{For the next four weeks, we will be focusing our worship on ‘Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations’ by Robert Schnase[1]. This is week 2: The focus is Passionate Worship}
Ordinarily, I’m not terribly fond of musicals. There just seems to be something out of joint when the dialog stops and any pretense of imitating reality is suspended so that the main characters of a movie or play can get up and start dancing around – apparently without any rehearsal – all in unison and in perfect harmony – it’s ok and sometimes it’s kind of fun – but people just don’t really act like that in real life – or do they?
------------------------------
This morning’s passage from the Revelation gives us a scene just like that. To get a feel for the extent of their joy, we need to understand just what this passage describes. For the most part, the book of Revelation is proclamation, not prediction.
This morning’s passage comes in the middle of John’s vision and the breaking of the seven seals. Thus far in Revelation, the news has not been all good. The first six seals on the scroll have been opened and after the sixth seal is opened (Rev. 6:12), the physical foundations of creation are rattled. Destruction reaches such a pitch that all people hide.
When John reaches this point in his visions, he stops. The suffering and destruction of the first six seals are overwhelming, and so he introduces a break, a worshipful, musical timeout that he uses to lift the vision of God's people from the difficulties of the present to the glories of the future.
John sees is an innumerable, international, multi-racial, multi-lingual throng of people so great that no one could count it – a vision of the church in heaven, the church triumphant.
This is John’s movie trailer, a preview of the way things will someday be. The people he sees wear the white robe of purity and carry palm branches as signs of victory and joy following war – and then heavenly beings join in the singing. And in Revelation, where John uses the number 7 to remind us of God’s perfection, they use seven blessings to praise God. The center one is often the most significant, and it is the word thanksgiving.
In the past 20 years or so there has been a lot of talk about worship and forms of worship. We have actually become to call them the ‘worship wars’ as we debate the pros and cons of different forms.
But whatever our preference for worship, there is no need to participate in the ‘worship wars’ because real, true and passionate worship is not a matter of style. There is no need for electronic media. We don’t need special music or rock bands or silk flags waving or dancing in the aisles. It doesn’t even need nice bulletins or lots of volume – God can be worshipped in stillness of heart and silence of voice. It doesn’t need lots of worshippers either because Jesus has said that where even two are gathered in his name, he is in the midst.
The most important thing about worship is not style – it’s passion. Passion is not limited to a particular style – no need to roll in the aisles, speak in tongues or have a rock band playing – God can use any old bush and any old person and any worship with appropriate theological content.
To worship passionately is not complicated but it requires our best. The scriptures, prayers and songs are carefully chosen to reflect a single focus – Everything in it is important. It is in out sense of priority, of focus, in the sense of anticipation that we bring with is as we come to have our souls filled with the presence of God.
Worship is not a spectator sport. We don’t come to sit and watch and wait to be entertained. We don’t come to visit our friends of hear our favorite hymns. We come to participate (especially in a small church). We come to engage our hearts and minds to the work of worship: to open our hearts to spent time with the living God.
Passionate worship a matter of theological content and joy and intentionality. It is a focus on love of God and reaching out and praising God. It’s hearing scripture, it’s confession and forgiveness. It’s when we give, or participate, in passionate worship that we receive the love of God in our hearts. It’s when we bow down to praise God that we are lifted up to heaven.
In Psalm 122:1 the psalmist writes: I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the Lord’. Nowhere does it say: I came to church because I didn’t have other plans – or I came because the football/baseball game doesn’t start until - or I came because the weather was right – or I came because Mark is singing treats and he always sings something good. But rather I was glad for a time to gather with sisters and brothers. I was glad to worship and praise, to pray and to sing, to listen and to hear, to participate and to give of myself in the worship of my God.
Years ago, when I was just starting out in ministry, I did ‘pulpit supply’ where I traveled around preaching from place to place wherever a preacher was needed. It was a wonderful experience to be with other congregations and to worship in so many different ways. On one of those Sundays, I was invited to preach in a Methodist church where the youngest member was over 65 and the average age was quite a bit higher. They welcomed me warmly but it was obvious that I would need to speak loudly because many of them were hard of hearing.
As the organist started playing the first hymn something else became obvious: they all sang loudly and very few of them could carry a tune in a basket. They were flat. They were sharp. They didn’t all get all the words right. They didn’t all get the timing of the notes right. But when they sang, something wonderful happened. Their faces lit up. They glowed with joy. And as those voices rose together in praise of God, I understood that when their notes reached up to Heaven, it was music to God’s ears. They were singing to God and to God it could not have sounded more beautiful.
John Wesley wrote: ‘sing lustily and with good courage. Be aware of singing as if you are all half dead or half asleep, but lift your voice in strength. . . Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature.’[2]
Very few of us would go to a sporting event and sit passively on the sidelines. Can you imagine that your chosen team makes a touchdown or a basket, a goal or a run and you sit quietly on the sideline, glance at your watch and stifle a yawn? But how many of us come to worship and sit quietly in our pews, glance at our watches and wonder how much longer the service will last?
We who sit here this morning say that we are a redeemed people. We say are a forgiven. We say that we are a people who live with the Holy Spirit within us. We say that we are a people who look forward in joy to life everlasting in the presence of God.
We say all that, but if we believed it, really believed that, would we still worship the way we do?
Just a few weeks ago, when the people of
As the people of God face trial, tribulation, the shaking of the creation, they – we – still praise God with thanksgiving.
Can you envision it? Just like a movie musical, the four creatures start out in song followed by a the elders and angels singing in four part harmony. And then from stage right and left a chorus of others who all begin to sing and dance in unison and then they move to either side of the throne of God with loud voices singing praises to God.
OK, maybe it won’t be just like that. But they know they have been delivered – that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes - and they are passionate in their joy and demonstrative in their worship.
Rev. Rick Murray of Covenant Presbyterian Church writes: Presbyterians have not always had a cozy relationship with ‘passionate.’ As you know, some call us the frozen chosen. That is really not so much an historical label, but a more recent one. For centuries Presbyterians had lots of passion in worship. We were quite involved in the First and Second Great Awakenings in
When people come to worship with is, the most important thing those people should think about us is not that we are ‘nice’ people, but that we worship an awesome God, that we are genuine, intentional and passionate about our worship - and they will know that by the quality of our worship.
We need to leave behind the arrogance and pride that leads us to sit in our pews as if we are too good to raise our voices, as if we are too sophisticated to raise our voices in praise – we raise our voices in every other place in our lives so why not here? We need to return to our roots. We need to bring the passion we express in the rest of our lives into the area where we should be expressing the best of our lives. Following the advice of Wesley, we should ‘sing lustily and with good courage’. We need to worship like a people rescued from death, redeemed to life, and filled with the joy of the Lord. Let’s sing that closing song now and let it be a sign to us – a sign to God from us – of the joy and passion about our faith and love that we have for our God.
Amen.
