Revelation 1.4-5

In the middle 1980’s, Christian Century magazine reported on a survey of religious opinion and practice in this country. One particular question in this survey got my attention: “Do you have to go to church to be religious?” 88% of those who did not go to church said “No.” Well, that’s a big surprise! But 70% of those who did go church also said “No.” This tells me that for the vast majority of Americans in the 1980’s, regular worship was not a central part of their religious belief or practice. I suspect that if we asked the same question today, we would get the same or a higher rate of “No.” Most people in this country, both inside and outside the church, think religion is primarily a personal matter that does not require gathering with others for weekly worship.

Here at St. Dunstan’s Church we do not agree with the majority of Americans about the importance of going to church: we think weekly worship is essential for our religious life. In fact, weekly worship is one of the six marks of discipleship that we want to see growing in everyone who is part of this congregation. According to Michael Foss in his book Power Surge, daily prayer, weekly worship, Bible reading, serving others, spiritual friendships, and giving sacrificially are “foundational practices that, over time become the bedrock upon which lives of faithful discipleship are built.” If we want to be a church of disciples building Christ’s kingdom, then weekly worship will be a central part of our schedules. So today I want to answer three questions about worship.

WHOM DO WE WORSHIP?

The first question is this: whom do we worship? To whom do we bow down as our Creator and Lord? To whom do we give thanks and praise? To whom do we dedicate our lives in obedience and service? (All these are meanings of the different biblical words that we translate with the English word worship.) The answer seems simple enough: as Christians we worship the God who is revealed in the Bible. But that leads to another question: what is this God like? And the answer to that is at the very heart of our Christian faith: we worship God who is one being in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is why we began the service today, as on many other Sundays, with these words, “Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

We see this one-God-in-three-persons in today’s reading from the Book of Revelation: “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth” (1.4-5). This is not quite the Trinitarian formula we are familiar with, but it makes the same point. And, it introduces us to one of the major themes of the Book of Revelation: true worship verses false worship. That’s right---the last book of the Bible, the book with all those mysterious visions, the book that we cannot make heads-or-tails of---that book is first and foremost about worship.

Anglican biblical scholar Marianne Micks points out in her book The Joy of Worship that Revelation uses the verb to worship 23 times, the most of any New Testament book. Half of these are about worshipping the One who sits on the throne, and the Lamb, and the Spirit---this is true worship. But the other half are about worshipping someone or something else---material objects, other humans, political powers, or the devil---all of which is false worship. Worshipping anyone or anything else besides God is the most serious sin of the Bible, the sin of idolatry. This is why the first and most important question I can ask is, “Whom do we worship? The Christian answer is, “The God of the Bible, one being in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Any other answer, no matter how attractive, is idolatry.

WHY DO WE WORSHIP?

The second question about worship I want to answer is this: why do we worship? Why do we get up on a Sunday morning, drive to this building, and stay here for an hour plus, when we could be doing so many other things? Why do we sing, and listen to sermons, and pray for the world, and give our offerings, and take a little piece of bread and sip of wine week after week, year after year? Why do we do something which looks like such a waste of time to so many other people, even good religious people? Is it just a habit? Or, is it a form of escapism from reality? Eugene Peterson, author of the biblical paraphrase called The Message, recalls the comment of a parishioner after one Sunday service: “Good sermon, pastor, but now it’s back to the real world.”

There are many good reasons we could give for our weekly worship. In a sermon I preached at St. Luke’s Church, I spelled out three. First, God desires our regular worship. The Bible is filled with both commands to worship the Lord, and examples of God’s people doing so in the Tabernacle and Temple of the Old Testament, and in the synagogues and churches of the New Testament. Second, worship is a primary function of the church. In Acts 2.42 we read that the first Christians met regularly for apostolic teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. It is part of our inherited tradition that we meet regularly to worship God; without it, there is no church. Third, as Christians we need regular worship if we are to live and grow in our faith. It is this third reason that I want to emphasize today.

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1940’s, had a wonderful definition of worship: “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.” Something happens to us when we truly worship God week after week, month after month, year after year: we gradually become more and more like the one we worship, the one God in three persons. Worship is God’s way of transforming us into the person we really want to be. As we focus our attention on God’s holiness, truth, beauty, love, and purpose, we ourselves grow in holiness, truth, beauty, love, and purpose. Why do we worship? The Christian answer is, “To become like the God who made us in his image, and thus to become truly human.” If we worship anyone or anything else, we will unfortunately become like what we worship rather than like God.

HOW DO WE WORSHIP?

The third question about worship is this: how do we worship? Do we need a fancy building or just a field? Should we use older church music or contemporary praise songs? Is it better to have a printed liturgy such as The Book of Common Prayer or an extemporaneous service? Jesus tells us in John 4.24 that “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” But what exactly does that mean?

While Ruth and I were in Mexico two weeks ago, I finished the book Simply Christian by N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham (England), brilliant biblical scholar, and one of the key authors of the Windsor Report. In Simply Christian, Wright tries to explain the nature of the Christian faith to those who are outside the church, just as C.S. Lewis tried to do sixty years ago in his book Mere Christianity. Wright’s book has a whole chapter in which he describes the three things necessary for Christian worship: the Bible, the Sacraments, and the community These three things make up the how of worship.

Christian worship is biblical---reading the Bible and reflecting on it needs to be part of our worship, whatever form it takes. It is through the Bible that we hear and celebrate again and again who God is and what God has done for us. Christian worship is sacramental---material things we can see and touch and taste and smell are necessary for our worship because we are physical beings. Water poured out in baptism, bread eaten, wine drunk, oil smeared---sacramental things we use in our worship---all these convey the new life that God wants to share with us. Christian worship is communal---we need others who share our faith in the Triune God to really give praise to God and to interpret the Bible and to experience the Sacraments. Remember that Jesus told his disciples he would be present where two or three were gathered in his name, not just one (Matthew 18.20). How do we worship? The Christian answer is with the Bible, Sacraments, and each other. Everything else is just frosting on the cake.

So, do you have to go to church to be religious? Most of the people we know outside the church think the answer is “No.” And maybe they are right, if all you want is somehow to feel spiritual. But if you really want to experience the fullness of all that God wants for you, weekly worship of that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in a Christian community, using the Bible and Sacraments is essential. Here at St. Dunstan’s Church, unlike so many people around us, we believe that weekly worship is a fundamental mark of Christian discipleship.

The Rev. David Montzingo, Associate Rector
St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church
San Diego, California, USA
© 11/26/06, all rights reserved