start making those connections. Your life will begin to reorient itself. In taking the time to come to church, dedicate your time to the living God, and learning about sheer grace–the grace that only Jesus gives, you will begin to look at the world with different eyes. You will see meaning where you never saw it before. You will find purpose where you never thought you would see it. You will find hope in the midst of tragedy. You will find love where you never thought you would see it. Worship changes us. It changes the world. It connects us to God and makes our lives make sense. And this is why it is one of the reasons we are here as a church. Amen.
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