Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” — Matthew 28:16-20
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I considered myself very fortunate to visit the Magic Monastery last autumn. The trees were a wash of reds, oranges, and yellows. The air was filled with the aroma of fresh baked bread, pastries, and hot cider. The crunching of leaves beneath my feet, the gentle breeze, and the melodious songs of the birds created a beautiful symphony that I will not soon forget.
While on my visit, I happened to venture into the gardens of the monastery. While I was walking, I came across an old beggar, who I paused at and took pity upon. I asked him if there was anything he needed; if there was anything I could do for him. He looked up at me and simply said “All I ask is that you seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God”. This response caught me off guard, so I threw a few coins into his cup and walked along. I spotted a bench, so I decided to sit down at it and just enjoy the fall day. As I was resting, I saw one of the gardeners working hard at planting some bulbs for the spring. I called to her asking if she wanted any help with the task. But just like the beggar, she looked up at me, smiled, and said “All I ask is that you seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God”. I started to think this place was rather strange. “Is that the only thing anybody can say in this place?” I thought to myself. I was so preoccupied with in my thoughts that I completely didn’t notice that I was about to bump into my Lord. He called my name and when I realized who it was, I immediately fell to my knees in praise and worship of him. This caused him to laugh and shake his head and he then said “Get up, your worship is not what I seek.” Perplexed, I got up and asked him “well then what do you require of me, o Lord?” My Lord then smiled at me and said “All I ask, is that you seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God”.
I wrote that devotion last year for one of our social justice meetings. It’s written very much in the style of Theophane the Monk’s collection of stories called “Tales of a Magic Monastery”. That collection is filled with parables for the modern age that call us to think deeper about our faith journeys, and I highly recommend that everyone have this book as a personal devotional resource.
Anyways, when I read that devotional for the social justice committee, one of the comments that Andreas made was how much he liked the last bit that the Lord says in the story. “Get up, your worship is not what I seek”. I’ll admit, I sort of wrote that as a throwaway line, not really thinking about its implications, just thinking “hey this sounds good”. But I’ve lately been giving a lot of thought to that idea and what exactly the role of worship, particularly the weekly worship service, is in the Christian life.
Two summers ago, I was lucky enough to attend a conference called the Fund for Theological Education. FTE is an ecumenical organization that exists to empower, prepare, and equip young persons for successful ministry in the Church. When I went, the passage I read earlier from Matthew was our guiding theme for the week: Jesus giving the great commission to the disciples; Jesus telling them to go out and make disciples of all nations. One of the days of the weeklong conference was spent with the group broken up and doing a different site visit. The group I was placed in, however, stayed at the conference center and watched a documentary about Father Michael Pfleger.
For those of you who don’t know, Michael Pfleger is a Catholic priest in the south side of Chicago. When he started his post at Saint Sabina’s Church in 1981, the church was mere months from closing its doors for good. During his uninterrupted tenure (he’s still appointed there, a phenomenon that’s quite rare in the Catholic church) he has been a very vocal activist on many social issues that plague Chicago. By utilizing the local media, Pfleger and his congregants have successfully enacted many changes in the south side of Chicago, from banning the advertisement of tobacco and alcohol in certain communities, to holding gun drives and protesting gun shops. Amidst all of this, Pfleger has garnered a lot of criticism from the larger powers that be for his very vocal methods to achieving that end. There are also those who would say that he has developed a cult of personality at Saint Sabina and that when he leaves his post (whether by another appointment or due to his health) the church will go back to the way it was.
FTE also invited Michael Pfleger and Bob Hercules—the man who directed the documentary—to be in dialogue with us about the documentary and Michael Pfleger’s life and ministry after the screening. During the talk, Father Pfleger said something that really stuck with me. He said that “Christian life is like a game of football, and the weekly worship service is like the huddle. It’s important for the game, but it’s not what everyone came out to see”.
And yet, the most common metric in this day and age in determining if a ministry is successful or not is how many people are coming to worship on a Sunday. The modern Christian life is completely worship-centric. If we want a new person to get involved in a church community, we invite them to worship. We have months out of the year devoted to sermon series designed to bring in new people. Seminaries are very insistent that when you visit them, you experience a chapel service. When worship attendance drops, we lament over the death of our Church. And I can understand where this mentality comes from. The weekly worship service is often the only time you can see every member of your community at once.
And that’s a real shame. Jesus did not tell the disciples on that mountain to stay where they are and invite people in, but rather to go out and be in ministry with the people of all nations, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, places in society, and beliefs. Jesus is not calling his disciples to be worshippers, but to be ministers. And I think the trap that the modern church has fallen into is thinking that the worship service and ministry the same thing.
You see, ministry is not sitting in a pew singing songs, reciting prayers, and listening to a sermon. Ministry is giving out free hot cider to members of the student community on a cold afternoon. Ministry is organizing a service trip to New Jersey for hurricane relief. Ministry is buying soup for a member of the community who posts on our Facebook wall that they are sick. Ministry is providing a safe space for members of your congregation to come and doubt, struggle, and question their faith. Ministry is empowering congregation by offering them real leadership roles and giving them the opportunity to preach on a Thursday night. The worship service is what we do in here, in the Kay Spiritual Life Center on a Sunday or Thursday. Ministry is what we do beyond these walls and doors for the people beyond these walls and doors.
Consider stained glass windows. Many churches utilize stained glass windows in their place of worship in some way or another. As I’m sure you know, we too in the Kay community have stained glass windows, but because our worship services often fall after the sun sets, we can’t see the beautiful colors. That’s because stained glass windows only “work” if the light from outside is brighter than the light inside. No matter how much light we fill this space with, we won’t be able to see the colors of the stained glass without the light from outside.
I don’t know if church architects had this in mind when they were first using stained glass in churches or not, but stained glass windows serve as a visual reminder of our call to be ministers to the world. If we only think of our own worshiping communities and center our entire Christian experience on the worship service, we keep all of our light hidden inside, under a bushel. But when we go out and preach the good news by serving the poor and oppressed, we take our light with us, and that then that light can illuminate stained glass windows the world over.
Now, I’m not going to consider myself so bold and proud to tell you that I know what the will of God and God’s desires are. But if I were, I would tell you that weekly worship is not for the benefit God, but rather for us. It gives you and I, the members of the congregation an opportunity to come together in fellowship. The prayers we recite and the hymns we sing together are not for God’s benefit, but to feel united as a community. The feast we are about to partake of offers us a link to the past and a way to receive the grace of God freely given to us. The grace that pushes us to go out and minister to the world. Just like the huddle in football, weekly worship allows us to come together, unite as the body of Christ that we represent, and take a brief break before we go back out into the world we are called to serve.
Because, again, I’m not going to stand here and say that I know everything about the will of God or God’s nature. But if I were to be so bold, I would say that God cares less about whether we use an organ or a praise band and more about the cries of justice coming from the oppressed.
I would say that God cares less about what prayers we say and when we say them and more about the words we use against our brothers and sisters.
I would say that God cares less about the way we decorate and treat our house of worship and more about the way we treat the Creation given to us by God.
I would say that God cares less about whether we address God as him, her, Jehovah, Adonai, or whatever name we can come up with and more about the way God’s name is used to spread hate and injustice.
Because here’s the thing, our worship to God is not supposed to be confined to one hour every week. Jesus did not say that he would be with them whenever a group of people only gather in a Church. Jesus did not say that he would be them when a group of people gather for only a few hours on a Sunday. Jesus said that he would be be wherever a group of people are gathered in his name. Jesus didn’t command us to stay in our houses of worship and only minister to those who agree with us or make it into our sanctuaries. Jesus said to go out and make disciples of all nations. Our ministry to the outside world is in and of itself an act of worship. When we gather together to do service and seek justice, we are, by our actions, worshipping God.
