Off the Beaten Path

I have been continuing the discussion about Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes which I will begin again next week. But, I have been asked by a few people to put a couple of articles that I have written lately into my blog. The first one is about worship and the next one is about a life of service.

Worship.

There are all sorts of feelings associated with the word. If I would send out a questionnaire regarding what ‘worship’ is, I’m sure I would be bombarded with a slew of understandings of what it is, what it isn’t and what it should be. In the past, I have asked confirmation classes their experience of worship. Usually they lead off with adjectives like ‘boring,’ ‘old,’ ‘meaningless.’ As each voice is raised with their description of how worship has shaped them in the past, I cringe. I have to take it personally, that, as a pastor of the church, we are not raising or children and youth (or ourselves, for that fact) to know the importance of that word put before us.

Worship.

What is it? As the youth have spoken about their own reservations about worship, we must understand how the youth and younger generation have come to comprehend worship. Because many of them see worship as irrelevant in their daily lives, they simply come to put in their time – some of that is because their parents see worship in the same way: worship is the hour we put in at the church, once per week, whether we like it or not, so that we can start the next week with a clean slate. The sins of this week are erased, now we can take the black marker and adjust the check list –

Worship – check. Now we can watch the ballgame we DVR’ed and finally relax for the day.

This is from people who attend worship regularly. What about the sixty percent of those on the Lutheran memberships that attend only once or twice per year? Why is worship avoided like the plague? I think there are a few reasons:

Worship is perceived with a financial cost. I have to pay to get in (that’s how many people view the offering). I have to pay for my own sins – right before communion, I drop my envelope in the offering plate and now I can go receive forgiveness.

1. Irrelevance. If a person is neither entertained nor ‘gotten something out of the sermon’, then worship is a failure. The overarching understanding of culture, in this day, is “what’s in it for me?” If it doesn’t feed my desires or my needs then it ceases to be relevant.

2. Unforgiving – it’s for the good people. Sunday mornings, too many people, scream piety - being good enough. The average person who struggles with addictions, domestic problems, health difficulties doesn’t want to attend a church where everyone seems to ‘have it all together.’ When they do show up, they believe that those who attend judge them for what they look like, what their past appears like and how new the car is that brings them to the church building.

3. Lack of depth. The world longs for an experience of depth. We are given shallow television sitcoms, egocentric advertising and a society that idolizes escapism. Many people long for the answers to life’s greatest questions but are met with ‘just have the faith of a mustard seed.’

Worship.

The real problem? It’s become a noun instead of the verb that it was always intended to be. The word ‘worship’ is used 250 times in our Bible and is never once used with regards as a place. It is never a thing – but it is an action. Worship has become synonymous with a place; we sound more religious if we say ‘I am going to worship,’ rather than, ‘I am going to church.’ Biblical acts of worship are always used from the perspective of humankind doing worship not letting it passively happen in front of their eyes.

This is where we have failed as a Christian body: we are not bringing up ourselves or the next generation to realize that worship is not something done to us, but something we do. And, it is not done for our benefit – it is done for our growth.

This is my definition of worship:

Worship is the art of forgetting who we are and remembering in whose hands we rest.

Maybe all of us can remember a mountaintop worship experience where God seemed more real than the fingerprints on the end of our digits, where the closeness of the Spirit seemed real and intentional where we forgot about who (or where) we are and remembered that there is so much more to life than what is now.

Instead of feeling like we need a vacation from church, we can start to rotate or hearts to taking a vacation from ourselves and offering up all of our fears, sorrows, worries and unfulfilled expectations to remind us that ‘we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For (we) are convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, depth, or anything else can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37b-39)

We worship to remind ourselves of love and life together with the One who supersedes all of life and death. And then we are left in awe.

Worship.


Sometimes when I hear the parable of the Good Samaritan, I start to yawn. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the brilliance of Jesus rhetoric regarding who is supposed to be ‘good’ and who is supposed to be ‘lessthangood’, but the story itself is repeated and played out so many times as a moral template for living in a world of sin, that I have grown stale with it. The parable has lost its glow like the shine on a copper penny that has been through the wash ten too many times.
It had lost its glow, that is, until Pastor Woody made a passing statement during his sermon a few weeks ago. He said, “Often we find our own identity in any one, or all, of the characters of the story.” After he said this, I looked back over the story (ashamedly, I missed part of his sermon because I was thinking about the characters of Jesus’ own narrative) and found one character that is frequently overlooked. Almost all of the attention goes to the Samaritan; a little bit to the priest and the Levite - because they should know better, and if there is any focus left in our attention span we might see through a pinhole the downtrodden man and his foes, the robbers. But, there is one more character of the story: the innkeeper.
As Woody spoke, I was placing myself in the shoes of that innkeeper. Minding his own business (literally), preparing places for weary travelers, he probably was intent on simply making it through the workday and getting home to the children, a meal and maybe a nice, relaxing bit of sleep. Innkeepers don’t like interruptions - I have seen that first hand.
Maybe you have seen innkeepers who are not as impressed with travelers who make extra demands. I have watched innkeepers, or hoteliers, hold back their distaste – as if they swallowed a lemon (rind on) – for a family that asks for a few extra towels.
But here, in this Gospel story, the innkeeper has been given an extra task by a traveler. Imagine the innkeepers distaste as a Samaritan brings in the refuse from the street, a man who has been beaten and bloodied – must be homeless, part of the rabble that can’t get a job. Perhaps the innkeeper would hold up his hands and say, “I’m sorry, but you can’t bring him in here like that. We don’t have the facilities to treat and administer care.” The Samaritan rents a room, ties up the donkey and gives innkeeper the license plate number in case there is any trouble in the room.
Then, inconceivably, the Samaritan stops by the front desk the next morning, drops the key off, and has the gall to say, “Here is some extra money for the man who is still staying in the room. Take care of him. If there are any other expenses, I’ll be back to pay those later.” I imagine that the innkeeper would come around from behind his desk and start his tirade. “What does this look like? A hospital? A clinic? Does it look like I attended medical school? I don’t have time to take care of this guy. Maybe he got what he deserved. Take him some where else. He’ll upset the rest of my patrons.”
Of course, that isn’t what the innkeeper said. Jesus doesn’t tell us what his reaction might have been, but I’ve simply filled in how I probably would have responded. I’d be a priest-like innkeeper or a Levitical hotelier. The sentiments above are my own self-centered reactions to how I have, in the past, reacted when extra responsibilities are put on my plate. I am self-centered, immature, uncaring (should I go on?) but our parablic innkeeper is exactly the opposite. It seems as if he is willing to take on extra responsibilities above and beyond the call of duty.
Often, the Spirit will bring new people into the shadow of the doors of Our Savior’s. Not all of them are healthy (emotionally, spiritually, mentally or physically). They come with needs to be healed; they long for a place of comfort and restoration. We, at Our Savior’s, are called to be the innkeepers. As the Spirit appears with new armload of hurting human souls, are we priest-like innkeepers who through up our hands saying, “I’ve got enough on my plate now (or worse yet, we’ve got enough people in our membership to worry about already)” or are we like the gospel filled innkeeper who seems to accept the next task with hope and faith that the Samaritan will come back and reward the innkeeper for his work.
That’s our call – the call of duty, to take the wretched poor, the homeless, the widow, the orphan, and the spiritually damaged and nurse them back to health. It’s a monumental task –
But only an innkeeper can do it.