Worship

My big question is; what is worship? For some it is a specific time, a specific place and following a specific pattern. For others, it is the entirety of life, everything that a person does can be considered worship. As we were discussing it, the general consensus was that anything which glorifies God is worship.

If we have such a simplistic idea of what worship is, then why does worship become such a hot-button topic?

Within Christianity, Protestantism, Lutheranism, LC-C Lutheranism, heck even within Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, there is a great divide over what worship should look like. Our biggest concern is about what we want, not necessarily a concern for why we do what we do.

What if we did make the why our starting point? What would be the answer to the question “Why do we worship God?”

My favourite answer to that question was “Because he said so.” Mostly because that is so often our default answer to any why question is because I/he/she/you said so! We accept whatever it is without argument and it becomes canon law.

In this case we can dig a little deeper and look at what God actually says about worship.

Specifically I would like to look at what he commands us concerning worship.

It goes beyond just you shall not worship any other gods, which I know is the commandment you thought of first, because it’s also the commandment that I thought of first too! But we can see how all of the first three commandments really deal with how we worship God. Beyond just not worshiping other gods, we’re reminded that in the first commandment we are called to fear, love and trust Him. Worshiping God includes all of these elements, not just avoiding other gods. It includes the way we treat Him in our everyday lives, the way we keep from using His name in an inappropriate manner and instead we “call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise and give thanks.” We worship God through the respect we have for the Sabbath day; the fact that we want to take the opportunity gladly hear and learn from God’s word.

These three commandments really do make up the core of what worship is. When God commanded us to do these things, he did so knowing that it was in our best interest to worship Him, and Him only. These commandments point us towards a knowledge of his greatness and our weakness; they remind us of the power held in his name. When we gather together in worship, often we do so without remembering God at all. We do the same thing we’ve done every Sunday, sit in the same spot, speak the same words, make the same confession, but we do without remembering why we were commanded to do so. We don’t think of the fact that we desire to hear His teachings, that we have the opportunity to give thanks and praise Him, but we worship out of obligation, because He said so.

One of my favourite worship songs is by Matt Redman, and it’s called “The Heart of Worship.” I like it because it speaks to me about this very same issue. It reminds us that at the core of our worship, we need to ensure that everything is about Christ. This goes beyond us confessing faith in Jesus and instead involves us actually believing that and putting it into play. When we worship, we need to take ourselves out of our comfort zone and worship God without concern over what we’re getting. We will be receiving infinitely more than we could ever possibly bring, but we aren’t there to worship ourselves. We are there to be humbled and to be reminded of the sacrifice that Christ made in order to provide us with all that we have, all that we are, and all that we will ever receive. When we worship, we worship God, knowing that it's not about us anymore, it's about what we've been through Christ.

Vines, vines everywhere are vines

I’ve made the confession before and I will likely make it several more times throughout the course of my life…I am a failure at plant care. To say I have a black thumb is putting it lightly. If a plant lasts a month in my care it is akin to a miracle.

As useless as I am with plants, they continually amaze me. What amazes me the most is how they manage to subside using what we as humans consider to be absolute rubbish…quite literally I might add! A plant lives in the dirt; something that we avoid like the plague, lest we end up with a speck upon ourselves. Beyond that, a plant is happiest when covered in poo and the decomposed remains of our supper last night. In essence, a plant uses what we avoid.

But then, the plant produces amazing things that we want desperately. As I’m typing this out, I’m looking at a lovely bouquet of flowers that was the result of a plant growing in our waste. The food that we eat is produced from the leftovers that we couldn’t use. A plant comes from humble beginnings but becomes quite important.

In particular, as you’ve likely guessed by the title, I want to point out the vine. It plays a very important role as it helps to produce one of the most delicious beverages known to man (and woman!) kind.

The vine also plays a large role in several biblical accounts. In the Old Testament the vine is used to describe God’s own chosen people.

In Genesis we see that Joseph is described as a good and fruitful vine. The faithful nature with which Joseph served God provided the roots for a continually growing vine. We see the vine growing throughout the Old Testament as more and more people are added in, as the lineage develops further, until, just like the plant, the vine of Israel is widespread and what started out as the beginning of a living bough had developed into a large, powerful vine.

As we know from the various stories of the Old testament, this vine wasn’t necessarily as effective as it could have been. Jeremiah points out the way in which this vine that had been planted from the hardiest of seeds, that God’s chosen people, whose good and perfect beginning was described in the book of Genesis, very quickly morphed into the wild and degenerate vine that was being threatened. God’s people no longer represented the perfection in which they had been created, but they had grown their way, did not produce good fruit and were no longer the good vine that God had intended them to be.

This is the situation that we’re faced with when we look at the account of the True Vine as described in John 15. Going back to what we know about the analogy of the vine, we are aware that the vine is representative of God’s chosen people. Much like we would describe a family tree, the lineage of the Israelites is portrayed by the imagery of the vine. We are aware that the vine was corrupt and wild, not producing good fruit. In John 15 we see a comparison between the corrupt vine, and the true vine, that is the vine that is Jesus Christ.

In this passage we are reminded of our need to be connected to the true vine. As we look back on the bible many years later we can see how the Israelites failed. We know that when they were left on their own they turned wild and corrupt. They were unable to maintain the perfection for which they had been created. Lest we think that we are any better than they were, this verse reminds us of our need to be connected to the true vine, in order that we would also be able to produce good fruit. Like the Israelites, when left untended we are wont to turn corrupt and wild as well. We depend on Christ to provide us with the goodness we need, we depend on God the father to remove the sin and all bad things from us in order to allow us to grow. We are dependent upon God to provide for our needs, to feed us and to keep us healthy.

As we read through this passage in particular, it’s very clear about the role that God plays in our

development, care and maintenance but what remains a little more vague is what this idea of bearing fruit looks like for us. It goes beyond producing something to eat, obviously, and it isn’t even constrained to bearing fruit in terms of growing the church and increasing the population of believers. When we’re talking about the fruit being produced and how it proves us as Christ’s disciples, it’s helpful to look at Galatians 5:22-23.

It spells out quite clearly that these are the fruits of the spirit. Through the spirit’s work in us, as Christians connected to the true vine and tended to by God the good gardener we desire to produce these fruits that are encouraged by the work of the Holy Spirit. As a result of being fed by Christ and tended to by God we are able to produce these fruits that have been laid out in this passage. This is the work for which we were created; the reason we have not been tossed in the fire.

We are not able to create this fruit on our own. We depend on the work of God to turn the rubbish that we’ve been given in life into the fruit that we are called to produce. Just the same as the plant uses the most unusual, and often least desirable items to produce good fruit, God uses us, and the rubbish of our lives to produce good fruit, whose benefits can be seen in what we do, in who we are, and most importantly, in what we believe.

Unity

We’re not talking about small town Saskatchewan.

We’re not talking about peace.

We’re not talking about marriage.

More than anything we’re talking about differences.

Anytime somebody brings up unity it tends to evoke feelings about one of the first three, but very rarely is it associated with differences, unless of course, we’re talking about how to get rid of any differences that we might have.

Throughout the scriptures we see unity being described as the way that we celebrate and utilize our differences. Not that we ignore them and pretend that we’re all the same, but rather that we acknowledge our differences and use them in a beneficial manner.

One of the best examples of this is found in Ephesians 4:1-16

In the beginning of this passage we see unity described in a manner to which we are accustomed: one body; one spirit; one Lord; one faith; one baptism; one God. And that is definitely the root of our understanding of unity. We believe that we all put our faith in the same God who is Lord over all. We confess weekly that we are all connected through one baptism; the baptism that was instituted by Christ and brought to each of us by the Holy Spirit. But what makes unity so unique is what happens next.

Verses 11 and following outline all the ways that we are different. All of the different gifts are laid out and it is pointed out that it is only through the presence of these differences that we can truly see unity.

This idea isn’t limited to just this one passage of scripture, however. Probably the best known example of this is found in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 where we hear the discussion about the body of Christ. We’re made aware that the body doesn’t function when all the parts desire to fulfill the same role.

Just the same, the church doesn’t work when all the members desire to fill the same role.

When we all sit back and want to be served, we see a church that is stagnant and full of complaints, but no solutions.

When we desire to all be a part of evangelism and neglect the necessity of education, we see a church that balloons in size, but then dies because there is no room for growth.

We are all given different things that we are good at. As veggie tales famously points out, “God made you special.” You were created in a way that no one else was. If you were created in a way that is different than everyone else, why would you assume that you were supposed to be doing the same thing as everyone else?

I’m always amazed at people who can use their talents in such amazing ways to serve God. Looking through our music cabinet at the church, there are so many songs that are written by the people in our congregation, and they are dang good songs. There are wooden fixtures throughout the church that express our faith through the intricacies of the church member who created them. There are annual occasions which we enjoy the fruits…err…meats of the hunting endeavors of other members too.

This is unity; the realization that we are all a part of one faith, one baptism, one church, but that we were not all created the same. Through our differences, and as a result of the desire to use these differences to build one another up, we have unity. Not that we are all the same, not because we have skills and abilities that can only be used outside the church but the fact that who we are, what we do is tied to the church and to all those around us. Our unity is not just that hour on Sunday, but it is our whole life, everything that we do, and everything that Christ has done through us.