Thought for Today
Leviticus 6:14 This is the ritual of the grain offering: The sons of Aaron shall offer it before the Lord, in front of the altar.
Leviticus 19:26 You shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice augury or witchcraft.
John 2:6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
Hebrews 9:6 Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent to carry out their ritual duties;
Rites, rituals, ceremonies, practices. During July, our congregation worships with a sister congregation just a short distance down the road. I always enjoy worshiping with other congregations in our faith tradition and in other faith traditions. I love participating in the beautiful rainbow of various ways we all worship and celebrate our Creator God. Most of the denominations in the Reformed tradition do not have elaborate liturgies. Our Order of Worship is comparatively plain and simple. Yet, even within our tradition and within our denomination there are interesting differences, different elements included and/or emphasized. Throughout all Christendom, there are liturgical elements each of us might wish to explore and may even decide to adopt into our own worship practice.
The same is true in the rest of our world outside of worship. There are almost as many variations in how we formally govern ourselves and in our social practices as there are numbers of nations and people. We have an aphorism, “There are a lot of different ways to skin a cat.” Leaving aside the question of why anyone would ever desire to skin a cat, there is great truth in that saying.
This week there has been a great deal of television coverage of the first of our 2 political party conventions. These ‘staged-for-television’ conventions are held prior to every Presidential election. They have evolved into elaborately choreographed ‘productions’ as carefully scripted and staged as any religious worship ceremony. Certain things ‘must’ be done at certain times, irrespective of whether or not they have any real bearing or significance in the current political environment. Great ceremony is invested in writing and presenting each plank in each party’s platform, the document allegedly outlining the party’s plan for governance. During my own lifetime, I cannot remember as single candidate campaigning for any office basing their campaign on anything more than lip service to the party’s platform. But, the ritual, the ceremony must be performed.
I wonder how much that is true of our religious rites, rituals and ceremonies. How often do we dance the ritual dance merely because that is how it has always been done? How knowingly deliberate are we of why we are doing what we are doing? Is there a particular reason why we begin our worship service at the time we do and with the particular element with which we begin? How many of us even know why we worship on Sunday?
As with so many other elements of life, we are faced with a two-edged sword. There is the potential danger of becoming so wedded to keeping and maintaining the traditions of worship without any change or alteration that we lose sight of the worship itself. There is the potential for the ceremony becoming the object of the worship.
Conversely, there is also the possible danger of our becoming so unstructured in our worship practices that we lose sight of the object of our even being there. When we gather together as congregations, as families of faith, we are gathered to worship our Creator God. We are worshiping the God who love God’s Creation so much that God sent God’s Son into Creation for our salvation. We are gathered for the solemn, serious and significant worship of the Creator of all that is. And we are gathered to thank our Creator God for loving us so much.
Ask yourself this week, have we lost sight of the ‘why’ in worship just as we have lost sight of so much of our political hoopla, our quadrennial pomp and ceremony in the party conventions? On any given Sunday, or whatever your day of worship might be, are you, am I, merely going through the motions because ‘’that’s the way it’s always been”? Are we, am I, worshiping the service or serving the worship? Maybe more importantly, is our, my, worship extending beyond one hour on one day of the week? Am I living a life in witness to my faith?
Stay safe, be deliberate in worship, trust God,
Pastor Ray