Worship Exercise?
Ahhhhh… it’s time to sit back and relax a little while. I was remembering a family trip to Oklahoma City a few years ago. Jean’s cousin, Wayne, was being ordained as an Episcopal priest. I’m not well versed on high church liturgy, worship forms or style. As I was listening to the musicians, cantors, and little kids sitting in front of us, I was also trying to keep up with the continual cycle of kneeling, standing, and sitting. It seemed to me the sitting was too brief and the kneeling was too often. I commented to a friend later that neither my knees nor my attention span was good enough to be an Episcopalian.
I suppose that subject ranks fairly high on my list of "why’s that?" Why can’t a worship exercise be less like exercise and more like worship? Why can’t a church just sit still, know He is God, and worship without exercise, noisiness or hype? Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m no longer talking about cousin Wayne’s Episcopal church. I’m talking about most any evangelical church now.
My chief need, as I perceive it, in coming into worship is obtaining a peace within my soul that seems to only come from a quiet moment where I feel I have been in touch with the Holy. The song says, "He Touched Me." And oh the joy that floods my soul… and then some comic takes an offering, belabors the woes of the budget, extols the virtues of the programs needing support, and (although they would all deny it) try to take the entire congregation on a trip down guilt lane. And this is worship?
We can call it whatever we want. We can wrap it in ritual, tradition and terminology. That’s the great thing about codification. We rename it, reclaim it and think that if we get any positive result we caused it. That reminds me of Jacob, along about the 30th and 31st chapters of Genesis, who places skinned up tree limbs and poles along side the sheep and goats watering and feeding troughs. He initially claims credit for the speckled and spotted and mottled outcome. Later he admits to his wives that it was really the work of God who caused the sheep and goats to produce the color variations.
We say and do a lot of things and call it spiritual or worship or holy or whatever. I think we think we may be fooling someone but we really aren’t fooling some One. Have you seen the television commercial of a young man standing at the pay phone in the waiting room of a hospital? "I want to make a collect call… the first name is Bob…. the last name is Wehaveababyitsaboy."
And so I get back to where I started, "Thank you Lord that you love me even with all my religious quirks and hypocrisy. Thank you for rest and peace. Thank you for the joy and gentleness I feel when your Presence comes into my presence. I’m not sure I’m wired for much of your touch at one time. I would appreciate a continual revelation of your Self in small regular doses such as right now. Thank you, Lord."
Let me just close my eyes and sit here for a moment longer, Lord.