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Last week we started this two-week series on worship. We learned that worship is simply to enjoy God. While our surface desire may be to be entertained in worship, our deeper desire is to be loved. Worship happens when we connect our deep desire for love with Gods deep desire to love us. And when this connection is made and felt at the core of our being our response is pure and simple PRAISE. We also learned that WORSHIP IS PRAYER. By prayer I am talking about being who we really are, in this moment as it really is, with God as God really is. To be a person of prayer is to be aware of the flow of God’s love weaving its way through creation, through the joys and pains of people, through the printed word, to touch the deepest parts of our hearts. So prayer is more than words. It is a way of living...open to God...open to love. To pray is to be aware of God. Another way to enjoy God as we gather together to worship is to REMEMBER. Worship is remembering who God was in the lives of others. Do you remember the story of Moses receiving the Law from God on Mt. Sinai? What happened to the people of Israel who waited below? They became bored and restless and began to forget God’s care for them. So what did they do? They pressured Aaron to build a false god, a golden calf, for their enjoyment. Think about it for a moment. They all had been witnesses to the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea for their escape from Egypt. How could they so easily forget the God who had delivered them from slavery? I think they were a lot like you and me. They lost touch with their desire for love, their desire for God by covering it with boredom and restlessness. So to cure their boredom they needed to be entertained. This need for entertainment led to the golden calf. There is nothing wrong with a certain amount of entertainment in worship. But genuine worship won’t happen if that’s all we are expecting. To worship is to remember who God is in the world. It is to recall and retell God’s story, to reminisce about God’s activity in the lives of ordinary men, women, and children since the beginning of recorded history. But you may ask why. Why do we need to tell these ancient Bible stories over and over again? What possible meaning do they have for modern people like us in 2001? I’d like to try to answer these questions with a story. My grandparents on my mother’s side were born and raised in the hills of Tennessee. Life was extremely hard during their childhood. My grandfather remembers having to hunt squirrels as a boy in order to help put food on the table. My grandmother remembers walking several miles to her one-room school house in her bare feet. They knew each other as kids, grew up together, and were married young. With a sense of adventure and a hope for a new life they moved to Ohio. With my grandfather at work my grandmother went to a radio station which had advertised a need for workers. Dozens of young women were lined up waiting for an interview. After much waiting it my grandmother’s turn to complete an application and interview. But she was turned away when it was discovered that she was only 17. No problem. She simply returned the next day and filled out a new application. When it came to age she wrote down 18 and was hired on the spot. The point of a story like this is that it did something for me. I’m not sure I can explain it. It has something to do with my roots. Stories like this told to me by my grandparents helped me understand a part of myself. For I was connected with these people, their experiences, their relationships, their story. And somehow these stories would help me see myself in the broader spectrum of life. For many of us who live apart from parents and grandparents such stories are extremely important, especially to our children. We all have a need to understand our story in the context of a larger story. And this leads us to the second part of remembering in worship. It is important that we not just remember God’s story, but that we also remember our story. In worship we connect the two together. If you come to church Sunday after Sunday and hear God’s story without ever connecting it with your story, worship will be an exercise in boredom. It is vitally important that we become real with ourselves, that we know our own story of personal failure, success, grief, depression, joy, and love. Then we listen to God’s story and are encouraged to connect the two stories. I was an adult when I realized that the word, "remember," consists of the word, "member", with the prefix, "re", attached to it. To remember is to re-member our lives, to see the broken parts put back together, to be made whole. How does this re-membering process happen? How do we connect God’s story with our story? Let’s say you’re sitting in church on a given Sunday. You hear the Old Testament story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac. You enter into the story and ask, "How could God ask Abraham to do such a thing?" But you listen to the story, how Isaac is spared and Abraham’s faith is strengthened. And then you remember the ugly scene Friday night between you and your teenager. You said some things that were hurtful and suddenly it dawns on you. You need to let go of your desire to be in control of your child. In a flash of inspiration you understand Abraham’s trust in God and your new desire to trust God with your teenager. When that connection is made there is a new hope, a new outlook, a new love that comes to us directly from the Spirit of God. This is why it is important that we read the scriptures on a regular basis, that we read not only for information, but formation. When we read for information we try to grasp as much of the story as we can. When we read for formation we are interested in how the Spirit might shape and form us into the image of God. So we may read a small portion over and over. It may be only one sentence or one word. The important thing is that we stay with that sentence or word. We let is soak in. We remember it daily and ponder what it means for us. When it comes to Bible reading we are not interested in producing scholars. The kingdom of God needs disciples, ordinary people like you and me who want to be changed from the inside out! A pastor once took his seminary professor to visit one of his elderly parishioners. The two of them walked into Myrtie’s room and found her sitting up in her bed. When she saw them she said, "Oh boy." Myrtie’s pastor introduced his friend and Myrtie said, "Oh boy." "We’ve brought you some gifts from your friends in church, Myrtie." "Oh, boy," was her sparkling reply. The presents were each laboriously unwrapped by her one usable hand and each received a soft or surprised "oh boy." The news of the church was shared with her...births and deaths and bean suppers and worship. Then her pastor opened the little case with the bread and cup. "Myrtie, this is the body and blood of Jesus Christ given for you." And Myrtie said, "Oh boy," with tears in her eyes. Then there were the goodbyes and a kiss on the cheek. "We’ll see you again, Myrtie." And Myrtie said, "Oh boy." It was after this visit that the professor learned that Myrtie had suffered a stroke which allowed her only two sounds. OH, BOY! But oh, the things Myrtie could say with those two words! A long time ago Jesus said a lot with only a cup and a piece of bread. After the Passover meal with his disciples he took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them saying, "Take, eat. For this is my body given for you." Then he took the cup and blessed it and said, "Take, drink. For this is my blood of the new covenant given for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins." And then he said, "Do this in remembrance of me." 2000 years later and Christians are still taking the bread and cup. We are still remembering Jesus. We are still worshipping God. OH, BOY! |
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05/06/01 - Worship Is: Remembering (Part II)
