Made to Worship

Sermon prepared for

Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

By Gregory S. Kaurin, pastor

September 13, 2009

Made to Worship

We start this program year, Rally Day, by finishing our six-week series on worship. To quote Christ from John's gospel, we are called to “Worship in Spirit and Truth.”

Even if you haven't been here for all of the series, or if today is the first time you've been here, I hope that you go home each week holding onto something that changes your perspective, or at least gives you something to moll over, because my point today is that our worship, the spirit and truth of your worship, has less to do with what we're doing right now on Sunday morning, and more to do with the remaining 167 hours of your week.

We are to worship with our lives. Before I talk about today's scripture, let me return to the passage we've touched on a couple times now in this series. When Jesus talked with the woman at the well, he said the time is coming, in fact already here, when true worship will not be about the place, building, or rituals. John 4:23 – Jesus said, "True worshipers worship in spirit and truth; it is such worshipers that the Father seeks."

We've been talking about worship, the kind of worship God might want from us, but it's that second part of that passage that caught my eye this week. Jesus didn’t say that God is seeking worship. God isn't just a great diva in the sky looking to be worshiped. What does God seek? Not worship but worshipers, people… people who are aware of God's presence. ...and what we've been put here to do.

I've said it quite a few times: God didn't make us just to save us. He made us, yes, loved us into existence, and he died for us, in our place, giving us salvation, but, all of this was so that we can be free to have an open eternal life and relationship with him, …and with the rest of his creation and creatures. We have been freed to act, to try, and to risk.

From our first lesson (Isaiah 50:7-9): "I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?" With this as our starting point, whatever responses we make to grace of this eternal life, aware and knowing who created it all, whenever we reach out to others, or enjoy creation, or dig in our garden, or make sawdust, all of this can be spiritual worship.

I love these verses 7-9 from Psalm 116: "Turn again” [that's one of the definitions for repent, by the way], or, “Come back to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt well with you. For you [Lord] have rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling." I've been rescued from death to eternal life. So what's the response? Verse 9: "I will walk in the presence of the Lord; I walk in the land of the living." I walk not just living and breathing, but truly alive, in the land of the living. This is talking about another way of living, engaged and aware of Christ's presence, God moments, God in others, ...God in us. “I walk in the presence of the Lord, …the land of the living.” That is what it means to be worshipers.

It's like a new kind of breathing, maybe even more important than just bringing air into our lungs: the spiritual worship of daily life. Try this, sit up and take a breath, nice, slow and deep. Feel good? Now imagine that was your last. What will happen? You'll turn colors and die. Right.

Now imagine Jesus' holy and loving Presence all around you. Do this: close your eyes, and gently breathe. Keep breathing; let Christ enter your body like air through your lungs, heart and organs, now out through your arms and fingers, legs and toes. Feel his presence like oxygen in your blood, loving and claiming you as his own, now flowing up into your head, face and scalp, your mind, giving you reason and purpose.
Open your eyes.

That's worship. It's like that Psalm says to "Be still... and know... that I am God." And it is worship that you can take with you. Did you ever realize that prayer and worship of God could be this easy? Just breathe. You can do this in your car, shopping, working, listening to someone. Even if you’re in an argument or feel one coming on, just breathe and draw God into you, making him, making his stillness and strength, a part of it.

…Now imagine that I told you that was the last spiritual breath you can have. What would that be like? Death, a very deep death.

"It is not that man cannot live without worship, it is that he cannot truly live without worship...man was made to worship as surely as he was made to breathe. We may restrict the expression of worship for a season, just as we may briefly hold our breath, but there is an inward craving for worship that cannot be permanently stilled" (Judson Cornwall).

We are made to worship. That has two possible meanings; both are true. We were made, as in created, to be worshipers--to be aware of and loving God. God wants company, even yours and mine. But second, we are made to worship as in compelled to worship, inspired and led to worship.

Our response carries us beyond, hopefully beyond what we do here. In our gospel lesson, Jesus calls it a cross, the cross we pick up to follow him. The cross we are called to carry may be challenging sometimes, and call us from our comfort zones. But again, remember that Christ carried it first, and still does. We do this from an amazing zone of safety and strength. Jesus said, my burden is not heavy for you.

In the first chapter of Isaiah, God is angry at the Israelites for going through the motions of worship, but missing the heart. What is the heart of worship then? Look what he says in vs. 17: "Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow" (Is. 1:17).

In the seventh chapter of Jeremiah he told the people that when it comes to worship they couldn't trust their words, or the ritual actions, or even the Temple of God. Then what does it take? "If you really treat one another fairly, if you do not exploit the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, if you do not cause the death of innocent blood" (Jer. 7:6).

It happens again and again in the prophets. Worship cannot be separated from how we care for the people, families, creatures, and the world he has placed around us. In the New Testament, in the first chapter of his letter, James wrote, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the widows and orphans in their distress, while keeping yourself unsullied by the world" (Jas. 1:27). There is nothing about clapping or place or instruments or form or liturgy. Pure religion and our spiritual worship flow into and from our care and compassion, our lives of worship.

It was the point Jesus tried to make about the Sabbath and the Temple. Sabbath and worship are kept holy in the way we care for others. Tom Kraeuter wrote that:

"From a biblical perspective, the Lord appears to be far more interested in our acts of kindness; our deeds of social justice, than in our songs of praise. More than our Sunday morning lip-service, He wants our lives" (Tom Kraeuter's book, Worship Is What?, was a major source behind today's message, and for the outline of this series on worship.).

We are called to be a community of worshipers who carry that spirit and drive with us, and also that assured stillness, calm joy. We don't have to rush out willy-nilly, "Gotta go save some lives and souls; gotta go find me some orphans and widows to care for! ...Here I come to save the day!" No.

When you're open and practicing the presence of God in your daily life, praying and listening, God will bring people to you, sometimes your own family and friends. Other times he will bring the opportunities that inspire you, choices you may have to make.

And then sometimes you just have to pray and make your best guess and take risks, knowing that God will go with you. He "will prosper your work and defend you." Even if it turns out wrong or seems to dead end, God won't let you go to waste. He'll gently steer you back for another try. Even if the next moment kills you, you will be okay.

Let me finish with Psalm 116 again, "Turn again, O my soul. The Lord has dealt well with you. I will walk in the presence of the Lord ...I will walk in the land of the living." Go in peace, serve the Lord! Thanks be to God.