Psalm 50:1-8,
22-23; Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Luke 12:32-40
Imagine you are
here in worship today, and just as you are
about to put your offering in the plate, even more generously
than usual, I shouted out from this pulpit:
Hear what God says: "You
skinflints and cheapskates! Keep your lousy money! Who asked you to come to my
house with your expensive perfumes? Who needs all this noise you call
"music?" Your prayers make me sick! Your pride makes me nauseous! You
visit me one hour a week and think we’re close? You treat your family
like furniture and call yourself a member of my family? You argue politics over
tax cuts while so many people don’t make enough to pay any taxes because
they don’t make enough to buy groceries, and then you come here to pray
about that new car you’ve been wanting? You curse your co-workers and
bless my name with the same mouth? Get out of my house!"
How you would
feel?
Would you jump up and shout, "Thanks be to
God"?
Well, try to
imagine how the people of
"What to me is the
multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt
offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of
bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked
this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile;
incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and calling of
convocation-- I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons
and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I
am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes
from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are
full of blood" (Isa
1:11-14)
If you said
"Isaiah, I’m doing the best I can!"? He would say, "No, you’re not." If you said, "Isaiah, I’m here
because God told me to be here!"? He would say, "That’s not all
God told you to do." If you said, "I worship because the scripture
requires it!"? He would say, "Your worship is an empty exercise in
self-promotion.
In
Why is this lack
of congruence such a serious charge? Because it is widespread
and dangerous. This lack of
congruence in our public discourse creates a credibility gap, and credibility
gaps lead people to disconnect. Students disconnect from teachers and refuse to
learn. Parishioners disconnect from preachers and refuse to attend. Citizens
disconnect from politicians and refuse to vote.
There was a time when people assumed there was mostly congruence
between what leaders said and what they would do. People didn’t
disconnect unless there was a serious breach of trust. You know: "Fool
me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me." But the breach of
social trust in our day has been so frequent and so severe, people assume
incongruence and disconnect before there is even any reason to. They
don’t give you a chance to fool them once. Instead, you have to convince
them to connect in the first place. You have to earn their trust. You have to
demonstrate your reliability with a long obedience in the same direction. Only
then will they buy in and participate.
A
lack of congruence; that was Isaiah’s complaint. They worshipped the God of Israel as the people of
Well, Isaiah
reminds us, God never needed our worship
in the first place. God doesn’t need anything from us I suppose. I mean,
God is complete and entire. What do we have that can add to the Eternal
Almighty Sovereign of all creation? Obviously, worship is something we
need. We need the time with God. We need the reconnection with
God’s presence. We need the beloved community where we have a
place and a purpose and a context of support for striving with the challenges
of our time. We need the experience of transcending ourselves, of being
lifted beyond our little lives and narrow self-focus to the greatness and
magnificence of the infinite God and to the vision God has of our world …
both what it is and what it could be. Because most of the time our circle of
care isn’t much bigger than ourselves, maybe our family, too, and maybe a
few others. But God sees everybody, the whole system, the whole society, the
whole world, and says, "Do you see what I see?" We look at the
inhumanity of the world and say, "God, why don’t you do something
about that?" In worship, God replies, "Why don’t you?" Who
needs worship? I do. You do. We all do.
But I want to
argue with Isaiah a bit here. I want to
say we need worship precisely because our lives are not congruent with
God’s best hopes for us. We come here week after week after week to be
reminded, we come month after month, year after year, to remember the image and
model and calling of the one who gave us life. Writes Mary Collins:
To be human is to be threatened
with spiritual amnesia. At the level of our spiritual identity we do not remember
for long who we really are. Those ultimate relationships that give us our
spiritual identity slip from consciousness all too easily, and we lapse into
non-comprehension about our deepest identity. Corporate public ritual brings us
together to participate actively in relationships that identify us spiritually.
For it is in our faith and our experience that the mystery of Christ is always
present. But it is equally our experience that we are inattentive to the truth
of our origins and our destiny. We forget who we are, where we came from, where
we are headed. The self-engaging activity of our liturgy not only causes us to
remember who we are; it invites us to commit ourselves to a life congruent with
our identity.
"Congruent!"
There’s that word again. True
worship makes us feel the distance between our ideals and our reality.
Isaiah’s complaint was for a people whose worship had become all
self-congratulation and no self-examination. But if your worship is going to
push you towards fulfillment, then you must first choose to worship in a
context with a true God and worthy ideals.
I have recently
begun the task of writing my thesis so
that I can receive my Masters degree in Divinity next spring. To say that I am daunted by the task would be
a masterpiece of understatement. Part of
my work involves an understanding of an important and influential German
systematic theologian named Jurgen Moltmann. In
planning my strategy I realized that it was important for me to know about this
man’s life experience before delving into his theology… in other words to make sure that his
life was congruent with his beliefs. I
learned that he was drafted into the German army at age 17 at the height of WW
II and witnessed his best friend’s death after being struck by a bomb. He
was forever changed by that event. His
friend was literally blown to bits right before his eyes, and he has never
stopped asking God the question, why him and not me? Moltmann discovered
the liberating power of Jesus Christ while imprisoned in a POW camp after being
given a Bible by a British chaplain.
He writes with
deep anguish about the unspeakable horrors
perpetrated on the helpless by his homeland.
He doesn’t flinch, or make excuses, but rather speaks truth and
begs forgiveness. Of particular torment
to him is the realization that the country he was laying down his life for was
the same country that convened a meeting on January 20, 1942, and gathered
eleven leaders, eight of whom had doctoral degrees from German universities, to
solve a problem. They had already slaughtered 500,000 Jews in the part of
Can you imagine
being a part of that God forsaken
gathering and then going out to live in congruence with its values in a
conspiracy of such malevolence, a malicious communion of Hell’s agents?
How could something like that ever happen? Yet we saw how step by step the most
civilized and advanced nation of that day (a Christian nation) slid into
indescribable barbarity because of the evil that lies within all people and the
fear that leads the goodness in all people to keep silent.
Moltmann’s early life was replete with one devastating event after the next, and
yet his best known work is entitled The Theology of Hope. Hope?
Devastation and hope? What a contrast! How can one possibly be hopeful in the face
of utter despair? That’s
impossibly incongruent. But nothing is
impossible for God, and through the grace of God, the love of Christ, and the
power of the Holy Spirit, Moltmann was able to choose
hope. He dedicated his life to learning
to live, and to help others live, in congruence and in communion, with a life
that privileged the healing hope of salvation.
Each of our lives
require the same choice…will we be
filled with despair or will we be filled with hope? I beseech you to choose carefully. Choose
wisely. Make the choice which defines the person you want to be, the place you
want to go, the people you want to become. Because the
choice you make will push you, encourage you, perhaps even require you to live
congruent with its core values and purpose. And when you have chosen well, then
strive to fulfill what the choice has promised.
Why do we come to
worship when we know we don’t always
live by our deepest values when we are away from this place. Because
we want to. We long to. We need to. Here we remember we are God’s
children. Here we realize we were created in the image of God and are called to
conform to the image of Christ, to be led, step by step, with the steady
steering winds of the Spirit. Here we remember who we are and want to be and
can be, God be our help and guide. Here we receive grace and join the beloved
community of the people of God. I need
it. You need it. We all need it, to be whole.
The purpose of worship is to call us back, to lead us forward, to lift us beyond. The purpose of worship is to show us what
we lack, how much we’ve fallen short, how far we have to go before we
will be mature, congruent in word and deed, thought and action, perception and
reality. But the purpose of worship also is to remind us God is with us and
among us and for us so that with God’s help, we can do it.
Let us go out
from here and live in hope, in Jesus name…day
by day and step by step, by the mercy of the mighty God.
May we pray?
Thank you, O God, for inviting us to share your grace and join ourselves for the good to you and to one another. Now, oh Lord, spiritually nourish us, and in all our relationships encourage us to live by the core values of grace, joy and peace, of righteousness, justice, and humility, of faith, hope, and love. In Jesus’ name. Amen
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa