August 22 "Connect to Christ: worship"

Connect with Christ#5: worship

Reinbeck UMC

August 22, 2010

Why do you come to worship?

Some come out of habit.  Others because parents make them.  Others to see friends.  Others to get out of the house.  Others to do the job they are assigned.  Some because they feel like they have to.  Some because they feel better when they leave.  Some even to get attention for themselves and Some for a nap.

Well I’m not sure anybody really comes for a nap, but we have all done it.  I brought this video that Robyn took of me while we were on vacation this year.

{{PLAY “med bean?” Video}}

You know it isn’t so funny when it happens to you!

Anyway we like to poke fun at church and preachers and nappers.  But worship is serious business.

Worship is a drama. That is why your bulletin looks like program for a play today.    Soren Kierkegaard clarified the roles for us in the mid 1800’s.  Worship is a drama, but I am not the actor and you are not the audience.  I do not come to perform for you.  If that were the case we would close the churches and all watch the preachers perform on TV. Those of you who watch this service on RTU know that as much as you might appreciate it, it is not the same as being here. 

In this series of sermons we have been talking about ways to connect to Christ.  We have talked about connecting through scripture and repentance and community -- we will talk about prayer and service--  those are all things we initiate.  Those are all things we choose to do. 

Worship is different because worship is our finite human response to an infinitely magnificent God.

Can anyone see the birth of a baby and not say “WOW?”

Can anyone see the power of a thunderstorm and not feel small?

Can anyone consider the vastness of the universe and not feel privileged that God even knows you exist?

Can anyone stand at the bottom of a pounding waterfall, watching the miracle of the rainbow and feeling the cool mist that has been rolling off the rocks for thousands of years and not be awed?

I don’t think so.

So how can anyone be aware of the presence of the almighty, the all powerful, the perfectly just, perfectly loving, perfection of perfection, creator of all that is, lover of even the most sinful, saver of the lost and the hopeless, God of heaven and earth and not respond in awe and worship?

Worship is the natural human response to the presence of God.  Just like crying is the response to getting onion juice in our eyes, or sneezing is the natural response to getting pepper up your nose, or running is the natural response to coming face to face with a grizzly bear.  Worship is the natural human response to an encounter with the divine.

So back to the idea of worship as drama. Who is the actor and who is the audience?

How many of you think God is the actor?  How many of you think you are the actors?

You’re all right.  God and we are all actors in this drama of worship.  .

First, God is the star and we are the guest stars.  God acts and we respond.  God acts and we praise.  God acts and we pray.  God acts and we are transformed.  God acts and sends us out to act on God’s behalf.  Before there was anything else God acted saying “let there be light.” 

Before Adam and Eve God acted saying “Let us make people in our own image”

Before you were born God said, “Let us show them our love by becoming one of them.”

Before we turn to God, God has already turned to us.

Before we come to worship God is already acting in our lives and in this place.  That is why we start our service of worship with the joyful entrance.  Because God has already given us our cue.  God is on his mark, the lights are on and the curtain is up when we walk into the sanctuary.  So we respond in praise.

God acts first, but we respond.  We are also actors.   Not just me.  Though there is a practical purpose for the raised chancel area (namely visibility), one of the main reasons I don’t use it much is my theology of worship says that I am a leader among peers, not a performer.  I am a leader brought from the midst of the congregation prompting you for your lines- helping you to notice that God has given you a cue- making sure that nothing distracts from the dramatic dialog between God and God’s people, the drama we call worship.

So here we are to worship.  And we come back to the question “Why do you worship?”

Let’s watch a video that I think says it very well.

{{Play “Why I worship” video}}

Have you worshipped today?  It didn’t ask if you have gone to church today.  It didn’t ask if you had been to worship today, but “Have you worshipped today?”

Today we celebrate one of the ultimate acts of worship.  The giving of lives to God.  In the case of infant or child baptism, the parents respond to God’s action by bringing that which is most precious to them, to be wholly given to God.  Amber does that with Noah today.  Jim and Marcia bring Belen and Sylvana to publically renew that act of worship they performed in Perry.

In the case of transfers of membership,  God acts and we respond.  Doris and Jim and Marcia are all responding because God has done magnificent things in their lives.  Because they know God’s love and they desire to offer themselves in an act of worship back to the one that Gave himself to them. It is fundamentally a renewal of their baptisms a renewal of their confirmation, a renewal of their commitment to live their whole lives as an act of worship.

Could there be a better way to celebrate the actor/responder nature of worship than for each of us to respond to God’s acting by renewing our baptism offering.  As we share in the service of baptism and membership this morning let us all renew our passion for and our offering to God.

AMEN