I was given the opportunity to teach a couple classes on worship at the church where I am the worship pastor, naturally. Upon ending the first class, I opened the floor to any questions, one of which was "what is our motivation to worship?". A loaded question that caused me a bit of discomfort as I had never really considered this as deeply as was necessary for a competent answer. So I quickly answered "Obedience.", which is true ( if you discover there is a God, then discover this God is not you, then further discover this God requests your worship, to disobey is at it's very least illogical and it's severest, and I think more to the point, sinister.), but it is also incomplete in its scope.
The 2nd world war (probably should be in caps) was nearing an end (at least the European theatre) and the allied troops were drawing nearer to Germany when they stumbled across a strange prison like camp, with tall fences and razor wire, that could only be assumed was to keep people in and not out. Upon breaking in to the "camp" these war hardened soldiers witnessed a surprise that complicated the issue of depravity with relation to the depths that it could reach, hundreds of men barely clinging to life, starved, diseased, left to die by a retreating German army, and ignored to die by the neighboring villagers who, no doubt, could smell the erie scent of death in the air. This surprise startled the soldiers profoundly. The Jews left to die in these camps were startled by the presence of the soldiers, and were largely afraid of the men until the issue of the soldiers intentions was made clear by the sharing of provisions they were packing. Then fear gave way to a rush of gratitude, the lengths of which made many of the soldiers uncomfortable.
Gratitude, another motive for worship. This picture is apropos in that we, in our sin, were just as desperate as were they, and also our captor was no more gracious than was theirs. However always remember that your gratitude will never be seen as uncomfortable to God, because unlike the allied soldiers who stumbled upon the prison and prisoners by accident while in the throes of a larger mission, your liberation was the sole purpose of God's mission.
1 comment:
I am taking this (last?) opportunity (since I have managed to neglect all of the previous opportunities) to say that I think that your new and improved answer to that "why?" question is quite good. In fact, when you were half way or so through explaining it at the end of the 2nd service I thought to myself, "I should be recording this," but then it was too late.
Oh. My community group talked about you. People were sharing stories about how bad they sometimes feel as they leave seaside church services because of the conviction which comes upon them like a bowling ball to the stomach traveling hard and fast. Then someone said something like, "it's all Pat's fault because he is the one who prays 'may we consider it a shame to leave here unchanged.'"
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