Public Worship – Part One
Public Worship – Part One
John 4:23
New International Version (NIV)
“The hour is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. ”
This message follows the outline of a chapter from James F. White’s book, Introduction to Christian Worship.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%204&version=NLT
Many people who attend a public worship service for the first time end up feeling disillusioned. Why? Because all that is human about the church is on full display. The acolytes may be mischievous pre-teens who giggle and goof-off just minutes before carrying in the sacred light to the altar. In the choir, one member sings off-key, while another sleeps during the sermon. Perhaps the sermon is mediocre at best, and the preacher’s tie doesn’t match his shirt. The person kneeling beside the visitor at holy communion is the same lady who, just three days earlier, flipped them the bird in traffic. Someone’s baby cries for ten minutes, and some teenagers are passing notes during the service. Newcomers cannot get past noticing just how ordinarily human the church is, and it distracts them so much, that they cannot focus on seeking God.
It is similar to taking someone to the theatre to see their first musical and having them become distracted by all that is happening behind the scenes. The point of attending the theatre is to be captivated by the story that is unfolding on stage. Instead, our guests cannot take their eyes off of the pulleys and curtains. They become distracted by the sound and light technicians, and they scrutinize the stage, looking for evidence that the backdrops are a facade. Because they cannot draw their attention away from the mechanics of the stage, they cannot discover the real thrill of attending the theatre. They cannot look beyond the fact that it is all a production.
The same thing can happen in a public worship service. People become so distracted by those leading and participating in worship that they miss out on what the whole thing is pointing to – God. And, one can lose track of God, not only in a service filled with mediocrity. It may even be more likely that one would become distracted in a church where all of the musicians are professionals, the facilities are new and beautiful, and the preacher is a magnificent speaker. In this case, visitors could become so impressed with the human performers that they forget that worship is supposed to lead us to focus on God.
Churches are human communities, and people lead worship services. And so, whether the human performance is poor, mediocre, or terrific, we end up missing the point of worship if we do not recognize that the whole thing points beyond itself to God.
Worshiping God is the defining act of all people of faith. It is our soul’s orientation and the life pulse of the human spirit. Worship is the church’s most important responsibility, and it gives us an interpretive grid for making sense of our lives. We were created to worship God.
Yet, as important as worship is for all people of faith, defining what we mean by worship is very difficult. And, it may surprise you that the church does not have a singular and concise definition of worship. James White, one of the greatest Methodist scholars our church has produced, has spent his entire adult life studying and thinking about Christian worship. He has looked at how Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical, and Free Church Christians worship. Having spent a lifetime thinking about all that he has learned, James F. White has discovered twelve descriptions of what happens in Christian worship. I want to devote four essays to this most central spiritual practice. In each, I will try to unpack three of James White’s descriptions as a way of exploring the meaning and importance of worship. In all four essays, John Chapter Four will be the biblical backdrop for our discussions.
Number One –
In worship, we tell the story of God and his people.
From the moment we light the first candle, and until the very last words of the benediction, we are telling a part of the story of God and his people. Each picture on the stained-glass windows, every decoration, and symbol is there to remind us of some part of that story. The songs and the liturgy, the scripture readings and sermon, are parts of how we celebrate the nature of God and all that he has done, is doing, and has promised to do. This story tells us about God and our world. It also helps us to understand our place in the world and in God’s plan. Throughout the Bible, we are told to remember all that God has done. And, we are told to pass the story on to the next generation. As we tell the story, we are caught up in that story. It becomes our story and the story of future generations. The story shapes and transforms the lives of all who hear it.
In John chapter four, we hear about a conversation Jesus had with the woman at the well. After talking with Jesus, she runs to tell everyone she knows about how this man has changed her life. Jesus changed her life by retelling her story, and by fitting her story into the larger story of God. He incorporates her into the greatest story ever told. It took only a small part of the story to create a big change in her life. As Jesus talked to her about the nature of worshiping God in spirit and in truth, she not only heard what he was saying but also experienced it.
When we tell the story, we are not just recounting something from the past. Through the story-telling, God invites us to experience the reality of the story by entering into it. So, we not only tell the story, but we also experience it.
Number Two –
In worship, God reveals himself to us and invites us to respond.
In worship, we are not called to be a passive audience. Worship has a reciprocal nature. It is an encounter between the living God and his people. Worship is relational. We offer ourselves and communicate our love and desire for God through prayer, song, motion, stillness, silence, monetary gifts, acts of devotion and commitment, and many, many more expressions of faith and love. But, we do all of this in response to what God has done to make himself known to us.
So much is lost when people think of themselves as an audience instead of a congregation. An audience is mostly passive. An audience waits to receive something from a performer. A congregation comes to worship, expecting both to receive something from God and to give something to God. They play an active part in the back and forth motion of God and his people relating to each other in the context of public worship.
Notice that in our passage, Jesus reveals something about himself and God. The woman at the well wants to debate about where the most appropriate place for worship is. Jesus changes the whole focus by saying that the place where worship takes place doesn’t matter as much as how we worship God. After Jesus shares this fact about God, she must make some response to what she has learned about God. After this conversation with Jesus, she can never be the same again. The encounter leads her to a new way of looking at everything. In greater and lessers ways, worship always creates a context in which we discover something new about God, setting us up to make some response.
Number Three –
Worship is an act of devotion
By this, I mean that worship is an expression of our deep commitment to God. Whenever something or someone is significant to us, we find it a joy to give our time, our possessions, our attention, and our acts of affection to it.
Those of you who have ever been in love know what I am talking about. It is no inconvenience to make time for whatever it is we love. We are willing to make time for that special someone. The same is true of something we love. If you are devoted to a sports team or hobby, you do not feel put out by having to show up a little early, or drive a few extra miles to participate. The extra effort only intensifies our passion. If we genuinely love and are truly devoted, we do not notice when the object of our affection asks more of us.
Worship only becomes an act of a devoted heart when we realize just how deeply devoted God is to us. We love him because he first loved us. When we recognize and experience the depth of God’s love for us, we then, and only then, become able to devote ourselves to him.
Notice how the Samaritan woman’s attitude toward Jesus changes when she realizes that he cares more about her than about winning an argument with her. She melts under the warmth of his love when she realizes that he is not there to fight with her. He gives her time and attention, and this sparks a flame of devotion in her heart. Her devotion is in response to Jesus’ devotion to her.
Some of you are not getting much out of worship because you have no real devotion to God in your heart. You are not getting much out of worship because you are not putting much into worship. You treat the worship of God as if it were not that important, and the result is that you do not find much of worth in it. The approach determines the outcome.
It is this lack of heartfelt participation that causes many of our children to lose interest in worship. Our apathy drowns any interest they may have had in worshiping God. Our children can see right through us. And, when they discover that worship is not that important to us, they lose heart. They know how excited we get at the ballgame. They know how our eyes light up when we start talking about fishing or golf. They know how devoted we are to our careers and political party. Then they see how indifferent we are toward the worship of God. They can tell that we do not value the worship of God as much as other things in our life, and their budding faith begins to wilt in the coldness of our affections for God.
Now, there is a paradox involved. You will never get much out of worship by trying to get something out of it. That is because worship is about focusing our love on God. A woman complained after a church service about a song we had sung that wasn’t to her liking. Our music director overheard the complaint and said, “That’s okay. We weren’t singing it to you.” But none of this will ever make sense until your love is a response to God’s love for you. Like the woman at the well, we will never understand what it means to adore God until we realize that he has invited us into his presence, not only to be adored by us but so that he might show us how much he adores us.