Speaking To God

Text: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Romans 10:5-15
February 29, 2004
Aldersgate UMC

Dear God,

Today, instead of addressing my message to the congregation, I am addressing it to you. For you see, I’ve been reminded recently that worship is for you. It is the time when we lift to you our gratitude for all that you have down for us and I have been wondering how this message would be different if I addressed my thoughts to you.

Perhaps one of the most basic of human needs is our desire to worship you, O God, our Creator. From native dances performed for no one other than you as an audience, to highly structured liturgies full of pomp and beauty, your children have sought to worship you from the ancient times to today. Even today, the styles of worship vary tremendously. From praise songs that remind us of Saturday night dances to 500- year-old chants that intone in stone chapels, the possibility of the music we offer up to you is limitless. What is it that you enjoy? What is it that brings you pleasure?

The ancient prophets tell us that you do not want burnt offerings, although I have never even considered making a burnt offering. The prophet Micah tells us that you want us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you and that is what we try to do in our lives.

Yet, what is pleasing to you when we come together for corporate worship? How do we please you as a community? Deuteronomy tells us that when a people forget their history, they also loose their present and their future. So we come to you today to give thanks to you with our offerings and to tell our story that others might know of your actions on our behalf.

In a few minutes we will offer to you our tithes, the fruits of all that you have given to us. I offer my tithe with a cheerful heart for I read in Corinthians that you love a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7) Actually the older language of Latin uses the word hilaris and makes me think that you love the hilarious giver. So rather than a solemn face, I want to laugh hilariously as I put my envelope in the offering plate. After all, you’ve given to me so much more than the portion I give back to you.

And now for our story. I too claim for my ancestors those same wandering Arameans who found themselves enslaved in a foreign land. They lived in a civilized culture, where they were fed and cared for like children, yet one that did not allow them freedom of purpose. Their purpose was defined as meeting the needs of the ruling party, building pyramids for the wealthy. And I too have found myself enslaved to the values of a culture that I find give me no purpose. I live in a culture whose values are expressed by the superficiality of designer clothes and electronic gadgets. I am encouraged to use credit cards to buy things I do not really need. I find that I am spinning my wheels in everything that I have to do today and wondering if I will be any farther ahead tomorrow.

Yet, like our ancestors, you have set us free to let go of the desire for more. You hear us when we cry out to you! You are leading us to a new land of freedom, a land where we are valued as unique human beings, rather than cogs in a manufacturing plant. I find that I am loved by you. You are opening us to your purposes for us in this life. You are leading us to a crossing into a promised land and all because of your love for us.

I am very much aware of your love because of your sacrifice for me on a cross. You tried to teach us your ways, yet we did not understand. You offered words that would bless me when I cried from sorrow or frustration. You said that you would bless us when we work for peace. You told me that the greatest commandment was to love you with my whole being and my neighbor as myself. Yet, I found it hard to understand these reversals of the expectations of this world. It was hard for us to put you first in our lives and not fall into the traps of what our world values. We have these ideas about what you are like and it is hard for us to let go of them and see you in a new light.

So, you died for me. You showed me with your life the kind of love that you have for me. You wanted us to understand your love, so you gave your life, so that we would love others. Because of what you have done for me, I proclaim that you are Lord and that we

have found new life through your presence in this world.

And the most remarkable thing is that I don’t always get it right. I am often unable to share with others, live justly, protect the rights of others, and love them as you have loved me. We know what you want from us, yet we are unable to meet your desires because we are afraid to let go and trust you. We fall short of your expectations for us, yet you love us even more. You forgive us every time we recognize that we have fallen short and welcome us with open arms.

So, I come to you today with my arms open, ready to give to you with the same kind of passion and love that you offer to me. We worship you because of the love and grace that you have shown to use. We place our life in your hands because without you we have no purpose. Lead us in the ways that you would take use. Fill me with the words you would have me offer to your people. Let your spirit be among us as we reflect together on your Word. Amen.

As I was preparing for today’s worship service, designed to help us think about worship, I was reminded of the surprise of many when Rick Warren expressed a view in our kickoff event that worship is for God. He said that if we leave church and say, "Well I didn’t get much out of that!" we’ve missed the point. Worship isn’t for us; it’s for God.

So I wondered how would the message be different if I directed it to God rather than to us? I’ve never done this before and the first half of today’s message was the result of these thoughts.

Another way to think of this is to compare worship to a stage-play. What we normally assume, I think, is that in worship it’s the minister who is primarily the actor. Along with the choir, the music director and the lay reader. Together we are prompted by God to be able to say and offer the right things. And the audience is you, the congregation, that comes here each week to see what is offered and be moved or touched by it in some way. There is another way of looking at this analogy, however.

Consider for a moment that the audience for worship is God – that God is the one who waits each week to see what will be offered in the way of worship. And consider, that the actor is not me or Carol, but you. It is your thoughts, your singing, your offering, the prayers you utter in your hearts, and whatever happens in your soul and spirit while you are here that is the real drama of worship. Myself, the musicians, the lay reader are only the prompters who help you to make your worship offering. The real drama is not what happens up here but what happens in you and what you offer to God where you are.

This is not to say that worship is somehow false or inauthentic. We’re not actors learning particular lines to put on a performance for God. God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, would see through that charade. God is hoping for authentic worship.

And when we come together for worship, we are hoping to speak to God or at least listen for God through scripture song and prayer. We come together to remember the history and connect anew with the action of God in our lives so that we will praise God for all that God has done. We re-member ourselves as children of God, acknowledging again that Jesus has invited us to be member’s of God’s family.

When we celebrate communion we re-enact the event of the last supper seeking to experience it anew in our own lives. We acknowledge that we are Jesus’ disciples in this day and age. We realize that we betray him, we weep at his crucifixion, and we rejoice when we discover that he is alive!

As we celebrate the first Sunday of Lent and the second Sunday of our 40 Days of Purpose journey, we are seeking through the ritual of worship to bridge time. We are trying to re-connect, to re-member ourselves to the ancient history of an Aramean people, the Jewish people of Hebrew scripture and the passionate love of Jesus Christ. The mystery of worship and ritual is that we are able to bridge across vast time periods and realize how God has impacted our lives in much the same way as with the biblical people.

Moses leaps across years in the Deuteronomy passage. He leaps ahead to a time when the Israelites will be settled in the Promised Land and he bridges back through ritual to the years of slavery in Egypt. "The point of all this leaping is that the Israelites get a good, strong grip on the fundamentals of their faith."  (Homiletics, Jan./Feb., 2004)

On this particular day, we too experience a little leaping. Where were you 28 years ago? Where were you in 1976? Some of you were not even born, others were teenagers and still others were beginning their families. I was in the hospital and my husband Richard had just finished an early morning trip to a bank teller where he had shared with them the excitement of life and the wonder of birth. We had just given birth to our first child.

Twenty-eight years ago, was the last time leap day fell on a Sunday. It was also the year that we celebrated the bicentennial of our country; maybe that will help you remember. I hope you can bring to mind where you were so that we can consider a deeper question. Where were you in your faith journey 28 years ago? Where are you today? Where might you be on February 29, 2038, the next occurrence of a leap Sunday?

Yet, in some ways every Sunday is a leap Sunday when we bridge from the time of the Bible to our time frame. When we recognize how God has shaped our history, our present, and our future, we re-member ourselves to the ancient story and to God’s family. Worship is about speaking to God and offering our gratitude to God. We tell our story, sharing with others all that God has done for us. We bow down to God in worship celebrating the One who gives us life, redeems our present and sustains us into the future. Amen.