Sunday, March 17, 2002 Lent 5

"Worship, the heart of discipleship"

A sermon by Dean Keith Joyce

While kneeling is an important part of worshipping God there is something far more significant. In Ephesians we read, "be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, ²⁰ giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (from Ephesians 5:18-20)

The Holy Spirit, who is in us, prompts us, guides us, inspires us to worship God. Part of the Holy Spirit's work is to make Jesus real in our lives. The Holy Spirit will "bring glory to" Jesus by taking from what is" of Jesus and by "making it known to" us. Jesus has said: ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you." (from John 16:14-15)

He, the Holy Spirit, points us toward God, as we see in this Ephesians passage. Making music is "to the Lord." Giving thanks is "to God the Father." And all of it is "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

In turn, and in gratitude for such a profound gift and expression of love by God, that He would give us of His very self, we worship God in praise and adoration. Such generous giving by God draws from us a selfless attention to God alone as the true object of our worship. Self-centredness is gone, self-satisfaction is no longer our prime objective, and what we experience becomes secondary to God Himself. Since we need help to respond this way, because it doesn't come naturally, the Holy Spirit enables us to return praise and honour to our Lord for all that He has done for us.

Worship is response from us for all that God has done in Jesus Christ. In worship we come to give our thanks and praise. When we come to worship we come to give, and not to get. We don't come to "get" that spiritual or religious "hit" to see us through the coming week. It is the Lord's ongoing presence with us that does that. Usually, but not exclusively, on Sunday we come to worship for God's sake and not for our sakes. While we can be blessed as a result of such activity, our prime purpose in worship is to give blessing to God. We are to give our worship, our adoration, our praise regardless of how we feel, regardless of what we "get out of it."

But we are trained the opposite way. We live in a consumer society. We are supposed to get a good "bang for our dollar." And we can apply that principle to our worship, whether we are aware of it or not! That we do often "get" something as a result of our worship of Almighty God is indeed a blessing, but it is not our purpose.

When we take the consumer approach to worship, that we "go to church" to get (consume) something, we can fall into the deadly trap of trying to "sell" our product to the widest possible number of clients. We gradually focus more on what we think will "sell" rather than focussing on God as the subject and the object of our worship. What we can subtly do then, is "domesticate" God, or "reduce" Him to fit into what we think the world might find attractive. A great, holy and majestic God does not "sell" in the coinage of today's market place. In fact, worship of God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is counter cultural. Today we are very much encouraged to worship self, to get the most we can get for "me." To have anyone else as the focus of our most significant emotion and intention, even if it is the true Other, namely God, does not compute in today's understanding of what is important and significant.

What we are doing here is radical stuff! The true worship of the true, Triune, living God is truly radical!

We then evaluate what we are "getting" and decide according to what we "get" whether we have worshipped or not, or whether we have liked this or that service. As a result we are not giving our worship to God. We really are worshipping the self. You see, words and music, whether they are new or old, modern or ancient, of this style or that style, in this or that liturgy don't create praise - they are the material we use for worship. Often these words and music belong to the culture in which we live, and can reflect more about us and our world than they do about God. What's vitally important is what God has done, and is doing, and will do in this world, and also in us and for us that causes us to worship Him.

We worship Him because of His forgiving, strengthening, equipping, supporting, leading, loving, healing. Archbishop William Temple has said that worship is "the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of the conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of the mind with His truth; the purifying of the imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of the will to His purpose - and all of this gathered in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable." (Readings in St. John's Gospel)

In closing, worship is the intimate interaction with a God who loves us beyond compare. Just like when we go to a special dinner party and look forward keenly to the interaction with those we will share the meal with, so it is when we come to worship. We look forward to that lovely, close, loving, tender, holy and awesome interaction with our great and glorious God. There is nothing more important in our lives to do, and nothing more important for the life of the Christian disciple than such God-ward worship - nothing more important, not ever.