Revelation and Response

Worship happens when a creature responds appropriately to his Creator’s revelation. God interacts with His creatures, and we have the privilege of engaging Him back. He is always revealing Himself to us in every aspect of our lives, and so whatever we do is a response to Him. Many times, we do not respond appropriately, and this is not worship. It is sin. In fact, a great way to describe sin is that it’s the times when we fail to worship God. Sometimes we defy Him, responding incorrectly or half-heartedly. Sometimes we ignore him. When we choose to respond to something other than God, such as our own desires and fears, or the pressures of the world, this is called idolatry. We’re responding to the creation instead of the Creator, and the Bible is pretty clear that God hates this, because it hurts Him and us. St. Iraneus said, “The glory of God is Man fully alive.” A life is full when it is filled with worship.

Corporate worship is a community celebration of God’s character and works. God’s character and works are a revelation of Himself to us, and our celebration, whether in sorrow or in joy or any other sentiment, depends upon what is the appropriate response to the given revelation(s). When we are reminded of His glory, we fall down and praise Him for such majesty. When we are reminded of our sin, we weep in sorrowful mourning for our own failures. When we are reminded of His redemptive grace, we joyfully adore His goodness and accept it with glad hearts. When we are reminded of His wrath, we stand in solemn awe at His just action. When we are reminded of His heart for the Nations, we reach out to them with loving-kindness. When we are reminded of His long-suffering humility, we love our neighbors as ourselves.

The Bible’s first* mention of a word we translate as “worship” can be found in Genesis 22. God has already revealed to Man that sin will require a blood sacrifice, but now he reveals that the sacrifice required will be the blood of Abraham’s precious son of promise, Isaac. Abraham sets off to respond with the appropriate amount of sorrow and obedience, and tells his servants that he and the boy will go up on the mountain to worship. As Abraham is in the midst of his appropriate response, God then reveals that he has provided a way out for Abraham (and Isaac!) by allowing a ram to take the place of the child. Abraham again responds appropriately by accepting the grace and building a monument to God’s provision with stones and with his very life.

My intent in this essay is only to show that "worship" can be reduced to a universal definition by examining it before it acquired its historical accessories, and that this definition in whole is an appropriate holistic response to divine revelation. It is incumbent upon me at this point to observe that this is concrete and universal, not abstract and esoteric. Abraham's response was (rightly) rooted in his embodiment. Not only the consent of the mind and the will of the heart, but also the conformity of action was in play here. (One could mention in great detail the wholeness of response demanded by the "Great Shema" of Deuteronomy 6). I mention this because, as my friend Seth has said, "Even a universal definition of human worship is historically-rooted. It could not be otherwise." Furthermore, worship is not a matter of understanding the the principles; it's a matter of living the life. We might otherwise be guilty of arrogant gnosticism or ignorant emotionalism.

There are many more instances of this interplay between divine revelation and holistic response in the Genesis 22 passage, but we get the idea. No band, no mood lighting, no clergy, no special time of the week. Just revelation and response – the give and take, give and take of a relationship with the Almighty God. I hope it is obvious that my intent is to show here that in the case of Abraham's worship on that day, other more familiar (to us) elements of worship were not necessary. However, much revelation compounds over time, and God has since revealed many other truths that obligate the modern worshiper to more specific concrete responses. For example, God's revelation through the book of Levitical law bound the nation of Israel to further specifics of response that were both concrete and non-negotiable. I hope to show over the course of a few essays that we as the 21st century church have both new demands imposed upon us by God's progressive revelation and some old demands completely fulfilled (never revoked!).

* One may mention that Job, and not Genesis, is the most ancient Scriptural text. Although the vocabulary of Job does not include a word we would translate as "worship," surely Job's appropriate responses to his unimaginable loss were indeed counted as worship. Likewise, when the wretch finally reaches his breaking point and questions the Almighty, the Accused spends the next couple dozen chapters vindicating Himself and judging the iniquity of Job's inappropriate response (his sin).

Worship: Foundational Principles and Fundamental Elements

Please begin this blog by watching the most recent VID_CAST. You can find it on the right hand side of the page there. It's the topmost one.

Let's cut right to the chase. I'd like to begin a conversation about corporate worship and I hope it will be very provocative. I will submit for your review two foundational principles of Christian corporate worship and then offer a few fundamental elements which spring from these. Feel free to accept, amend or reject these thoughts. I want to lay a good foundation for what's next.

Foundational Principles

Foundational Principle #1 - Revelation and Response
Worship is first and foremost the creature's response to his Creator.

Foundational Principle #2 - Corporate Celebration
Corporate worship is a communal activity that celebrates God's character and gracious acts toward mankind.

Fundamental Elements

Fundamental Element #1 - Theological Accuracy
Worship must remain faithful to Scriptural revelation and must not be vague or misleading

Fundamental Element #2 - Proper Sentiment
Worship ought to be engaged by one's whole self: heart, soul, mind, and strength in Spirit and in Truth

Fundamental Element #3 - Transcendent Relevance
Corporate worship must be universal enough to be accessible to all worshipers from every tribe and time.

Fundamental Element #4 - Creative Excellence
Corporate worship of the Creator by creative beings must reflect an attitude of the first fruits.

Have I left anything out? Did I say something heretical or silly? What do you think?

The Cosmic Sweepstakes

One of you has asked me, "If many are called, but few are chosen, then how do I know I'm saved?" Eternal insecurity is a scary thought, and the short answer is this: If you are worried about it, you're probably ok. Since the short answer still leaves room for wiggle, (which is not very secure), I'll give a long response as well.

The passage referred to is from Matthew, 22. It's a pretty haunting parable that many people probably are not aware of. Basically, a king hosts a wedding party and invites a whole bunch of people who it explicitly says do not deserve to be there. During the banquet, the king notices a man among the crowd who is dressed in rags and says to him, why aren't you in wedding clothes? He tells the guards to tie him up and throw him out, then he says, "Many are invited, but few are chosen." It seems pretty harsh upon first glance until you interpret it in light of the whole of scripture.

Elsewhere, we see that we are not merely guests at the wedding, but we are the bride. We are an unworthy bride, but He cleanses us by His blood and baptism and clothes us with his own righteousness. Remembering this, imagine that at the door of the Kingdom that day, the filthy beggar was offered a bath and some clean clothes to wear inside to honor the King, but the beggar refused, stating that he was good enough for the court without it. He was then rejected not because he had no righteousness of his own, but because he rejected the righteousness offered to him.

We are chosen when we are found worthy, just as you choose the cupcake with the most icing on it. This happens after we accept His provision for us. Yahweh does not choose arbitrarily, that is a fact of his character. (Allah is the finicky one). He must therefore choose based on merit. Since we have none, the merit is extrinsic, namely, acceptance of the provision of God. The whole of scripture testifies to the fact that men are found righteous always only when they accept the provision of God.

In our culture, we have two big hurdles to overcome in seeing the truth of this passage:

1.) We hear "Many are called, few are chosen," and we think "Many will enter, few will win." They are similar, but there are some fundamental differences that keep salvation from being a cosmic sweepstakes. First, in the parable, the invitation is opened by the King, whereas in the lottery, the beggar pays for the opportunity. Salvation is initiated by God, not by the sinner. Second, "few will win" suggests that favor will be shown by luck of the draw. "Few are chosen" goes a bit deeper than that. It suggests that there is some sort of fixed standard by which one can be favored. This standard is righteousness. In the sweepstakes, one is forced to guess what the winning numbers are, whereas in the salvation, one is allowed to ask the benefactor the right numbers and input them. One is a gamble, and the other is a sure bet. Eternally speaking, betting against the house cannot win.

2.) We sympathize with the beggar and his desire to "be accepted for who he is." After all, he can't help it, and it's probably the King's tyranny that keeps him from being able to buy good clothes in the first place. There is a romantic modern concept that suggest that people are products of their nature and nurture, and that they simply cannot help the way they are, and if you can't love them without expecting their effort to change, then you are simply a cruel, intolerant monster. That means old King should have looked at the beggar and said, "I'm no better than you, let's just all get along. I'm sorry my feudal system has been rough on you." But we forget that parables are analogies. The beggar isn't just a beggar: he is a willful sinner. And the clothes aren't just clothes: they are righteousness. In that case, the King IS by DEFINITION better than the beggar, and has every right to reject the beggar who has no desire to be clothed in a manner that honors the atmosphere of the occasion, especially when he had ample opportunity to do so. The reality is, the beggar was too proud to accept the charity of the King, and therefore did not belong in the presence of the King.

This is why I say if you're concerned about it, you're probably ok. The "probably" is not a mater of chance. It's a matter of your willingness to accept the invitation of grace in the form of clothing yourself with Christ's righteousness and thereby being worthy to be chosen to share in His eternal riches as not just a guest, but as joint-heir to the Kingdom. That's a very secure eternal position.

The False Dichotomy of Faith vs. Secularism

I've been thinking about what I believe might be a false dichotomy between "people of faith" and secularists. It seems to me that secularism is a fervently held religious belief as well. The rock-bottom assumption that the cosmos is all there is, was, or ever will be, is as unprovable as the assumption that it isn't. It seems like a matter of faith to hold to one or the other and a matter of reason to live all aspects of one's life as though that fact were reality. In fact, it would be insane not to. The problem is, these realities are mutually exclusive in a logical sense, and therefore cause conflict between parties with similar vested interests, for example those with a shared political system. I therefore believe that pure secularism would be only another form of religious oppression. That's not very American either. It seems as though we must all vote in accordance with our faith and our reason and live under the majority's opinion for any given four-year period of time.

I think it might be helpful to eliminate a few words from our vocabulary for the sake of communication, if that makes sense. We've got a lot of connotations and stigmas floating around and I don't want anyone to lose an eye.

Everyone operates out of a system of rock-bottom assumptions. No one operates apart from his own primary assumptions. He places a great deal trust in the reality of these assumptions, and acts accordingly. No man acts apart from his assumptions. For example, some men believe that others have no right to assert their own beliefs upon others. That's not a verifiable unalienable right aside from his assumption that it is. If I operate out of the assumption that we are products of evolution (also unverifiable), then I will believe that might is right, and that we have a moral imperative to the survival of the fittest. So I have every right to impose my assumptions upon you as long as I'm more fit than you to do so.

This is why America is founded upon unalienable rights endowed by a creator, because the rights must come from some authority. The Fathers believed this to be self-evident, which means what? That it was a rock-bottom, unverifiable assumption. If you choose to take that authority away because of your rock-bottom assumption that it is foolish to believe in God, then that's fine, but you'll have a hard time establishing justification for your assumption that all men are equal and have certain rights. In fact, it will be impossible without imposing another authority, which is exactly what we hope to avoid by removing God from the position. Without some sort of authority, we cannot even say that we are free from one another's tyranny. Even the belief that we should all let one another be is a rock-bottom assumption that is imposed on other people who assume that they don't have to. That's why we have jails.