Last week I wrote a rather long comment on a Facebook
post of mine responding to an inquiry from a friend. Often, comments such as these are fleeting
for me. However, one part of that
comment stuck with me the rest of the week.
I will be honest here—I am not real comfortable with worship. To clarify that, I am thinking in the context
of incredibly well-produced-Cold-Playesque-concert worship music that typically
begins many church services. Much of
this music fits in the context of penal substitutionary atonement; a dogma that
no longer is part of my canon. However,
perhaps that is a topic for another post at some point—we will stick to worship
here. The friend that I was responding to chose to walk away from the church
years ago. Here is part of what he
shared:
In
order to be honest with myself, I had to leave the church and abandon god at
age 16. I can assure you at that age it was an extremely difficult thing
to do. Everybody in my town was a believer, or so they said.
Sadly, I saw a lot of dishonesty and injustice back then and since then, perpetrated by people of faith, and also those of little or no faith to be sure.
One of the most difficult things I had to reconcile, was how to be a person with some decency, respect and compassion without a "rule" book.
I learned that I needed to examine my daily dealings with myself and those around me with critical thoughts and eyes.
I needed to understand what I would expect of others, but more to the point, what I needed to expect from myself.
Reality is at best elusive if it exists at all. Truth varies enormously from person to person, place to place and circumstance to circumstance.
Sadly, I saw a lot of dishonesty and injustice back then and since then, perpetrated by people of faith, and also those of little or no faith to be sure.
One of the most difficult things I had to reconcile, was how to be a person with some decency, respect and compassion without a "rule" book.
I learned that I needed to examine my daily dealings with myself and those around me with critical thoughts and eyes.
I needed to understand what I would expect of others, but more to the point, what I needed to expect from myself.
Reality is at best elusive if it exists at all. Truth varies enormously from person to person, place to place and circumstance to circumstance.
Amidst that response I was also asked from a place of honest
inquiry about my journey. I let my
response just stream and here I am a week later not being able to let go of what
came out respecting worship. Add to all
of this, I just finished Richard Rohr’s The Naked Eye
which really debunks many of the merits of dualism, which has both challenged
and reaffirmed the path that I am on. However,
before continuing and in the spirit of Rohr’s book, coupled with the last
sentence from my friend; what I share below should not be looked at through a
dualistic lens. That is, I am not making
the claim that there is no value in worship—even if it is at church with a band
that makes you feel like you are at a Cold Play concert. Rather, this is my narrative respecting
worship, contextualized in the church setting, and my hope is that it will open
and challenge hearts and create dialogue.
Part of my response to my friend read something along
these lines: Four rather short narratives on the life of Jewish Carpenter from
2000 years ago is a limited amount of data to go on. But I am completely taken
with the life of Jesus. Sure, Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talked
about enemy love, but Jesus was really the first to preach and live it. This idea and practice is something that I
want to emulate. Jesus, however, never
called his followers to worship him. I
am a bit appalled at the word "worship." It makes me wonder if perhaps
if it is even blasphemous to worship Jesus.
Jesus was offered the world if he would worship Satan (Luke 4:7). Interestingly, the ESV translation has Jesus’
response to Satan as “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall
you serve.” This is a quote from
Deuteronomy 6:13 which in the same ESV version of the Bible reads “It is the
Lord your God you shall fear. Him you
shall serve and by his name you shall swear.”
Moreover, pagan culture is was full of worship, a practice that Aaron
emulated in Exodus 32, which God said resulted in them corrupting themselves
(v. 7). I am unconvinced that I am
called or commanded to worship at all. With
Jesus challenging us to make disciples (Matthew 28) and his bold and humble
exclamation that his followers would do greater things than him (John 14) it
would appear that Jesus was not and is not now interested in us worshipping him. What if Jesus completely debunks the concept
of worship? What if I/we are called to
follow…period? I am not 100 percent sure
what that looks like. My journey has become a perpetual deconstruction- reconstruction
process. My hope is that each time I am able to deconstruct and reconstruct I
am capable of loving deeper. For me,
most often, this deconstruction and reconstruction consists not in worshipping
but feebly attempting to follow that carpenter from 2000 years ago.