Category: Word/Sacrament

When we come into worship on this day, there is a weightiness to what happens. We come soberly into worship because the sons of Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, offered strange fire in the holy place, and God struck them dead. We come soberly because religious leaders compromised God’s Word, and God destroyed their temple. We come soberly because some in Corinth were eating and drinking to exalt themselves and dividing the Church and Paul says, “Some died, as a result!” Beloved, this is not some trivial exercise this morning.

There is a weightiness to worship that is not experienced anywhere/anytime except when we gather on the Lord’s Day. I was exposed these last few weeks to some of the most amazing sights in this country. Glorious mountains towering over each other in a competition of glory; lakes decorated with ice and snow, and sceneries that, unless you see it, you’d be tempted to think they were photoshopped. But all of creation’s glory cannot compare to the glory of human beings gathered in a building to enter into communion with God in worship.

Many years ago, a parishioner pulled me aside and asked, “Why do we talk so much about worship at Providence?” I remember giving him some pious answer, but if that question were asked today, I would say, “Because the only way human beings can feel light in God’s presence is if we understand the weightiness of worship.”

G.K. Chesterton once said that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. Worship is weighty! But Christians come boldly before the throne of grace; which is to say, “they fly into God’s presence lightly.

Today, if you are lonely, God says, “Come!” Heavy burdened, God says, “Confess!” Needy, he says, “Hear!” Hungry, he says, “Eat!” And then to the blessed, he says, “Go!”

The weightiness of worship is for the lightness of your soul! Come to Jesus Christ!

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Give me a couple of minutes to indoctrinate you just a bit. After all, it’s the only reason I have a Facebook account. It will be slow and painless. I promise. I will even tell a few stories. Stick around!

Back in the 1990s–give or take a year or two before the rapture–I remember engaging in some random radio program when I lived in Pennsylvania. The speaker had this remarkable voice filled with the sophistication of someone trained rhetorically under the best. He hailed from a town about an hour from where I was called Ligonier.

I kept tuning in every night retiring early to make sure I was ready with a note-book before Robert Charles Sproul would come on the scene heralded by “Sinfonia” from Handel’s Messiah. The whole thing was sublime and coupled with Sproul’s elegance of delivery, it was theologically seductive and I didn’t even what “reformed” was at the time.

Part of my intrigue with Sproul was not only the gravitas of his delivery, but it was the way in which he symphonically engaged the arts and theology and culture–all three pieces ending with a major key of excellence. My wife and I spent some time attending his congregation in Sanford, and the sobering reality of the worship took my understanding of music to a whole new level. I grew up thinking that music was preferential; a box of chocolate wherein you get what you get and hope for the best. If you want to feel young again and receive a double portion of the Spirit, then you visit your local mega-church with all the excellence of audio recording and a fine assembly of musicians to lead the way. And, in most cases, their voices can easily guide the whole song. It is like a monastery led by professional cantors. I do not minimize their work. It is well done unto the Lord.

In other cases, if you grew up with St. Fannie Crosby, then there is a pre-determined holy 25 classics that can be played again and again by your sweet pianist with all her flowery glory. When you sing those songs you come to the garden alone and leave walking with Jesus. There is a certain addiction to those classics that is hard to erase in our evangelical culture.

I had the distinct privilege of being a part of both cultures, first as a little singer in the congregation my father pastored in Brazil, which was a potpourri of highly emotional choruses with a blend of old hymns. Then, later in my Christian life, I had the joy of leading music at a Presbyterian Church using the RUF selection which was hymns put into contemporary tunes.

As I walked through the music wars in various church contexts, I quickly realized that the entire conversation became a highly subjectivized dialogue. If you had a propensity to enjoy K-Love in your car rides, then your expectation was to enjoy it on the Lord’s Day also. If you had some classical background, then your expectation was also the same on Sundays. But the entire conversation lacked biblical rationale. It was not salted with the imagery of music in the Bible, especially in Israel’s worship. What was unique about Israel’s worship was the incense of it; a fragrance that did not match the smells of society. In short, it was other-worldly. Israel’s music shaped more than just the emotions of the people, but their intellect and desires. God’s people sang to become something they were not before singing.

I remember leading music for a small group of parents on Reformation Day. I cavalierly mentioned that Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress” is probably one of the most sung and known in all of history since the Reformation. One sweet mom humbly offered her lack of knowledge. She had never sung such a hymn. I asked her afterward what she thought, and she, again, gently told me that it would take her some time to figure it out. I was enamored by her response. I think it was the right one.

You see, good church music is the kind that takes a while for you to figure it out. It can’t be exhausted with a few guitar chords. It demands meditation and contemplation. For those of you who probably know me, you are aware of my musical dogma, but my point here is not to make a case for a 4th-century canticle, but to make the case for why the music you sing in church ought to compel you to think about it; to slowly process its value and lyrics. What church music ought to do is to train you for life as a thinker and ethicist. What do you value? What do you think? Is it music that can be consumed quickly like a cigarette, or the kind that you grow into? I am arguing for the latter.

This, of course, applies to a theme we care much about at Providence, which is how we worship. It’s not enough to talk about worship in generic categories, but we need to think carefully about how we worship. My presupposition is that healthy exhaustion should take place when we worship. We have worked, therefore, we have worshiped. If you come out of church and all you’ve been is a passive attendee, you’re doing it wrong. Worship is never a one-sided work. We are Protestants. We don’t think, “Hey, let’s let the professionals trained in theology do all the work and we just sit here as spectators.” If you feel this way, you may have walked into the wrong church building. We are here to exercise our ritual bones, to flex our liturgical muscles and to stretch our hands in adoration. Worship is the task of warriors.
-Transcript from a portion of today’s sermon on what it means to be a Christian ritualist

Writing for the New Yorker, Dan Piepenbring claims that the presence of Chick-fil-A in New York City is creepy in its “pervasive Christian traditionalism.” He cites the restaurant’s policies on closing on Sundays and its explicit Christian social views. In other words, Chick-fil-A is a symbol of that archaic institution called Christendom.

I note these things to affirm just how easily threatened the world is of good chicken served in the name of Jesus. How much more should they be threatened by bread and wine served by Jesus himself? If someone says that symbols don’t matter or don’t convey ideas, point them to a spicy chicken sandwich served at your local Chick-fil-A. And then point them to the elements of Christendom given by Jesus to memorialize his name. That’ll show them just how pervasive Jesus’ kingdom truly is.