As far as I am concerned, it is one of the most fascinating things about being alive. Instincts - the
inborn genetic predispositions we all have to do
certain things, and refrain from doing other things,
that keep us alive and help us to thrive in this
world. We all have them. Usually we are barely
aware of them, but they act every day to protect
us from danger and keep us fit and healthy. It has
been fun to see some these instincts emerging in
our little puppy Zanzibar. She whimpers when
she needs something. She dug her first hole the
day we brought her home. When we are mad at
her, she knows just how to look at us to make us
melt, and she has this uncanny ability to tell right
away if either Yvette or I are upset or sad about
anything. It is so sweet the way she comes up to
us and tries to console us. If we are in a room
and she knows she is about to fall asleep, she will
lay down in front of the door so that we cannot get
out and no one else can get in without her knowing
about it. It is incredible. When you throw a
stick for her, she runs and gets it as if someone
told her what the word “retriever” means.
There is another kind of instinct that we all have.
It is the instinct to worship. No one tries to deny it,
regardless of whether they believe in God or not.
Every psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist,
and archeologist will tell you; worship is one of the
main purposes of our lives. Every human being
who has ever lived, every village, tribe, nation,
and empire, every age and place from the island
of Skye to the hills of Papua New Guinea have all
had this instinct. From the jungles of the Amazon
to the most isolated igloos in the Artic Circle, from
New York, Rome, Paris, Moscow and Beijing to
the far reaches of the Himalayas, Outer Mongolia
and Timbuktu, every single one of us has an innate
instinctual urge to get our eyes off ourselves
and affixed onto someone or something bigger.
This human need for transcendence, this instinctual
urge to worship is all hard-wired into the fiber
of our beings. We all do it. We all worship, intentionally
or not. Rick Warren says in A Purpose
Driven Life, “If we fail to worship God, we always
find a substitute, even if it ends up being ourselves.”
If you are not sure what you worship, all
you have to do is look at your calendar and your
checkbook and you will find out. We all worship
something.
The big question is, “Why?” If every one of our
instincts has its root in some form of survival, then
why an instinct to worship? Again, either you believe
God exists or you do not. If you do not believe
in God then you are most apt to believe that
our instinct to worship has to do with our fear of
death and mortality. People like Freud would say
that we create God in our minds as a way of giving
life a purpose and to allay our most primal
fears of impermanence and non-existence. He
would say that this universal urge to worship
comes from our desire to create a higher purpose
for ourselves and to project our hopes and our
fears onto its manifestation.
The rest of us would say that the instinct exists
because God exists. If God exists, then there
really are very few who would question that we,
along with the vast majority of people who have
ever lived throughout the history of civilization,
worship because God created us to worship.
The Darwinians might point to the benefits or the
survival advantage of those who worship. After
all, worship does have a way of filling people’s
hearts with joy. It makes us content and grateful
for what we have, and it infuses us with a confidence
of knowing, and truly believing, that with
God all things are possible. When we worship,
our spirits surrender, our focus comes off ourselves
for once, and we have the honest desire
to serve others and do good works. Worship
humbles us, and it gives us an inner peace and
a strength to do things that we could never do on
our own.
When we do not worship, life is never quite as
easy. There is an anxiety about the future that
most people are not able to elude by themselves.
There is a tendency to envy people who
have what we do not have and to develop a
sense of entitlement that destroys our gratitude.
We become so much more negative and judgmental
towards other people and become discouraged
and defeated by setbacks when we do
not worship.
Many wonderful things come into our lives when
we do worship. If God actually exists, then there
is no question that what we get out of worship is
not the reason we are doing it. I love what Rick
Warren says in Chapter 8: “If you have ever
said, ‘I didn’t get anything out of worship today,’
you worshipped for the wrong reason. Worship
isn’t for you. It’s for God.” He says, “There are
benefits to worship, but we don’t worship to
please ourselves.”
Soren Kirkegard tried to make this clear when he
compared our worship to a symphony. He said
that too often we make the mistake of thinking of
the pastors and the choir as the orchestra and
the congregation as the audience. That is completely
backwards. Kirkegard states that if worship
were a symphony, then the pastors and the
choir would be merely the conductors and you,
the congregation, would be the orchestra. God
alone would be the only audience.
When we make the mistake of putting ourselves
at the center of our worship, many strange, convoluted
things begin to happen. We begin arguing
about stupid little issues. We become worship
consumers who actually believe that worship
is more about our styles, tastes, and preferences
than God’s enjoyment. I am so glad we
do not argue over music here. Many churches
do. Many, many people out there honestly think
they have the corner on God’s taste in music.
There is an old saying, “The biggest difference
between God and us, is God doesn’t think he is
us!” Can you imagine? With all the music ever
composed around the world, on every continent,
throughout every century with every kind of musical
instrument ever made, which music do you
think God did not like? Do you think there was
ever a time when a gathering of God’s beloved
children were pouring out their souls to him in
honest, heartfelt worship and he noted, “Oh, I
despise that tune and that instrument. It is totally
the wrong sound for me.” That has never
happened. If you are honestly and humbly
bringing yourself to God, He does not care if
you are playing a Jessica Simpson tune on the
shofar and kazoo.
When we imagine ourselves to be the audience
or the recipient, we limit our worship based on
what is comfortable. The truth is, when we enter
these doors, we ought to be seriously contemplating
the possibility that when we leave, our
lives may never be the same again. One of my
favorite quotes is Ann Dillard’s on worship, She
says, “Why do people in churches seem like
cheerful tourists on a package tour of the absolute?
Does anyone have the foggiest idea what
sort of power we so blithely invoke? We are like
little children playing on the floor with chemistry
sets, mixing up a batch of TNT. It is foolish to
wear straw or velvet hats to church. We should
all be wearing crash helmets. The ushers
should issue life preservers and signal flares.
They should lash us and strap us to our pews,
for the living God may draw us out to where we
can never return.”
Can you imagine if we really believed that when
we were singing these hymns, reading our responsive
readings, and praying to God, we were
in direct dialogue with the most powerful being in
the entire universe, the living God? Can you
imagine? If we took worship seriously, our
hands would be trembling as we took those bulletins
from the ushers and our hearts would be
pounding as we walked down these aisles to
take our seats.
That is what happens when we understand that
our worship is not about us. We stop looking for
it to be an experience for ourselves and we begin
caring more about what we are bringing to
God. We start to trust that if we open ourselves
to God, if we spend the time reading God’s word,
praying, and listening, then God will be there.
He will lift us outside of ourselves and we will
grow closer to Him regardless of the
“experience” we are having. When we understand
that worship is not about us, we stop limiting
our worship to Sunday mornings. We realize
that worship is not about being entertained once
a week, but something you can do when you
wake up, take a shower, eat your breakfast,
drive your car, laugh with friends, play with your
children, work at your job, and look at a sunset.
It is a way of life.
I would like to close with a true story Richard
Foster tells about a friend of his who was in a
grocery store with his two year old son Tommy,
who was cranky, whiny, crying, and irritated. His
dad tried everything he could think of to quiet his
son down, but nothing was working. Finally, in
desperation, he picked up his son, held him
close to his chest, and started to sing him a
song, “I love you Tommy. I’m so glad you’re my
son. I like the way you sound when you laugh. I
like the way your face looks. I like the way your
face lights up when you see me. I’m so glad that
you are my boy. I’m so glad I get to be your
dad.”
The most incredible thing happened. As soon as
the dad started singing, Tommy’s eyes grew
really big and Tommy became very quiet. It was
a really goofy song. None of the words rhymed
and his dad sang even more off-key than I just
did, but none of that mattered. When his child
heard the song, whatever was making him fussy
or scared or sad, didn’t bother him anymore. His
mind was immersed in the song. Tommy was
quite certain that there was no catch, no limit to
the goodness of his father’s intentions. So
Tommy just quietly listened.
His dad kept singing as he walked up and down
the aisles and Tommy remained quiet for the
rest of the time they were in the store. In fact,
his dad sang all the way out to the car and only
stopped when he was strapping Tommy into his
car seat. At that point Tommy threw up his
hands and said, “Sing it again, Daddy! Sing it to
me again!”
Do you understand why God made you? God
made you so that He could have someone to
whom he could sing. God did not need us, but
he wanted someone, something into which he
could pour his endless love. When we sing back
to God - however we choose to do it – that is
worship! We are made for the song. One of the
main purposes of our lives is to sing it back to
God. Every time we hear that song and every
time we find a way to sing that song back, we
discover more of who we are and we re-discover
the One who has been imprinting the song into
the recesses of our hearts since the beginning of
time.
Never stop listening and never stop singing.
Come on, let’s sing it again!
AMEN |
