Chapter 3 - False Dangers

Back from conference in Decatur, Illinois and trying to get back on track with all of those things life throws at us. My foot is still in a big boot, but hopefully on Monday, it will be history (the boot, not my foot). Carrie has headed off to Findlay, so things seem kind of strange, but there is a big pile of her stuff still in the kitchen, so she doesn't seem all that far away.

On to the book. This chapter talks about the false dangers we sometimes worry about when it comes to worshiping God. He points to how we attempt to "manage" our encounters with God - calling it our attempt to domesticate Him. I thought that was a pretty good observation. When you think about all of the Biblical encounters with God, they were usually anything but safe or manageable. Most people instinctively fell on their faces. I wonder how God feels when we are sitting in a worship service thinking about where we're going for lunch, nodding off, not paying attention, thinking about how we don't care for what is going on, etc., etc.

I suppose really, when you think about it, the God we claim to worship is anything but safe. When you read about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, having faith in God was probably anything but safe to them by our definition. But, they actually feared idolatry more than fire. As the author says, "The furnace was blazing hot, a dramatic threat. Idolatry by comparison was quiet, invisible, barely noticeable when everyone else was already on their knees." Do we really know where the real danger lies?

The author lists six false dangers: Worship That's Not Under Control, Worship that Doesn't Seem Relevant, Worship that Doesn't Meet Expectations, Worship that Isn't Popular, Worship That's Unfamiliar. In other words, we want what's safe.

Here are his final thoughts on this:

"Safe worship. It's the kind of primrose path that draws us but misleads us. It has the allure of beauty but can mask pain, alienation, injustice. It can leave us feeling better but does nothing to help others who suffer. It can occupy so much energy and time that it leaves us too tired for ministry that might actually take us to where the needs are greatest. It can lead us to feel faith, but not actually to believe. It can lead us to imply we are trusting, without ever really taking a risk. It can preoccupy us with the false dangers of worship while we miss the real ones. It leaves us safe--which can mean lost, disengaged, disconnected, disinterested. So we often leave our services with what we came for, which sadly and ironically means we have little more than when we arrived. For better and worse, everything that matters is at stake in worship."

How does my life and attitude of worshiping God need to change so that I'm not just the same person day after day always wishing I could make changes in my life, but never really doing anything about it. Where does my true hope come from?

Needing to be more radical-
JAH

Chapter Two - The Real Battle Over Worship

Quoting from THE DANGEROUS ACT OF WORSHIP

For all our apparent passion about God, in the end much of our worship seems to be mostly about us.

What is ironic and especially pertinent is that many debates about worship are just indirect ways of talking about ourselves, not God. Our debates can readily devolve into little more than preference lists for how we like our worship served up each week. It's worship as consumption rather than offering; it's an expression of human taste--not a longing to reflect God's glory.

If we worship Jesus Christ, then we are to live like Jesus Christ: (Luke 9:23-24) Then (Jesus) said to them all, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.'

The heart of the battle over worship is this: our worship practices are separated from our call to justice and, worse, foster the self-indulgent tendencies of our culture rather than nurturing the self-sacrificing life of the kingdom of God. We are asleep. Nothing is more important than for us to wake up and practice the dangerous act of worship, living God's call to justice.

Part of the malady of our culture and discipleship efforts is this tragic rationale: that in the face of global need, if we can't do everything, we can't do anything. We are paralyzed, inert.

Part of what stunned and excited me when I came to faith in Christ was the discovery that if Jesus Christ was Lord, it mattered for all people everywhere. That meant God's heart was both personal and global. The kingdom of God was no small, myopic project but rather the transformation of everyone and everything. 'For God so loved the world...'--that those who follow him are to do the same.

God's plan is that we, the church, are to be the primary evidence of God's presence. The core of a biblical theology of worship is the worthiness of God.

To be centered on God means first discovering that God is our center and then living lives focused on the things that matter to God. We reflect the worthiness of God by how we love and serve whomever and whatever God considers to be of worth.

Out of God's love for his people and their love for God will come an effluence of mercy and justice in the world: shalom. This common Hebrew word for greeting means "peace," but it also includes much more than the word typically calls to mind. Shalom includes our individual and collective well-being, our health, our safety and our completeness.

A broken relationship with God leads to broken relationships with one another. God's purpose is to restore and heal both.

His (Jesus) words and his actions drew the marginalized and the outcast. He loved the Father by loving those the Father loved. These cannot be separated. Jesus redefined the meaning of neighbor in the shocking story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).

When we or anyone besides God assumes the central role, life whips us out of alignment -- lots of motion with destructive wear and significant damage.

Vigorous biblical practice of worship should stop, or at least redirect, our endless consumerism, as our free choice to spend less in order to give away more. Our worship should be recognizable by the lives it produces, one that plainly evidences the broad, sacrificial and persevering commitment of Jesus Christ. Our community reputation, as Scripture suggests, should be that the church comprises those who pursue justice for the poor and oppressed because that is what it means to be Christ's body in the world. We should not fool ourselves into thinking that it's enough to feel drawn to the heart of God without our lives showing the heart of God.

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Another summary of my "underlinings".

As for the rest of life, my foot is still in this big boot thing that is most annoying when I try to sleep. I was thinking today while doing the pre- and post-shower ritual about people who take care of others unable to take care of themselves. I cannot even begin to think about the hours that some parents dedicate to the care of their children who were either born with or afflicted with some type of physical challenge that requires constant attention. My little procedure, relatively speaking, was simple and my complete recovery is expected and it is still a disruption to our lives. Some people must have incredible strength.

Tomorrow it is back to Findlay with Dan and Carrie to sign the lease for her apartment and finalize the paperwork for her new place of employment. I am excited for her and know she will be awesome at the job awaiting her.

Hope everyone out there is doing well and keeping the hope alive -
JAH

Chapter One - What's at Stake in Worship?

Quoting from THE DANGEROUS ACT OF WORSHIP

Worship names what matters most: the way human beings are created to reflect God's glory embodying God's character in lives that seek righteousness and do justice.

Worship turns out to be the dangerous act of waking up to God and to the purposes of God in the world, and then living lives that actually show it.

Worship can name a Sunday gathering of God's people, but it also includes how we treat those around us, how we spend our money, and how we care for the lost and the oppressed.

Scripture indicates that worship is meant to be the tangible embodiment of God's hope in the world. Conversely, the Bible also teaches that the realities of oppression, poverty and injustices can be both a call to worship and an indictment of our failure to do so.

When worship is our response to the One who alone is worthy of it - Jesus Christ - then our lives are on their way to being turned inside out.

...The VBS production featured everything money and time could buy and was so central and primary that the gospel felt small and incidental in comparison.

...The privileges of churches like these can shroud the gospel in such middle- and upper-class consumer-oriented style and content that salvation subtly becomes more about providing a warm blanket of cultural safety than about stepping out into the bracing winds of spiritual sacrifice.

One-sixth of the world's population lives in absolute poverty, and nearly a million children each year are sold or forced into the sex-trafficking trade. But this is not just about statistics--it's about real lives. People with names and families are living daily without food or water, in sickness and oppression. ...they are circumstantially without hope. Every day.

...where is the evidence that through worship our lives have actually been redefined and realigned with God's heart for justice in the world?

...worship services that offer little more than comfort food: the baked potatoes of love, the melting butter of grace, with just enough bacon and chives of outreach to ease the conscience. All this becomes a churchly anesthetic.

Waking up is the dangerous act of worship.

God's criticism of Israel was that it professed what it failed to live.

"What does the LORD required of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

Faithful worship means finding our life in God and practicing that life in the world, especially for the sake of the poor, the oppressed and the forgotten.

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I actually started to reread this book - this time with a highlighter. Please hang in there with me while I summarize each chapter here so I can first of all, let it sink in a little more and second of all, have a handy summary for myself.

Reawakening to the hope there is -
Jah

Let's Get Dangerous

Well, I have hobbled to the computer and am attempting to do this with one of my feet propped up on an open desk drawer. My life has been a bit different lately. My minor surgery seems to have been successful although I have yet to actually see what they did. Hopefully when they remove the bandages on Monday, the expression will be good and not a "well that's odd" look. I have also learned that TV is pretty much worthless, but I did start and complete a really great book. The title is THE DANGEROUS ACT OF WORSHIP Living God's Call to Justice by Mark Labberton. Dan and I both heard him speak at the National Pastor's Convention and, although we had not heard of him, decided he was our favorite speaker.

I enjoy reading. I don't do it as often as I should, which whether I want to admit it or not, is my own choice. There are a few books I have read though, this being one of them, that have to really seep in over a few days. It offered some really insightful ideas about how and why we worship. I have been trying to share some of the ideas with Dan, but they are still trying to form something in my own heart and mind, so it is hard at this point to articulate them. However, I did want to share some of the key points not only so that you could ponder them, but so that I could ponder them again.

"...we need to continue to grapple with whether our faith or our culture shapes our lives more. What are the distinctives that might lead us individually or as a community to live more kingdomlike lives? Here are some helpful questions....

"Are we ready to live life in God in our town, or do we still insist on living in our town and try to fit God in? Are we convinced that these two options are not the same thing? Are we convinced that God's serious plan for healing the nations in Jesus Christ involves us? That it means picking up our cross and laying down our claim to ourselves in real sacrifice, and that it will change our lives?

"Are we going to let our class, race, job or money set the terms and priorities of our life, or do we want to be seriously kingdom-minded and kingdom-hearted?

"Are we willing to let the gospel do the deep redefining work of establishing us in our new humanity, or will we only let it do a little sprucing up?

"Are we willing to let Sabbath-keeping redefine the weekly rhythms of our lives, calling us to lay down our activities, cease our multi-tasking, stop our consumption, recalibrate our priorities and redefine--for the sake of truly seeking God, for listening, differently and intently for the Spirit, for remembering the passions of God for love, justice and mercy? Are we ready to seek God in our personal and corporate worship so we live to God's great honor?

"Are we willing to do the hard work of thinking beyond the categories of conservative and liberal in order to allow the kingdom to reorder the categories of issues that matter and that escape easy categorization? Are we willing to do the hard work of acting out the consequences of seeking justice, even when the cost is that our sense of self and life is fundamentally altered?"

It wasn't necessarily a hard book to read, but the topic is definitely not light. The main premise for the book and the theme that is repeated throughout comes from Micah 6:8 "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" It seems simple enough, but yet it seems to be so lacking in most of our lives and in the lives of our churches.

Now I am getting to that point where there is way too much info to share and my leg went to sleep quite some time ago. I hope I can continue this book report throughout my recuperation process. I know that the more I keep thinking about it, the more I want it to make a difference. I don't want to close it and think about the great points that were made and move on to check the channel guide one more time.

My leg is pretty much numb now, so I'll ramble on just a little longer. These past few months I have almost felt like my faith had ceased to exist. I know, that may be a bit overstated, but not by much. I have felt like most of my human relationships (with the exception of my immediate family - God doesn't give us more than we can handle as I think that would have put me over the edge) have been broken, or at least not functioning properly. I am learning once again that if my relationship with God is broken, well...you get the picture. The other day, someone, who can remain anonymous for now, said to me "God doesn't work". It kind of hit me in the stomach, that I had been living my life that way. Things weren't as I thought they should be and I was beginning to think that very same thing. Let's pack it in, go back to where we started, God doesn't work. The very day that was said to me, God gave us the opportunity to see that He is definitely not broken, and does indeed, still work. I am beginning to see that my vision of how life works needs to be redefined not just "spruced up".

This was much more than I started out to do, but thank you for indulging my own self-analysis of life.

Rekindling the hope -
JAH