Rethinking the Church: Worship                                                                      November 20, 2006

Worship that is Worth it                                                                                             II Samuel 6

WORSHIP WARS

I have always been amazed that the issue of worship styles has been perhaps the most contentious issue in the Christian church for the last 20 years.  We often use the term “Worship Wars” to describe this tension; you know, the whole hymns vs. choruses debate.  One of the great tragedies of this tension is that too little deep thought has been given to this topic.  What is worship?  Why is it important?  The debate between hymns and choruses (a debate about style) belies a lack of critical thought about the substance of worship.  I think the more we concentrate on the substance of worship, the less important the questions of style become.

Let me describe for you the importance of worship, and define it more exactly, and look at this text which speaks of previous tensions over worship.  Worship is not important.  It is vital.  I think you and I ought to give worship specific thought.  We, as a church, ought to care more about worship in a very specific way.  Worship easily becomes casual, thoughtless, careless, heartless.  Spiritual renewal always is associated with (either as a cause or effect) deeper care and intentionality in worship. 

Look: God is real, God is good, God is here.  That is true right now.  When that truth really sinks in, you might become very, very excited about it.  Let’s examine worship by thinking about this passage of scripture.  I had it read in two sections in order to bring our its two basic messages to us.

DAVID AND UZZAH

This passage should bother you.  It bothers me.  Why did God strike Uzzah down?  He was simply trying to steady the ark of the covenant so it didn’t fall out and touch the ground.  The ark was being transported into Jerusalem as a way of saying, “Now that we have a king, we want the God who brought us out of Egypt and into the promised land to continue to be the center of our worship.  We want the symbol of deliverance from Egypt to be right in our new temple.”  David’s moving the ark of the covenant into the Temple was a way of saying, “Just because I’ve built this new temple doesn’t mean that we’re leaving the God who brought us from Egypt.  The same God we worshipped in the wilderness tabernacle will reside in this temple!  We’re still going to rejoice and be happy in that God’s deliverance from Egypt and his gift of this land.”

This is a way of saying, “New king, New capital, same God!  We’re worshipping the God of Moses here!  The deliver us from Egypt God here!  The God who dealt out plagues and split the Red Sea and brought us into the land and gave us victory over Canaanites/Philistines God – that is the God we worship here in this fabulous new city and eventually new temple!

So David is all happy and dancing before the ark as it lumbers down the road.  Now, the cart was being carried on an oxcart, and the ox stumbled.  Interestingly, the Mosaic law specifically commanded that the cart be carried by long poles and by Levites carrying the poles.  This method of carrying the ark specifically protected it from touching the ground – several men carrying it on poles is much more stable on uneven terrain.  But David wasn’t reading the law that day and didn’t notice.  Uzzah and Ahio were walking alongside the ark and the ox stumbled.  Uzzah did what was only impulsive – he reached out to steady the ark.  Bam.  He fell over dead, struck down by the Lord.

David was terrified by this.  You would be too!  “How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?” he said.  Everything stopped and the ark didn’t come to Jerusalem that day.  Only several months later, David brought it to Jerusalem.  Notice vs. 13, “Now when those who were carrying the ark . . .”  What is interesting about this?  It wasn’t on an oxcart, it was being carried by Levites as the law required.  The reader can breath a sigh of relief and say, “Wow.  They are getting it right.”  Not only did they carry the ark properly, they offered sacrifices at every sixth step.  They are proceeding with tremendous care and fearing the Lord in a way they hadn’t before.  God is now held in awe in a new way.

Now, this is a horrifying story – then and now – and thankfully, the understanding of God in the NT emphasizes God’s love and mercy more than many of these OT stories.  But let us not think that the OT has no value for us.  It does communicate to us what it communicated to David.  We better take this God seriously.  He has the power of life and death.  We worship him thoughtlessly at our own peril.  We give him our sacred love and devotion.  Do you know what it is to hold God is awe, to reverence God with holy fear?  This is an attitude which a story like this is meant to stir up in you.

RECAPTURE THE AWE

We worship a God who is holy and powerful.  This worship service isn’t primarily a social event – that is; an even whereby we gather together, love each other, encourage each other, learn from each other.  It is all that, but if it isn’t more it isn’t what it should be.  Worship is gathering together in the presence of a holy and powerful God who will judge us all in the end.  While we gather by faith and grace, we ought never become casual about God’s presence and holiness.  This story is meant to remind us of the grave danger in being casual about God’s presence.  It do believe we need this reminder.  Especially we NT Christians who emphasize the love/grace/kindness of God of Jesus.  He is our Abba Father.  Well, don’t think this “Daddy God” means casual and half-hearted.

I want us to tremble a little more at God’s presence.  I think it is healthy to pray before even entering the sanctuary, “God, this is a holy place.  Make me a holy person who can tremble at your power and might.”  We need to recapture some of the awe of God’s power.  I think it is appropriate to cultivate this attitude in yourself.  You might think, “I don’t naturally feel this way.  I feel in church the way I feel in a theater.”  What would it take to find one or two minutes before worship began, or before you even arrived, in which you could say, “God, I want to approach you with a little more awe and trepidation.  I want to fear you a little more.”  This is simply cultivating in your soul a feeling appropriate to truth.  The truth is that we should worship God with fear and trembling.  It is appropriate to remind yourself of this and cultivate the attitude.

DAVID AND MICHAL

Finally, David is ready to move the ark into Jerusalem itself.  But even thought David is holding God in a new type of awe and fear, it isn’t as if he brings the ark into Jerusalem with somber sadness.  He was leaping before the Lord the first time as well as the second after Uzzah’s death.  Even though Uzzah has been stricken down and David’s heart has been filled with a new awe of God, he still celebrates God’s presence and goodness with remarkable zeal and enthusiasm.  He dances before the Lord with his ephod.  His wife, Michal, Saul’s daughter (with whom David has already had a very rocky relationship) despises David in her heart (v. 20).  “How the King of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”

David recognizes this to be little more than bitterness that God had chosen David and his family to be a dynasty for Israel and not her father Saul.  In other words, Michal was really upset that the dynasty had been transferred from her father to David, and she was only using this opportunity to express that bitterness.  David responds, “I’m going to become even more undignified than this.”  You haven’t seen anything yet!  When I give praise to God, I do it with all my heart and soul and if people think I’m crazy, let them.

What he actually says is a bit difficult to figure out.  The NIV translates, “I will become even more undignified (the Hebrew word is “light in terms of having little value”) than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.  But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”  The problem here is in knowing what he meant by “humiliated in my own eyes.”  There is some textual evidence that it could be translated, “I will be humbled in your eyes.”  “My eyes” doesn’t make much sense.  The NLT avoids the problem by shortening it to, “Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, but I will be held in honor by the girls of whom you have spoken.”  But the basic idea is captured by the NLT.  “I’m willing to look like a fool because those who understand why, will realize the appropriateness of it.  You’re bitter at me for other reasons, but there is nothing more appropriate than for me to make merry before the Lord for all God’s goodness to me.”

OUR UNDIGNIFIED WORSHIP HISTORY

I remember in my United Methodist History classes in seminary – reading about the fervency of the worship in the old Methodist camp meetings.  One cannot help to compare that to the formality and structure of modern Methodist worship.  My question is this: have we gained or gone backward?  Are we further ahead or behind?  Old campmeeting worship was rude, undignified, emotional, sometimes downright rowdy.  You probably would have been embarrassed of it.  Well, it was undignified.  People sometimes did silly things as they felt the spirit moving them; they sometimes fell over under the influence.  There are descriptions of throat singing; a type of unstructured humming that congregations would practice when they were completely caught up in the divine presence and overwhelmed by God’s goodness.

When was the last time you were overwhelmed with divine goodness; so much so that you became undignified, lacking in decorum, vile in the eyes of the servant girls.  When you worship here, I want you to encounter God’s holy presence here.  You need to go from here with a sense that you’ve been in God’s presence, that you’ve praised God with your heart, that you’ve given thanks to God with all your heart, that you’ve responded to God’s word with your heart and soul.  Spiritual renewal is always associated with a depth of appreciation for worship.  Worship brings about renewal of spirit, and personal spiritual revival inspires worship.  If you aren’t getting that out of today’s worship, we’ve got work to do!  Worship is to bring you in touch with the almighty God. 

TWO ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM

David illustrates here that worship has two elements; they were not in any way contradictory.  Worship should include a holy fear that compels us to order our ways rightly before the Lord.  I want you to feel God’s presence here in such a way that you are forced to look at your life in a new light.  I want your fear of the Lord to be renewed in God’s presence, so your life finds deeper authenticity, honesty, integrity, etc.  There is something about worship that shine’s God’s light into your soul, and forces you to reexamine your heart and life.  This is healthy.  May it happen all the more.

But there is another side of the spectrum to keep in mind.  That is worship as enthusiastic celebration.  Worship can be and ought to be enthusiastic, joyful, heart-felt.  I quote from Ralph Martin, a well-known Biblical scholar who has written much on New Testament worship.  It is a longer quote, but worth every word. 

Worship is the creature’s response to the Creator who is at once above and yet graciously near.  Two important aspects of worship are implicit in this statement.  One is the God-centeredness of Christian worship.  It is an exercise of the human spirit that is directed primarily to God; it is an enterprise undertaken not simply to satisfy our need or to make us feel better or to minister to our aesthetic taste or social well-being, but to express the worthiness of God Himself. . . To worship God is to ascribe to Him supreme worth, for He is uniquely worthy to be honored in this way.

The other side of worship is derivative and secondary, but nonetheless important.  Because God is eminently praiseworthy and worshipful, those who address worship to God in an act of acclamation and devotion will want to offer their very best and to demonstrate, by that offering, . . . the seriousness with which this religious exercise is regarded. . . worship that is God-centered will be made thoughtful, costly, and worthy offering, appropriate to the high occasion and in line with the serious intent of their coming into the presence of an all-holy and all-gracious God.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Make your worship of God serious, worthy of God’s glory, intentionally enthusiastic, thoughtful, and honoring to the God who sacrificed all to give you eternal life.  But some wonder, “Why does God want to be worshipped?  Isn’t this odd?  I don’t want people going around behind me singing my praises!  If I did, I would have serious problems.  I resent people who are like that.  When I think about God wanting my worship, he comes off rather badly, like a small-minded dictator who constantly must be worshipped and adored.”

First, there’s something inappropriate about the analogy.  God desiring worship is not the same level as a human wanting worship.  Humans worship their creator impulsively, responding to God’s innate greatness and glory.  As Christians, we respond to God’s salvation achieved in the historical events of Christ’s incarnation, teaching, death and resurrection.  I don’t think of God demanding worship so much as worship being the appropriate response to glory.  When we encounter glory, we humans respond in a big way.  Wow!  We won the national championship!  Wow!  That is Jane Rowlings!  We naturally respond to glory with emotion and excitement.  The glory of God should be no different.