Worshiping at St. Relevant of the Contemporary

Your Growtivation for the Day

In the closing chapter of his highly enjoyable For Our Salvation, Geoffrey Wainwright pauses to reflect upon the usefulness of the munus triplex (Christ’s “threefold office” of Prophet, Priest, and King) for today’s church:

“First, the reference of prophet, priest, and king should have some relevance to the human condition.  While the ‘cult of relevance’ is deplorable, it would be a betrayal to think that the gospel were irrelevant to human needs and possibilities, properly understood.”

There is a world of meaning implied in the phrase, “properly understood.”  There is the rub.  The ‘cult of relevance’ operates on the assumption that people’s needs felt needs should determine both the medium and the message (for they are not really as separable as many adherents to the cult would claim).  Church, worship, faith, and worst of all, Jesus, thereby become means to all kinds of ends that have little to nothing to do with the gospel.  Warm feelings are felt, children are entertained, and all can go home satisfied that they have had some kind of meaningful “experience” (which is not really meaningful at all, because in fact they have merely imbibed a product that was marketed, designed, and sold to produce that very effect).  This runs utterly counter to the first principle of Christian discipleship, which tells us that our needs are not needs at all: denial of self.

As Wainwright points out, this “cult” (and it is not too strong a term) really is deplorable.  And yet, as is so often the case, there is a nugget of truth in the lie.  The gospel is by no means irrelevant to our real needs: to our brokenness, our alienation from self and other, our need for meaning and value and worship.  To really address those things, we must stay focused on the One who really is the answer to every question, the solution to every problem: Jesus.  If you seek Christ, the rest will work itself out. As C.S. Lewis said, “Aim at heaven and you’ll get earth thrown in.  Aim at earth and you’ll get neither.”

P.S. Watch the video above, but be warned: you may not be able to look at your worship service the same afterwards.

P.P.S. For a better, more thoughtful argument similar to what I have made above – and a theology of worship that goes deeper than “whatever works” – check out Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down by Marva Dawn.

A Prayer to Remember the Last Supper

Artist’s rendering of a triclinium, the table Jesus and his disciples would have used to celebrate the Passover Seder. Da Vinci was way off.

I wrote the following prayer to open the service today, as we began a series based on Adam Hamilton’s 24 Hours That Changed the World:

Gracious God,
Who fills our plates with good food
and our cups to overflowing:

We thank you that your Son eats with sinners, even those like Peter
who deny him
and like Thomas
who doubt him
and like Judas
who betray him.

We thank you that Jesus still prepares a feast for people like us.
Help us to take our place at his table now,
that we may feast at the great banquet to come. Amen.

It also occurred to me (and I’m probably not the first to notice this, though I haven’t heard it before myself) that this event recorded in the gospels is misnamed.  If it were actually the “last” supper, then we would not be worshiping Jesus as the Christ and the Second Person of the Trinity.  Jesus conquered death and went on eating and drinking; in fact, the disciples didn’t recognize him until he broke the bread (Emmaus).

We look forward to what John the Revelator calls “the marriage supper of the lamb,” in which the bride of Christ shall rejoice to see her savior face-to-face in unbroken communion in that Kingdom which is breaking in even now.  Amen.

“Only God is Great”: A Homily for Election Day Communion

“Only God is Great”

Romans 13:1-10 & Psalm 146

Courtesy http://electiondaycommunion.org

Louis XIV was one of the greatest kings that the world has ever known.  He sat on the French throne for over 70 years and is still famous today for solidifying the power of the monarchy and claiming  Divine Right of rule.  He was called the Sun King, and he was called Louis the Great.  In 1699 he called a priest named Jean-Baptiste Massillon to be his personal chaplain.  When Louis died in 1715, he had left meticulous instructions with Massillon about has lavish funeral.  He wanted a dramatic affair worthy of such a great king of France.   He was to lie in state in a golden casket at the Notre Dame cathedral so that his subjects could come and pay their respects to him.  The funeral was to be lit by a lone candle in the vast cathedral, for dramatic effect.  Father Massillon carried out Louis’ instructions to a ‘t’, but when it came time to deliver the funeral sermon he added his own touch.  As he began his sermon he went to the candle that stood over the King’s casket and snuffed it out, saying, “Only God is great.” (1)

We gather tonight in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the election eve to tell the world, “only God is great.”  Whomever we elect, whomever sits in the Oval Office, real power and hope and authority resides in Jesus.  Best of all, we don’t vote for him, we don’t have to elect him, he is already the one who is Elect, the One called by the Father in the strength of the Spirit to be our King and Lord and Master, to save us and to redeem the world.  His Kingdom has come, is here, and is coming.  We get to the live into that reality, remembering that the gospel means that Jesus resides not just in our hearts, but in our homes and places of work and in our neighborhoods.

We gather tonight as a sign of unity in the world divided; the talking heads say that this is the most divided campaign season in decades.  It could be a long time before we know who the next President will be.  We have spent recent days and weeks being bombarded with phone calls and fliers and commercials.  Some of us have gotten into arguments with friends and family about who to vote for; others of us have dodged those conversations like the plague.  I’m a preacher and I find politics interesting, which means I can never have a polite conversation anywhere I go!

Where do we put our real trust and hope?  Christians are called to remember that Jesus does not want to be a part of our lives, but the center.  Jesus is not one ruler among other rulers, the “spiritual” authority alongside other authorities, he is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  If we believe the hype, our hope and security and future rest in a candidate, not on God.  How many ads have you seen whose purpose is to frighten you into putting your hope into one of the candidates?  If we take the advertising at its word, everything is up to the next President: your health care, your jobs, your personal safety, your gym membership, your tomato patch, and whether or not you will have to replace your spark plugs this year.  If we believe the practical atheism of the election season, it’s all up to the President.

The Bible has some different thoughts about this.  I thought of Louis XIV’s funeral story when I read the opening of Psalm 146: ^“Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.” Human authorities have their purpose and their role, but don’t put your trust there.  Trust God.  Romans 13 is one of the clearest statements in the Bible about the purposes of worldly power, reminding us that our rulers (when they are doing their God-given work) are instruments of God to maintain peace and order.  Paul says to be subject to the state because it is God’s servant, and give what is due (whether taxes or honor or respect) to all.  Above all, give love, because love does not wrong a neighbor.

And love is in short supply these days.  We don’t know how to disagree without being disagreeable, we get so wrapped up in holding the right position that we forget that being a Christian says something about HOW we hold our positions.  John Danforth, a longtime US Senator who is also an Episcopal priest, writes “The problem is not that Christians are conservative or liberal, but that some are so confident that their position is God’s position that they become dismissive and intolerant toward others and divisive forces in our national life.” (2)  As Jesus followers we are called to a different way: the way of peace, the way of reconciliation, the way of unity and love.  We go to the Table tonight to remember the things that bring us together, the things that cannot be won or lost by a vote, the things that are God’s good gift to His children: faith, hope, and love.

Today, like many of you, I voted.  Before I voted, I went to the bank.  As I drove from my branch to the Presbyterian church where I vote, I thought, “this is where the world says all the power is.”  The world says that power is found in the dollar, in bank accounts and hedge funds; that peace and wholeness and hope can be voted in or out of office.  As Christians, we are called to say a defiant “no” to a world that has forgotten the truth.  Jesus is Lord.  To be a Christian is to cast your vote not for a President or Governor, but for a Savior, Lord, and Master.  It is a vote for the poor, for the oppressed, for the prisoner and widow; to vote for Jesus is to vote for all of those the world would rather forget.  Politicians go on and on about who will represent the middle class; Jesus says to remember “the least of these.”  Politicians say, “peace through strength,” Jesus reigns from a cross.  Politicians say, “vote for me,” but Jesus says, “I died for you.”  Do not put your hope in kings, in Presidents, in any earthly power.  Jesus is Lord.  Let the church worship her king, and remember her first loyalty.

I close with a prayer from Stanley Hauerwas:

“Sovereign Lord, foolish we are, believing that we can rule ourselves by selecting this or that person to rule over us. We are at it again. Help us not to think it more significant than it is, but also give us and those we elect enough wisdom to acknowledge our follies. Help us laugh at ourselves, for without humor our politics cannot be humane. We desire to dominate and thus are dominated. Free us, dear Lord, for otherwise we perish. Amen.” (3)

1.  From: http://massillonchurches.com/JBMassillon.phtml
2. John Danforth, Faith and Politics (New York: Viking 2006), 10.
3. http://thedrum.typepad.com/the_drum/2012/11/an-election-day-prayer-from-stanley-hauerwas.html

Eugene Peterson On Contemporary Worship

Just finished my first Eugene Peterson book.  Well, unless you count The Message – but I hear he had help with that one.  I decided to start early in his writing career; admittedly, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work did not sound exciting to me at all.  This is probably because the Old Testament books he based these reflections on did not, at the outset, interest me.  How stupid of me!  The hype about Peterson’s pastoral writings is dead-on.  This is balm for the pastor’s soul.  There is so much that could be highlighted, but what I found juiciest was the discussion of Hebrew/Christian worship contrasted with Baalism in his chapter on Ecclesiastes and the work of ‘nay-saying’:

Pastors are subjected to two recurrent phrases from the people to whom they give spiritual leadership.  Both are reminiscent of Baalism, enough so as to earn the label “neo-Baalism.”  The phrases are: “Let’s have a worship experience” and “I don’t get anything out of it.”

About the call for a “worship experience”:

…neither the Bible nor church uses the word “worship” as a description of experience…worship is neither subjective only nor private only.  It is not what I feel when I am by myself; it is how I act toward God in responsible relation with God’s people.  Worship, in the biblical sources and in liturgical history, is not something a person experiences, it is something we do, regardless how how we feel about it, or whether we feel anything about it at all.

About the complaint that “I don’t get anything out of it.”

The assumption that supposedly validates the phrase is that worship must be attractive and personally gratifying.  But that is simply Baalism redivius [yeah, I had to Google it], worship trimmed tot he emotional and spiritual specifications of the worshiper.  The divine will that declares something beyond or other than what is already part of the emotional-mental construct of the worshiper is spurned.  That worship might call for something beyond us is shrugged off as obscurantist.  And so the one indispensable prsupposition of Christian worship, the God of the covenant who reveals himself in his word, is deleted.  A Freudian pleasure principle is substituted and worship is misused to harness God to human requirements…we may be entertained, warmed, diverted, or excited in such worship; we will probably not be changed, and we will not be saved  Our feelings may be sensitized and our pleasures expanded.  But our morals will be dulled and our God fantasized. (Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work [Grand Rapids: Eerdman's 1980], pp. 183-185)

Whew.  Now, nowhere does he come out and say this is a direct reference to the worship wars.  But I don’t see how it could be otherwise.  This is clearly a dig a the feelings-centered, emotionalistic worship that is widely assumed to be the only legitimate form of worship in certain Protestant circles.  At the end of the chapter, he does make a note indicating that not anything is to be tolerated in worship, that the pastor must be sensitive to the felt needs of the congregants, and that worship should be intelligently executed, vital, creative, and passionate.  But still, the bulk of the arguments seems to be against non-liturgical worship; the kind of worship that somehow draws a line between “praise” and “worship”; worship that assumes the gathering of the church community is only worthwhile if everyone leaves on a “high” and is planned as if Christians have only been gathering for worship since the Macintosh.

This is probably one of the best indictments of the philosophy behind contemporary worship that I’ve read.  But still, questions remain.  More and more, I’ve been wondering about the sociological draw of certain kinds of worship.  It strikes me that certain forms appeal to certain folks.  I’m not willing to write this on stone tablets, but it seems to me that there is a class correlation to worship preferences.  Now, whether there should be worship preferences is a different question altogether.  I’m no Luddite, either; I lead a liturgical service that makes use of a projector, sound, and video equipment.  But I do it wearing an alb.  Yeah, call me strange.

I don’t recall having reading about this elsewhere but I’m sure I’m not the first one to think this.  Anyone know of any resources that explore this?

A working thesis: perhaps, just perhaps, folks who are at the margins of society, folks who do not feel empowered  or believe their views and experience are deemed valid by the wider culture, would be drawn to worship that validates and encourages personal expression.  I am aware this is oversimplifying, but my own observation is that charismatic and pentecostal (and in general, “expressive”) worship tends to attract people on the underside of the social order, while “high church” worship seems to appeal to folks who are empowered by and within the prevailing order.  Exceptions abound – but I think I have enough evidence to convict.  Thoughts?

At any rate, Peterson is awesome; don’t let the validity or invalidity of any of my commentary dissuade you.  Any pastor would benefit – spiritually, psychologically, vocationally – from this work.