for jean.

I'm teaching about worship at a retreat coming up in October. Here's my rough draft. Be gentle.

At least once a week, we gather. Some goofy lookin’ guy plays guitar and sings in a microphone so the shy kid in the back won’t have to actually make a sound. The songs always start upbeat, less thought provoking. The lyrics aren’t usually quite as clever to these quicker songs. “We praise you for always and ever,” being the general gist. Then, there’s that one song. It’s that transition song. Most of the time it’s a moderately upbeat song with a catchy chorus. Goofy Guitar Man will play the song through straight-up once, and then the inevitable happens. The song should be over, the last chorus sung, the last chord ringing in the ears of the crowd. Yet, for some reason, Goofy Guitar Man keeps playing, only slower than before. Then he says something to the effect of, “I want you to just think about the words to this song,” right before he drags the whole crowd through a painfully slower rendition of what was once a decently poppy song.

And somehow, it seems that this experience or one similar has come to define what worship is. We judge our worship experiences based on how well the music was performed and whether or not we got goosebumps. For some strange reason, the quality of our worship isn’t based on the quality of the One being worshipped, but on our own responses to it. People ask how worship was, and we respond with varying degrees of how much we “felt” it.

So what is worship anyway? I mean, what is it really? Maybe the easiest place to start is to clarify what worship is not. Worship is not a musical style. In fact, music as a medium does not even scratch the surface of what worship truly is. If worship were simply singing songs and doing dances, then every loser in a karaoke bar would be a saint.

Secondly, worship is not defined by a place. Once, Jesus asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. She asked him a question about where the worship was best. Jesus told her that the place of worship is irrelevant compared to its genuine nature.

Third, worship is not an over-charged emotional adrenalin rush. It cannot be measured in buckets of tears or squishy, smelly bear hugs at the altar. Because of this, worship is not a competitive sport where one scores points by raising hands or singing harmony. It is not, contrary to popular belief, driven by what we “get out of it.”
This weekend, we are going to discuss three ideas of worship that I believe are essential to its understanding. The first is this: Worship is entrance into sacred space. In the Old Testament, God instructed Moses to build him a tabernacle. This was the place where God would meet with Moses to guide the people. Later, it was the basis for the Temple. In this layout, there were a series of rooms divided from one another. The central room was known as the Most Holy Place. This was the place where God dwelled amongst the people. God even had Moses build him a throne known as the Ark of the Covenant.

When people went to worship, they went to the Tabernacle or the Temple. They went to the place where God dwelt amongst his people. Worship was an act of gratitude and meditation in which they went to the very place that God lived.

When Jesus was crucified, Matthew 27 describes how the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Hebrews 9.11-14 and 10.19-25 tell us that Christ has completed a new covenant, allowing us through his sacrifice to enter the presence of God on a spiritual realm. Any time we worship, our hearts and our spirits are taken into the very presence of God. As we enter his house, we consider his faithfulness and his goodness to us.

Worship is an experience of individuals in a community. I remember sitting in a worship service when I was in high school. It was a well-put together service. The band was on; the atmosphere was prime. As we moved into the more intimate tunes, I closed my eyes and began to focus on what God wanted me to hear. I pushed away all of the distractions of the people around me, what I was going to do later, what happened at school. I did everything I could to find out what it was that God wanted to say to me. I was in a world all of my own. And then God spoke. He told me to look around. I protested. I said, “God, this is our time. You and me. I don’t want to look around. I just spent a lot of energy forgetting that those people were there so I could focus on you.” But God insisted that I look around the room. So, I slowly peeked my eyes open and looked around. I saw the most beautiful thing in the world. It was an entire room of people engaging the same God that I was seeking to engage. We were one. We stood not as a bunch of islands, but as a body. When we worship, it is our common celebration of what God has done for us as his people. His promises, his blessings, his goodness falls on us as a group. And because of the unity we have as God’s church, each one of us is equal. We all came to the point we are at because of what HE did, not what we have done. We stand as a body of equals. None greater. None lesser. And we celebrate the faithfulness of God that gives us grace and life abundant.

Worship is war. The book of Revelation is typically characterized by its incredible amounts of violence. Whether it is the four horsemen killing one third of the human population or giant locusts torturing men without ending for months at a time. Famine, war, disease and death seem to strike without mercy over and over again. But somewhere in each series of injustice and violence, there is a pause. While these horrible things continue to happen on earth, we get small glimpses of heaven. Even though it seems to be hell on earth, in each of the heavenly scenes, God is glorified (i.e. Rev. 7).

I think what the book is trying to teach us is that worship is an act of war. We see the horrible disasters of the world around us, and we mourn. We draw near to God, knowing that through Christ’s sacrifice we can enter God’s very presence. By doing so, we say to God, “I know that life sucks on earth, but wherever you are, God, it is good. You are faithful. You are true to your word.” It is through worship that we ask God to make our realm and his realm one place. We ask God to make our world the same as his place in order to redeem the world. “God come and bring salvation to the whole world! We want the end of death, the end of disease, of pain, of injustice! God come and be in this place!”

Worship is not about what we can receive, but it’s all about what God has given us. It’s not about whom we are with specifically, but it’s about our community. It’s not about a place or a time, but it’s all about being in the very presence of God. Worship is a way of life that lives in the midst of God’s kingdom here on earth.