10-10-10 Martha’s take on Question 6: What is worship?
Worship, to me, describes how a person acknowledges that God is and is available for partnership.
My own worship of God is my life—it’s expressed in my thoughts, how I interact with other people, what I do with my time and money, how willing I am to face complexity. I worship God by accepting the great Whatever as my practical, every-day companion and partner in the business of living. As far as more traditional forms of worship, if God really did require me to bend certain ways, say certain things, accept certain myths while condemning other myths as nonsense, then I couldn’t bring myself to require God. It would make God a bit too much like a Worshipful Master in Prince Hall Freemasonry.
As for how my worship—living in partnership with the great Whatever—goes along, I find God to be a stringent taskmaster. The Almighty doesn’t barter, for example, so I can’t make the argument to the Almighty that I didn’t do this piddly little right thing because it was simply too inconvenient or costly or confusing, but that such a small lapse should be overlooked because I joined my fellow church members in demonstrating for peace last Thursday or in raising money for a pro-life information center. These kinds of negotiations just don’t cut it. A transgression is a transgression is a transgression. If I do something wrong, I need to put that thing right—not some other thing that’s easier or more convenient or less anxiety provoking or carries me along comfortably with my tribe. And I don’t put it right because I’m afraid lightning will strike me or I’ll go to hell, but because I’ve found that not putting it right disrupts my partnership with God. And once this partnership is disrupted, I’m simply less comfortable in my own head and my own skin and in my relationships with others. I can try and fail to do the right thing; but I can’t pretend not to notice what the next right thing is, and I can’t abdicate responsibility for trying to do it and still think of myself as a person of faith.
Organized religion’s take on worship is obviously a lot more complicated. While I can energetically empathize with anyone’s need to congregate and perform some kind of ritual acknowledgment of God, the question I’d suggest each of us ask ourselves is whether or not the worship promoted by organized religions, as they are currently at work in the world, is the most useful way for us to recognize the Almighty’s presence—or simply the way we’re used to? Does participating in organized religion really strengthen our commitment to living in partnership with God, or does it function as a less-exacting substitute for living in partnership with God.
I once interviewed, E.D. Hirsh, author of Cultural Literacy, who writes that teachers would do well to concentrate less on fine-tuning their classroom technique and more on learning the actual subject matter they are to teach. He argues that our current teacher training, with its emphasis on education classes and degrees, lumbers on mainly because of its institutional entrenchment. In other words, colleges and university have a lot invested in their education departments, and a lot of people’s livings depend upon maintaining the status quo.
The same could be said of organized religion and its emphasize on formal community worship. Many people’s salaries, prestige, and power—not to mention title to a lot of real estate—depend upon maintaining the current organization of our divisive decisiveness about God. If the Catholic Church decided to swing over to a kind of dogma-less faith, what would happen to all those priests and cathedrals and Catholic schools? Without the glue of scripturally justified homophobia, would the Evangelical flock stay faithful enough to pay the mortgage on the mega-church building? The economic and psychological tentacles of organized religion are deep.
Perhaps the devil’s* most effective ploy is to promote in us a fear of change when, in us when we know that change could bring us closer to God. I think we need to challenge ourselves to worship God in ways that recognize a value greater than our own comfort.
* By the devil, I’m not referring to an entity living somewhere hot, but rather to whatever force works to weaken my grasp on what is in favor of what I’d, personally, be more comfortable with.
Tags: devil, faith, God, living in partnership with God, organized religion, religion, unconventional faith, worship, worship as life
As someone who grew up in mainline religion, worship has been an integral part of my life. I’ve participated in, planned and led traditional and contemporary, formal and informal worship services. One of my earliest memories is of organizing a bunch of my fellow pre-schoolers into a religious procession loosely modeled after the ritual I’d witnessed at the Lutheran church where my parents took me. We dressed up in towels and bathrobes and fashioned crosses and candles out of sticks and solemnly marched up and down the block. These activities came to an end when some of my friends’ moms – who were Jewish, Catholic or otherwise non-Lutheran – had a talk with my mom. After that, it seems, we gathered with our cap guns and slaughtered imaginary bad guys. Much more wholesome!
Worship, for me, has always been about imagination, theater, and play. How better to approach the unimaginable except through imagination? Trouble comes when we begin to take what we imagine as reality and stop short of where our play might take us. Worship isn’t the destination; it’s a doorway. For me, the purpose of worship is to release my confined awareness of my self into something beyond myself. This can be done alone or with others. Doesn’t matter. There’s no right or wrong way.
I don’t know that God needs or cares if I worship. I don’t think that any particular ritual or service or system of stories can set it all out for all of us. Whatever we come up with (or what comes to us), whatever we imagine, God is greater. Martha’s right: anything that boxes us in or attempts to make us less is evil.
I love to attend worship services different from my tradition. I love the Catholic mass (even though, as a non-Catholic, I can’t participate). Witnessing the ritual is enough. I love listening to the cantor in synagogue. I’m always moved by the strains of Handel’s “Messiah” or the simple harmonies of an upcountry Baptist hymn. I’ve been moved by the incomprehensible rumbling chants of a Buddhist congregation. As well, I’ve been uplifted by a horseback ride in the cool fog of the Smokeys or serving my family a meal or carrying a baby on my hip till I’m weary. Sure, some of these things are merely sentimental but as with ritualistic play, if I don’t allow myself to move beyond the boundaries of self or tribe, I miss the greater invitation.
I don’t know that God needs me to worship. I know there’s no particular requirement. But I need to worship.
Actually, Skip, I think you agree with me that God does not need man to worship him,her,or which Presence is God. The worship of God, is a human need, not a desire of God. In fact, if I recall, correctly, In Exodus, we read that Moses had to talk God out of the “evil” that God planned to visit upon the Jews for the actions they were taking in the revelry and worship through and with the golden calf.
I have attended many worship services in Anglican, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventis and Baptist churches, but it was because I felt the need to worship, or because I was conditioned to feel that way because of my Christian upbringing. But the worship in those services were directed more to Christ, than directly to God. I have found that we often use the terms Lord, LORD, and God interchangeably. Christ being human, as well being the direct Son of God, to me, would have a different relationship with worship than would God. But even, with Christ, I believe he would have shunned away from being worshipped by telling us that what he does was being done, not in his name, but in the neme of the Father. Remember when Jesus taught us how to pray. It was after he cautioned us about those who preach in the streets and their much speaking. That is when he told us we should get into our closets and pray to the Father in secret, and the Father who listens in secret would reward us openly.
I could be wrong, but I think that I am not making myself less with my concept of God, I trust that, if anything, I am trying to put God even higher than I am able to comprehend. Recently I have been reading about the Summerians and the possibility of another planet, Nibiru, which we have termed Planet X, and it tells a story about another race that visited earth (it even suggests that these were the Sons of God that we read of in Genesis); at one point the writer of the piece I was reading posed the question, If we were really directed by these other people (through some form of genetic manipulation) from the planet Nibiru (hope I have the right spelling), then who created the Nibirans. To me it would have to be God also.
This may sound odd, and strange, but I do not “worship” God. I acknowldge God in everything and I do not see God as a companion, guide or teacher, these were roles carried out by Jesus on the Father’s behalf. God, to me, is so much more to all life, and just as God can never be fully understood, defined nor described, I believe that God is set in a very different and unexplainable plane that defies human dictionary definitions.
When I read in Romans 1., that foolish man, thinking himself to be wise, made of the uncorruptible God, something akin to corruptible man, I was aware that the statement, at that time, related to the Jews, who had just been freed from Pharoah’s sometimes vicious whims, who attempted to worship God through the making of a sacred cow from fine metals (mainly gold). However, in my concept of God, I considered it to mean that God does not seek, need, nor appreciate this type of “worship”. Human definitions of companionship, partnership etc., cannot really be attached to God–the invisible Presence in all things, conditions and events on earth and involving human kind, other animals and plants and natural or man-made events.
The closest I come to “worshipping” God is by totally honoring God’s PRESENCE, and recognizing that nothing can occur unless it is in accordance with God’s Will. I can do this, partially, because I have accepted a concept that I first learned of from Dr. Charles Stanley’s T.V. ministry, that fits in neatly with my concept of God as a Duality. I believe in God’s “Permissive will” and “Purposeful will”. My definitions differ a little from that of Dr. Stanley, especially where purposeful will is concerned. I define permissive will to be that which is ours because we have been granted freedom of choice (not free will, since I cannot believe that one can have free will over somethinng that is not under one’s control), and it is that free will that allows things like war and terrorism and lack of concern for others and other unkind and evil things into our lives. I define purposeful will as Dr. Stanley does where it relates to Christians, as that to which we are convicted, through the Holy Spirit, the “Essence” of God ; however, I extend my definition to include non-Christians who are persuaded into purposeful will through some innate sense of morality, conscience, fairness and desire to share, if one is not a Christian. God to me, is God to all things in nature, to all people and religions and everything else. Could a “Satan”, or any other power cause hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, floods, drought, wars etc, against the will of God, unless God permits it to be so?
God to me is the ultimate and infinite source of wisdom, power, might, as well as kindness, love and grace; and sometimes of judgment and punishment as well. I live in awe of God, who, which cannot be described (considered) by human dictionary definitions as worship. Some might argue that my words in this conversation show that I revere God as a Deity, and, therefore, I do worship God, but that would be a description I accept knowing that it might be the best that humans can manage. However, it does not fit with my personal awareness of my relationship with God.
Here are some lines from the song, “As God wills it to be”, that I have mentioned previously:
“When we fail to understand God’s will, With great mercy, God loves us still.”
“Though we question, though we do not see, God’s love will keep us, it is our victory.”
“God wants us to consider the totality of life, Want’s us to choose love, by rejecting strife.”
“We will journey to a life free of all need, If only we would follow, wherever God leads.”
I trust this piece would be seen to be consistent with other comments I have written to this conversation.