Isaiah 1:10-17
10 Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! 11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. 12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; 13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. 14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
Today, the first Sunday in October, is World Communion Sunday, a tradition that dates back to 1934 “that promotes Christian unity and ecumenical cooperation [as] It focuses on an observance of the eucharist.”[1] As I was looking forward to this day, I thought about the first time I can remember taking communion—the first time I ever remember witnessing a service of which the Lord’s Supper was a part.
I hadn’t been going to church for very long, so I wasn’t really sure what was happening when I walked in the sanctuary that morning: everything was as it usually was, except the table in front of the pulpit was covered with a white, linen cloth, with its corners nearly touching the floor, and there was definitely something under that cloth. I wasn’t sure what it was: was the preacher going to preach about death that morning and decide to have some grotesque object lesson? Was there a stack of new hymnals under the sheet that they were going to unveil at some point like a showcase showdown prize on the Price is Right? Was there some traveling, small-time religious relics showcase passing through town, and under that cloth were the remains of some saint with a hard-to-spell-and-pronounce name? I didn’t know, but that cloth on that table had my full attention through every first, second, and last stanza of every hymn we sang that morning and it carried my attention right through what I am sure was some hyped-up sales pitch dressed as a sermon. My imagination was running wild as I thought of all the things that could be under that sheet: I never would have imagined it was a stack of polished metal trays with little shot glasses of grape juice and few plates with these tiny, tasteless, white crackers that were supposed to symbolize the blood and body of Jesus.
Now, I may have been a bit underwhelmed by what was hiding under the sheet, but there was plenty of ceremony that came with its unveiling. You see, after the preacher’s sermon, he prayed and then proceeded to stand on one side of the table, while another man (the chairman of deacons I suppose) stood at the other end, and together, they slowly lifted the corners of that white, linen cloth, and with all the attempted precision of two marines in a graveside ceremony, they folded it and ever-so-gently placed it on the front pew. It was the first of many times I’d witness the exact same sort of sheet-folding at communion in several other churches.
Now, what’s interesting to me about all of that is that I would witness this ceremonious “folding of the linen” dozens of times before I heard a historian in college speaking about the various practices and traditions of our faith. I remember him asking if any of us in the room had witnessed folks removing and folding a sheet that covered the elements for communion (several hands went up); then, he asked us, “Do you know why they do that?” There were responses like: “Because the elements are sacred…the cloth represents Jesus’ graveclothes…it keeps the bread and the wine/juice hidden so it isn’t a distraction from the sermon (a rather repulsive response in my opinion)…it gives the Lord’s Supper more of a worshipful meaning…” There were a few more “creative” guesses, but he just looked at all of us and said, “No. The reason there are churches that do this is because once upon a time there was no air conditioning, and the windows of the church would be open, so they had to cover the bread and wine/juice to keep the flies off of it.” There was nothing sanctimonious about it at all! It was a matter of practical application. Still, to this day, there are churches where preachers and deacons are quietly lifting and folding a white linen cloth from the Lord’s Supper table with some sense of ceremonial reverence—all churches used to have a problem with flies!
Now, I may have been a bit underwhelmed by what was hiding under the sheet, but there was plenty of ceremony that came with its unveiling. You see, after the preacher’s sermon, he prayed and then proceeded to stand on one side of the table, while another man (the chairman of deacons I suppose) stood at the other end, and together, they slowly lifted the corners of that white, linen cloth, and with all the attempted precision of two marines in a graveside ceremony, they folded it and ever-so-gently placed it on the front pew. It was the first of many times I’d witness the exact same sort of sheet-folding at communion in several other churches.
Now, what’s interesting to me about all of that is that I would witness this ceremonious “folding of the linen” dozens of times before I heard a historian in college speaking about the various practices and traditions of our faith. I remember him asking if any of us in the room had witnessed folks removing and folding a sheet that covered the elements for communion (several hands went up); then, he asked us, “Do you know why they do that?” There were responses like: “Because the elements are sacred…the cloth represents Jesus’ graveclothes…it keeps the bread and the wine/juice hidden so it isn’t a distraction from the sermon (a rather repulsive response in my opinion)…it gives the Lord’s Supper more of a worshipful meaning…” There were a few more “creative” guesses, but he just looked at all of us and said, “No. The reason there are churches that do this is because once upon a time there was no air conditioning, and the windows of the church would be open, so they had to cover the bread and wine/juice to keep the flies off of it.” There was nothing sanctimonious about it at all! It was a matter of practical application. Still, to this day, there are churches where preachers and deacons are quietly lifting and folding a white linen cloth from the Lord’s Supper table with some sense of ceremonial reverence—all churches used to have a problem with flies!
Now, I think this is terribly interesting because it speaks to the way we tend to think about worship, which is to say, we don’t think about worship very much. In fact, if you were to ask some folks how they would define worship, they might say something like: “ten o-clock on Sunday morning…the singing before the preaching,” or they might describe some wonderful experience they had up on Lookout Mountain or at some conference, and I suppose those could all be ways to talk about worship, but what is worship?
It may help us understand worship if we understand the words we translate as “worship” in the Bible. In Hebrew, the three most common words we translate as “worship” are shachah (which means essentially “to prostrate oneself; to lie face down in submission and obedience), abad (which implies service, as in serving God), and caged (which also implies prostrating oneself in a sense of submission and obedience). In the New Testament, there are words like proskuneo (which can literally be translated as “kissing forward” and in other contexts may be understood as a kiss like that of a dog licking its master’s hand), lotereuo (which is understood as ministering to someone as if one is a hired worker), and therapeuo (a word that means “to wait upon someone” or “relieve of distress”).[2]
Did you notice something those words have in common? Did you notice what they didn’t say about worship? They’re all verbs, action words, words that imply that worship is not a noun, that worship is not a “thing that happens to you.” This is why it always bothers me when I hear someone complain about a worship service or talk about a church they “used to go to” and say things like, “I just wasn’t getting fed.” To me, that’s like eating donuts and junk food all week, then eating a salad for lunch on Saturday and saying, “This diet just isn’t working out.” Worship isn’t something that happens to you, nor is it something you just show up to.
It amazes me, really, how some folks casually stroll in the doors of the church, find a padded place to park their posterior, and then just sort of bide their time, waiting for the last “Amen,” as if it’s all part of a community service program. It reminds me of those kids I knew back in school whose names would be called on awards day because they had perfect attendance, but their grades were just north of failing. Just showing up and doing the time isn’t how one gets an education, and it isn’t how worship happens either.
These were the mistakes the people of Judah were making in the time of prophet Isaiah. The nation had grown in the past two centuries and along with that growth came a sense of comfort and prosperity for those with wealth and power and an ever-growing chasm between them and the poor people of the nation. The comfortable were making their ways to the temple for worship and going through the motions, offering what they viewed as the “minimum requirements” for the Lord’s favor, all the while ignoring the needs of their poorer sisters and brothers. For them, worship had become little more than the cultural and familial habit of showing up and going through the motions. They viewed worship as something you did in order to check a box, to claim a title, to uphold the status quo, but God defines worship quite differently, and the Lord’s words to the people (through the prophet) are biting and harsh:
These were the mistakes the people of Judah were making in the time of prophet Isaiah. The nation had grown in the past two centuries and along with that growth came a sense of comfort and prosperity for those with wealth and power and an ever-growing chasm between them and the poor people of the nation. The comfortable were making their ways to the temple for worship and going through the motions, offering what they viewed as the “minimum requirements” for the Lord’s favor, all the while ignoring the needs of their poorer sisters and brothers. For them, worship had become little more than the cultural and familial habit of showing up and going through the motions. They viewed worship as something you did in order to check a box, to claim a title, to uphold the status quo, but God defines worship quite differently, and the Lord’s words to the people (through the prophet) are biting and harsh:
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
God has grown tired of their “going through the motions,” their heartless worship, their inability to recognize that ritual for ritual’s sake is not what worship is all about. They’re worried more about folding the cloth right than they are the bread and the wine! They’re worried more about the style of music than they are about the One to whom they sing! They’re worried more about what time the service is over than they are about what actually happens in the service! They’re worried about what the person in the pew beside them is wearing than about whether or not that person has eaten this week! In other words, they’re so worried about the ritual, about the practice, the habit, that they completely miss the point of all of it!
How often do we fall prey to the same sinful misunderstanding? How often do we come into this room expecting something to happen to us—for us—rather than coming to offer something to God or for others? How often do we worry about the right songs, the right style of music, the length of the announcements, the font in the bulletin, the words on the screen, the length of the sermon, the loudness of the children during prayer times, the clothes people wear, the place where we and others sit…? How often do we count our dollars and cents and write the check out to the penny, claiming we “tithe” just to say we can, while holding so much back from God and one another? How often do we stand, silent, while others sing songs of praise to our God? How often do we check our phones, make grocery lists, or pass notes about the preacher or the person in the pew in front of us, while others pray for peace, for healing, for love? How often do we let the plate go right on by, telling ourselves that the church doesn’t need our money, that God doesn’t need our money, that we’ll give when we need to or when we want to, but that need or want seems to never come? How often do we walk out the door on Sunday morning, unchanged from the way we came in because our hearts have been hardened by a culture that tells us no one is more important than we are and a one-hour interruption on Sunday morning isn’t going to change that? How often do we miss the voice of God, the calling of God, the opportunities God places before us for worship, for service, for giving, because we’ve ultimately decided that worship is all about us, that worship is something that happens to us, something that we are just supposed to show up for?
How often do we fall prey to the same sinful misunderstanding? How often do we come into this room expecting something to happen to us—for us—rather than coming to offer something to God or for others? How often do we worry about the right songs, the right style of music, the length of the announcements, the font in the bulletin, the words on the screen, the length of the sermon, the loudness of the children during prayer times, the clothes people wear, the place where we and others sit…? How often do we count our dollars and cents and write the check out to the penny, claiming we “tithe” just to say we can, while holding so much back from God and one another? How often do we stand, silent, while others sing songs of praise to our God? How often do we check our phones, make grocery lists, or pass notes about the preacher or the person in the pew in front of us, while others pray for peace, for healing, for love? How often do we let the plate go right on by, telling ourselves that the church doesn’t need our money, that God doesn’t need our money, that we’ll give when we need to or when we want to, but that need or want seems to never come? How often do we walk out the door on Sunday morning, unchanged from the way we came in because our hearts have been hardened by a culture that tells us no one is more important than we are and a one-hour interruption on Sunday morning isn’t going to change that? How often do we miss the voice of God, the calling of God, the opportunities God places before us for worship, for service, for giving, because we’ve ultimately decided that worship is all about us, that worship is something that happens to us, something that we are just supposed to show up for?
This morning, we have worshipped our God. We have given our worship to God through the singing of songs, the prayers we have entrusted to God, the giving of our tithes and offerings, through listening for God’s words. Perhaps for some of us, this has been a morning like countless others, a morning where we just showed up, expecting worship to happen to us, but that’s not what worship is. Worship is our gift to God—a small fraction of the gift God deserves. Worship is our gift to God, so why would we ever think it is “enough?”
What if, instead of thinking of worship as an hour on Sunday or something that happens to you in that hour, we believed that worship was our offering to God? What if we believed that the songs we sing aren’t for our entertainment, but for the praising of God? What if we believed our prayers were heard by God and could change bring about real change in the lives of others? What if we saw our giving as worship? What if we truly believed that the act of giving some of our time, our efforts, and—yes—our money to God was an act of worship? Think of all the other things in life we are willing to give our time, effort, and money to: social fraternities and clubs, gym memberships, Netflix accounts, football games, vacation homes, golf memberships, fantasy sports leagues, “travel ball,” and countless other hobbies and habits we all have that so often claim our time, effort, and money. What if each one of us began to take a step towards reorienting our lives towards the holistic worship of God? What if we began—this very day, in this moment—to shift the priorities of our lives away from those things which our culture and our desires would have us believe are most important, towards the One to whom all other things fall eternally short? What if we all—each and every one of us—began to reorient our lives so that the worship of God takes precedent over everything else? What if, beginning with this bread and this cup, we began to give ourselves completely to Christ, in worship and service, to give God our time, our effort, our money, to give Christ everything we are, for Christ gave us everything he is? What if we saw worship as a verb, the very way we live our lives? What would we give to God then? Amen.
[1] “World Communion Sunday.” Wikipedia, April 17, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=World_Communion_Sunday&oldid=775847545.
[2] “Greek and Hebrew Words for Worship.” Exceeding Faith Ministries, March 25, 2013. http://exceedingfaith.com/greek-and-hebrew-words-for-worship/.
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