Worship--What the Heck?

One of the most frustrating things about being interested in Christianity and especially in Greek and Hebrew is that I have to suffer through hearing other people butcher texts and run roughshod over them (What up Dr. T!!).

This is ESPECIALLY true with the word "Worship."

Some common definitions heard in pulpits (and behind music stands) are that it "literally" means to ascribe worth, and the Greek "literally" means to kiss toward.

Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh, but........

Here's the thing. Yes, in Greek the word translated as worship can be broken up with the words toward and kiss. But a word is generally not the sum of its parts. Consider the word "diaphragm," which "literally" means "across a fence." Ummmmm, what?

Anyhow, when we worship, we are not, somehow, blowing kisses at our boyfriend, Jesus. Rather, the "kiss toward" is kissing the ground in front of a king, like you lost a contact lens. It is prostrate position, bowing down, bending over, to do homage, etc., etc., etc. Similarly, the Hebrew word for worship just means "to bend over." No confusion there.

Ergo...

When we "worship" God, we are not sending up silly love songs (and yes, Paul McCartney, I have had enough of silly love songs about God!) or just saying what he's worth (Far more than you can imagine!). If you want the absolute best expression of true worship found in the Bible, it comes from the mouth of John the Dunker (traditionally: "Baptist"):

"He must increase, but I must decrease!" (KJV)
"He must become greater; I must become less." (NIV)
"[He must] move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines." (MSG)

So simple, yet the implications are farther than we can see. It is about words (including songs) and deeds (yes, works! <>) that increase God's reputation on earth, that increase God's value and importance to us, that increase his authority over our lives! He must increase!

And proportionally, we must decrease! The best part of Purpose Driven Life is the first sentence: "It's not about you." It's not about me. It's ALL about Jesus.

Worship happens when we are alone, face to face with God, when we are with other Christians, and when we act like His kids to both the sheep and the annoying goats (we were all goats at some point in our lives).

God is not "most glorified in us when we are most satisfied with him" (a la John Piper). Rather, God is most glorified, honored, and worshiped by us when He is the biggest and we are the "leasterest," as the apostle Paul so beautifully invented (Eph. 3:8).

The "Ever Fixed Mark"

I'm sure that the more refined readers will recognize the title as being stolen from Shakespeare (Sonnet CXVI to be precise).

So what does an old love poem have to do with western culture's movement from modernism to postmoderism, Christian existentialism, and my life so far? Good question!

"Modernism" can be grossly oversimplified as the search for foundations, and even THE foundation. Modernism as we know it was launched with the Cartesian formula "I think, therefore I am." Existence was founded on being rational. The human mind was the pinnacle of creation, and it was thought that no mystery or problem was beyond a solution based on the scientific method.

Eventually, humans figured out that most of what "I think" is based on "my" experience, and "my" culture, and "my" worldview. This discovery led to the mission to deconstruct all previously held general assumptions of facts (and even "proven" facts) by exposing the foundations upon which they were held as mere aspects of "truth," only "relative" to each person's experience. (my right pinky is getting tired of all these quote marks...)

The search for foundations, the "ever fixed mark[s]" upon which everything would stand, has led to the attempted destruction of every thought, theory, and practice. The result is a feeling of "lostness." Philosophers have variously called this feeling despair, angst, homelessness, and sundry other synonyms. It is evident in all our culture, the constant motion of life to avoid these feelings, the acknowledged emptiness of the entertainment, on which we spend countless hours and dollars, the lyrics of many bands (esp. alternative) like Coldplay, U2, and many other less famous performers.

The deeper we dig, and the harder we try, the more questions we find, and the more variables and aspects appear. Science is still trying desperately to put together the grand unified theory of everything, and there is still little consensus on how life begins in naturalistic ways other than "it just does." Wars still rage on, even despite our human "evolution" beyond these things.

So now to bring this around again to the title: humanity is more in need now than ever of an "ever fixed mark."

Is it any wonder that the Old Testament, which is filled with imagery of humanity as transient (filling the earth, scattering after Babel, sojourning in Egypt, wandering in the desert, being exiled from the promised land, etc.) has such "outmoded" titles for God in the Psalms such as Rock, Refuge, Fortress, Tower, Established, Forever...

---

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,

My God, my mountain where I seek refuge,

My shield and the horn of my salvation,

My stronghold.

---

Long ago You established the earth,

And the heavens are the work of Your hands.

They will perish, but You will endure;

All of them will wear out like clothing.

You will change them like a garment,

And they will pass away.

But You are the same, and Your years will never end.

---

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

---

"Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds . . .

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken"

The Most Dangerous Question

I am a guy who loves questions. I love to question everything and every process and every rule I encounter to see just how much scrutiny it holds up to. I especially love it when people ask me questions. I love being the answer man. Questions, questions, questions. It's how I learn and grow.

I wonder now if God is the same as me in this regard. I know when Jesus was on earth He was the master at answering questions with really insightful questions in reply. So in that sense, it was never really a good idea to ask Jesus a question because, more often than not, you left with a metaphorical limp.

I have been asking God a lot of questions over the past year. Why didn't this happen? Why am I still in a city full of sucky sports teams? Why does everyone else prosper by God's grace? Why is God so intent on holding me back? Why did I succeed so overwhelmingly and easily in seminary only to sit the bench in real life? Why have none of my crazy schemes worked? Why, why, why, why, why?

Yet it occurs to me that the question most important to me is the most profoundly unanswered question in the Bible. Honestly, I really appreciate more and more the parts of the Bible where God does absolutely no talking, and people are forced to cling to the rumors and almost-forgotten promises of generations past. Books like Esther, Ecclesiastes, Judges, Nehemiah, the really long middle of Job, the end of Genesis, and even the New Testament epistles bear testimony to the sometimes excruciating ordeal of having only the benefit of hindsight in seeing the fingerprints of God's workings behind the scenes.

And that's the only way to answer the hard and painful why questions. I think, like Job, if God even got close to telling us why then our brains would explode and our faces would melt. OK, so not EXACTLY like Job....

Why? Because He is God and He gets to decide what happens and when it happens. It's a perk of being God. That may sound trite and easy at first, but it is assuredly not, because God is also good and loving and faithful and longsuffering and present with us always. These traits are hard to fuse together because, at least in my mind, the good and loving thing to do would be to tell me all the stuff that will happen.

But I guess for me, "such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain..."

But seriously, why am I the way that I am? Anyone?