Worship Wars : Something in the Water

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Hello and welcome back to another week here on Making Waves! I’m thrilled that you’ve chosen to join us here today. For those of you who are visiting this page for the first time, please be aware that this is part 3 of a sermon series called “Worship Wars.” It may be worth your time to go back and watch/read the previous two sermons before carrying on with this one. However, if you should choose to press onward, I will briefly recap the past two weeks below.

Regardless of religious persuasion or upbringing, surely anyone can see and acknowledge that we are (and have been for quite some time) in a worship war in our Christian culture. The division between this postmodern contemporary branch of worship and the deep-rooted traditionalist worship is apparent. Words will be thrown, walls will be built, and the message will suffer at the sake of our opinions on the true means of worship.

Acknowledging this as being another despicable portion of our human nature, we sought out two weeks ago to tear down and deconstruct worship to it’s roots to truly discover what worship is at it’s most basic level. Sometimes when we take a step back and look at something for what it really is (instead of what we’ve made it into), we discover the true meaning behind something that God put into it.

In our first week, we focused on the instance of worship from the prophet Isaiah and his encounter with the Lord and we discovered that, first and foremost, worship is not about us. The hardest truth for us to get around, but the first step of understanding that this worship war happening in our culture is 100% human-created and 100% misguided. When we think that worship has any single thing to do with what we do during it as people, we completely miss the point.

And then, last week we looked at what happens during worship and found that while worship is certainly not about us, it certainly has something to do with what God is doing within us. We talked about the Holy Spirit that is working within us in worship and that we become the essential conduits of the Spirit of God with the world. We talked about how worship is like a cycle, similar to the cycle of breathing. We breathe in the grace and goodness of God, and then we breathe out the praises of God in response. Wash, rinse and repeat.

Finally, that brings us back to today, where we will talk about one of the most important parts of worship: the sacraments. How can water, or bread and wine, bring us any closer to God? Why do we do those things? We’ll talk more about that in a moment, first let’s turn to the good Word before I ramble on any longer. The passage will be posted below from the NRSV, but feel free to use whatever translation of paraphrase you feel the most comfortable with reading.

“1 1The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
   who will prepare your way;
3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
   ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight,’”

4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” “

-Mark 1:1-8

Will you pray with me? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together here today be acceptable in Your sight, O God, for You are our Rock and our Redeemer. It’s in Your Great Name that we pray, Amen.

The year is 1966, and we find ourselves in Bakersfield, California. Young registered nurse Lupe Hernandez notices at her work at the hospital that there never seems to be a sink when you need one. Understanding the dire circumstances of infection and the importance of germ elimination, she noticed day in and day out that there were times when she needed to wash her hands without the availability of soap and water. In the hospital, on the subway, in the park, etc. She then discovered that germ destroying alcohol could be transferred in a gel-like medium that would allow for a person to clean their hands at any place and at any time without the necessity for soap or water. Fast forward forty or fifty some-odd years, and the word hand sanitizer is a household term, isn’t it?

Perhaps one of the biggest booms in the already-thriving hand sanitizer business took place during the major H1N1 outbreak of 2009 in the U.S. Some of you may remember it, I know that I certainly do. It seemed like that year, all of a sudden, you couldn’t hardly go into any store or restaurant without noticing a newly installed hand sanitizer unit. In fact, in this one year alone, Walt Disney World installed 60 bulk hand sanitizer dispensers in their hotels, restaurants and meet-and-greet areas. It seems that the hand sanitizer market booms with every new outbreak since it’s commercial popularization in 1988 by Purell. From SARS to avian flu to swine flu, each new outbreak leads to a few million dollars worth of profit for the hand sanitizing community.

I’ve always liked hand sanitizer personally, mainly because when I was kid I just wanted to get back to playing with my legos, video games or outside and didn’t want to spend the extra minute or two bothering with hot water and soap. But I really like it because of the relation it has to what we do as Christians.

Christianity acknowledges that there is sin and infection in the world that we live in. We typically don’t agree on much from denomination to denomination, but there is one thing we definitely all agree on: there is definitely sin in this broken world. Now, we certainly differ on how and where that sin comes from, how to respond and treat such sin, some even classify sin into seven major categories, but regardless, for the most part we all see eye to eye that sin is a reality. Now, if it’s any testament or relation from the dirty nature of germs and the infection of sin, then we can also make a connection here that we would likely want a hand sanitizer for sin, too, right? So, not only do we agree that sin is real, but we also very likely can agree that we know that we need to be cleansed.

So, then, what does all of this have to do with worship? My answer would have to be: everything. Our desire to be cleansed and wiped clean of our sin is completely rooted in the worship experience. From the start to the finish, worship is God response to our desire to be made whole once again.

First, we have baptism. When we first acknowledge our need for God and our desire to accept Jesus Christ, we are baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit. This is our first step in being made clean. Think of it as the very first shower you ever take. You wipe off all of the dirt and grime that is on your body. I can remember being a kid and going to jump in my grandpa’s pond. I would come out of the water covered in the nastiest looking muck and gunk and would not be able to hardly wait until I hop in the shower and get all that stuff off of me.

But, as much as some may wish that we only had to take one shower and then be done with it, we get dirty once again, don’t we? No matter how many times we beg for forgiveness and pursue God, when we go back out into the broken world, we end up sometimes having our purity tainted by the evil presence of sin in the outside. Fortunately, God gives us buckets of hand sanitizer for this exact purpose.

Our primary resources takes place in the other sacrament that we recognize as Methodists: communion. This is our opportunity to remember our baptism, to give ourselves over to the body of Christ and to wash ourselves once more. That’s why we do this act as often as we do (we do it monthly, though Wesley encouraged us to do it as often as we gather). Think of this as being the true-blue soap and water method.

But that isn’t the only means that we have to repent. In fact, this is perfect timing as we just began the season of Lent. This is a time where we, as Christians, put ourselves to the task of fasting for 40 days in a manner similar to the 40 days of Jesus’ temptation.  As we notice our human desire for the things that we give up, we challenge ourselves to pursue God instead and to long for our hearts to be drawn to Him instead of our human desires.

However, I worry sometimes that we may get caught up in the liturgy and tradition of the matter and we should be wary of doing such things. Take, for example, a few tweets I read that were sent out by Christians sharing what they chose to give up for this Lenten season.

Sometimes we can get caught up on the very idea of Lent and forget even exactly what we are doing all of this for in the first place. Lent is not your opportunity to finally lose that belly or your chance to finally quit smoking since God is making you do it. It’s so much deeper than that. The same truth goes for communion, baptism, and other means of repentance. Take, for example, this silly story.

Neil Marten, a member of the British Parliament, was once giving a group of his constituents a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament. During the course of the visit, the group happened to meet Lord Hailsham, who was then Lord Chancellor, wearing all the regalia of his office. Hailsham recognized Marten among the group and cried, "Neil!" Not daring to question or disobey the "command," the entire band of visitors promptly fell to their knees!

Read these words of Christ from later on in the Gospel of Mark,

“7 1Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
   teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” “

-Mark 7:1-8

As we go through this season of Lent, or when we take in the act of communion, or when we pray to God, let us not do so because we believe it to be the way that those before us have done. Have you ever seen someone that is so concerned with holding onto human tradition that they don’t even know why they are doing it? I know I’ve mentioned this story before, but I will never forget when I was serving as a worship leader at New Story Church and we had just moved into our new church building. (We had been formerly worshipping in a bowling alley, of all places.) The very first Sunday, the pastor, Scott Osterberg, took a permanent marker and etched into the perfectly crisped paint on the wall. He did this because he wanted to be the first to mess up the building. He wanted to take the first hit so that the people would never worship the building they were in, and instead acknowledge that they themselves were the church, not the walls and cement that surrounded them.

In the same way, let us not confuse the commands of God with human tradition. Worship is not a means that we have for ourselves. We don’t take communion with one another for the purpose of really good bread and grape juice. We don’t get baptized because we like swimming in the water. We don’t pray because we want God to give us everything that we want. As we go through this season of Lent, or as you are following the life of a Christian, take time to ask yourself, “Why do I do this?” If your answer comes from anywhere other than God, maybe rethink where this comes from and why you do it.

Until we meet again, think about it. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.