Deuteronomy 5:12-15 and Mark 2:23-38
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| Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash |
Like many, I played Little League when I was younger.
On my best days I payed attention through the entire game, watching for pop ups in the outfield, rather than chasing butterflies or throwing my mitt up in the air and catching it repeatedly.
On my worst days -I am not too proud to admit- I cried in the dugout because I struck out or missed the countless pop ups, that I allowed to turn into double or triple runs rather than an easy out.
One of those worst days was particularly bad for me as a young boy.
One of my teammates had just hit what should have been a triple but instead turned into a scoring run, due to an outfielder that had a attention span similar to my own.
He scored this run right after I had struck out.
Upon entering the dugout, he plopped down onto the bench right next to me and proclaimed to our entire team; “That’s what happens when you go to church every Sunday!”
Taken aback by this and reacting to the comment with little thought of my own I proclaimed;
“I go to church every Sunday and I just struck out”
“What church do you go to?” he asked
When I told him what church and what denomination I was part of, he was able to diagnose exactly what the problem was for me.
Needless to say, he didn’t think it was my swing.
That day stuck with me as you can tell, since I am referencing it as my opening illustration for the sermon today.
It’s also a story I have shared with our confirmands.
I don’t share it out of self pity or out of resentment for my teammate - he actually remained a friend of mine into our high school years-
I share it because it addresses the “why” of worship.
Obviously, my Little League career never blossomed into the majors, the minors, College, or High School baseball for that matter.
To be honest, I didn’t even play a second year of Little League.
It wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy baseball or I didn’t want to play,
I just lost interest because I didn’t feel like I had the talent for the game.
Regardless, I never believed that if it was even possible for me to worship more often, or in a way that was more “correct” according to the standards of others, that I would improve as a baseball player.
Besides that, my potential as a baseball player or anything else for that matter wasn’t the reason I worshipped.
I worshipped because worship was first presented to me as an expectation.
Later on, the sabbath and worship was revealed to me as a gift.
Worship as, not an action that promised a reward, but an event that was rewarding in and of itself.
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The Gospel for today is preceded by our first reading from Deuteronomy which is the presentation of the third commandment, remember the Sabbath and MAKE it holy (øv√;dåq).
The Hebrew word øv√;dåq means so much more than just KEEPING it is to take something and set it apart from everything else.
It is a verb, it is an action that we are commanded to take something and make it special.
Much like my childhood experience with worship, the Hebrew people are being presented with worship as the expectation.
The practice of worship is commanded but the gift of worship may not be fully revealed to the people yet.
First they need to learn what it means to worship and how to worship.
They need to learn how to see one day as a special day, to set that day apart from all other days.
Once they are familiar with this, the gift of worship, the joy of worship is intended to be revealed to them, through the actual practice of worship.
An order for worship is outlined and specific methods of practice are handed down.
These rules for worship are meant to make this day, this sabbath, a special day set apart from all other days.
A day when something unique, something out of the ordinary, takes place.
Something you wont experience anywhere else or at any other time.
Its the experience of being in the very presence of God.
Its why we sing hymns and liturgical settings that are closer to Bach than the Rolling Stones.
For that matter, it is why I would prefer to listen to the Rolling Stones than hymns when driving back and forth from home and church.
Because we are rolling out the red carpet, our most formal, our very best, for a very special guest in our midst in those moments in which we worship!
It sets our time apart from all other time, but if we see these radical differences as something we must perfect we are missing the point.
The expectation to worship is not a command to perfect worship, it is the command to participate in worship.
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| Rembrandt, Moses Smashing the Tables of the Law 1659 (PD) |
A couple weeks ago, nearly 30 million Americans set their alarms so that they could participate in a very special event.
30 Million, that is half the number of people who worship in the United States, just once at ANY point during the week, on a weekly basis.
The event occurred at 7:00 AM on a Saturday morning.
It was the wedding of Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan.
Following the wedding, media and social media continued to set this event apart from any other wedding, any other event for that matter.
People oohed and ahhed over the event for all its pomp and circumstance.
Many marveled at the elaborate attire, the cathedral-like chapel at Windsor Castle, the stained glass windows, and the priests who gathered to preside in detailed garb.
And for as much as the Bishop of the US Episcopalian Church, Bishop Michael Curry attempted to draw attention to God in his homily,
The wedding had far more to do with the Prince and the Duchess than it had anything to do with God, for those watching.
A colleague shared her own thoughts when she proclaimed; “We do this every Sunday, so if you really enjoyed the formality of worship, please come see it for yourself this Sunday.”
We recognize many events and occasions.
We strive to make them special.
Birthdays, anniversaries, sporting events,
Sometimes we even have weekly routines, when something special is planned, like a family meal or a special night for a movie.
This is particularly true with children, yet we have seemed to place worship at the bottom of that list.
Whether we talk about sports, television ratings, recreational activities, movies, etc
The expectation that we participate in worship one day a week is no longer as valuable as that television show we can’t live without.
And if we cannot find time to for that expectation, we may not be able to know the joy of the gift worship is intended to be.
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| Photo by Mpho Mojapelo on Unsplash |
It’s interesting just exactly who the Pharisees choose to attack in the Gospel today.
They aren’t really attacking Jesus, they are attacking his disciples.
They are attacking his followers, who Jesus is taking to participate in worship!
But these Pharisees aren’t concerned with participation, they are concerned with perfection.
The issue is not the action of the disciples, the issue is what the Pharisees find to be the most holy, the most sacred.
The Pharisees have come to a crossroads that we all come to at some point, deciding what is sacred.
For the Pharisees, the rules, the perfection of worship is what they find sacred now, not the reason for worship.
If the reason for worship was what they found the most sacred, they would be less concerned with the perfection of the practice and more concerned about how to reveal God to the rest of the world.
Its the reason Jesus arrives on scene anyhow, to reveal God the world and if the world truly knows God, how can the world really do anything but worship?
Jesus’ words in this gospel account set Mark’s telling apart from Luke and Matthew.
For me, it is the most powerful part of the Gospel for today.
The sabbath was made for the people, the people were not made for the sabbath.
Sabbath is a gift, it is meant to be handed down to our children, to those who don’t even know how to worship, to all people.
But expressing the joy of being in God’s presence doesn’t require explaining the rules, it is a call to express the joy of the event.
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| Duccio di Buoninsegna, Christ Accused by the Pharisees 1308-1311 (PD) |
In the past few years, I’ve heard the claim that we are a Christian Nation with greater frequency
Yet, out of 54 countries we fall in the bottom half of countries whose citizens worship once a week.
Christianity in our country is also more diverse than in any other countries, offering a variety of Christian expressions of faith and practices to choose from,
yet Nigeria, Liberia, Honduras, the Congo, and Columbia -just to name a few- all have a higher percentage of regular weekly worshippers than our nation!
So, I have to ask, how do we define what is Christian today?
How do we define what is a Christian nation if just one day, set apart and made Holy for God is too much to ask?
Because it is far easier to judge how the rules are perfected than it is to devote ourselves to the simple call to participate it would seem.
We all pass things on to our children.
Rings, books, music.
But once our children know the joy of worship, it is a joy they can carry with them throughout life.
It is a joy that they can share with others.
Not because it will keep the institutional church alive, let it die for all I care, but because it will keep God’s Church alive when they really and truly know and see the gift of God in their own lives.
Amen.
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| Photo by Hanna Morris on Unsplash |
Sources
Cooperman, Alan, Gregory A Smith, and Stefan S Cornibert. “NUMBERS, FACTS AND TRENDS SHAPING THE WORLD,” n.d., 266.
“Fast Facts about American Religion.” Accessed June 1, 2018. http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html
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