Dr. Ron Sumners
April 10, 2005
In one of comedian Woody Allen's routines, he receives a telephone call from a man who says, "We would like for you to make a Smirnoff Vodka ad for a magazine." Woody Allen replies, "I'm afraid I cannot do that. I don't drink, and if I did it wouldn't be vodka. It would be dishonest for me to do the ad." The voice at the other end of the phone says, "There's fifty thousand dollars in it for you." Woody says, ''Let me think about it and I'll get back to you." Then he goes to his Rabbi and the Rabbi tells him that it would be wrong for him to do the ad. So, Woody calls the company and declines. Three weeks later he sees the Smirnoff Vodka ad in a magazine and there is his Rabbi holding up a glass of Smirnoff Vodka.
A rabbi, ministers, priests, you, and I, it is simply amazing how money or other inducements can suddenly change our values! This is especially true of the constant shifting of values that takes place somewhere between the time we spend here at church and the time we spend "out there" during the week.
This time every Sunday is a good time! We can look forward to it each week with a deep sense of awe and wonder; what is God going to work in our midst today? Good things can happen to you in church. In a worship setting such as this you can feel light come into your life as never before. New hope, new insights, new approaches to old problems, new levels of understanding of family, neighbor, friend and even enemies can come in worship. A worship experience can enrich your life in these ways if you are open to the possibilities and the surprises that can come.
It is not the music, no matter how beautiful, it is not the preacher or the sermon, it is not the beautiful setting; it is God! It is God using these things as instruments of His grace; it is God calling us out of our isolation, fear, and loneliness. God does a great thing for us in the worship experience and that is why you and I look forward to it each week with hope and anticipation. With a God like ours, we never know what might happen in our next worship experience. Maybe God will touch you a very special way today.
But sometimes it doesn't happen. Sometimes it just doesn't come off. We can go month after month, all our life for some of us, and nothing happens. We may get a flash of inspiration occasionally, but never a deep sense of God's presence, never the healing and cleansing and the deep awareness of God's forgiveness. We find ourselves asking again and again the same question: "Why doesn't it happen?"
Jesus puts His finger on the problem in our scripture today. He delivers some harsh words to the Pharisees about their attitude and approach to worship.
This confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees reminds us of a similar one that occurred some eight hundred years earlier between Amos and his people. Amos looked around and saw the temple crowded with people who loved to worship. They enjoyed it! Then Amos looked at the world around them and he saw poverty and racism and war and immorality and exploitation of people. In a very direct and blistering way, he told the people that unless their worship reflected the love and justice of God it was ineffectual. And not only that; God despised it!
That is a very sobering thought. This worship that we love so much, this thing that we look forward to so much, this thing that we pour so much of our lives into; God may be rejecting it!
This is precisely what Amos warned the people about. The people loved the worship of God. At the same time there was much need in the world that went unmet by God's people. Listen to the sobering words of God spoken through the Prophet Amos some 2,800 years ago:
"I hate, I spurn your feasts,
I take no pleasure in your solemnities.
Your grain offerings I will not accept
Nor consider your stall-fed offerings.
Away with your noisy songs!
I will not listen to the melodies of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters,
And righteousness as a mighty stream." (Amos 5:21-24)
This is a sobering word from God for our time. When our worship experience doesn't come off, when it becomes, for some of us, a destructive experience, the reason lies in the fact that the worshippers literally block the spirit from opening them up to a world in need of God's love. And God rejects that kind of worship experience. God hates it! God despises it! These are not my words; they are God's words through Amos.
The Gallop and Harris Polls show that in every important political and social issue, the people who go to church and worship, show no difference whatsoever in their attitudes and opinions from those who do not go to church.
This ancient religious problem of hypocrisy and mindless ritual was a matter of great concern to Jesus. Jesus came down hard on those who profess certain values in church and discard them on the way out the door. "Woe to you," says Jesus. "Woe to you whose words are bold but whose deeds are few. Woe to you who reject my teaching that: the greatest among you will be the one who serve the fest."
A young preacher went to a church in Kentucky not far from the home of the Kentucky Derby. Because he wanted his first sermon to be memorable, he decided to give a fierce condemnation of horse racing. After the sermon, the chairman of deacons hastened to remind him of where he was and of the fact that the majority of his members were horse breeders and trainers. The preacher took the hint and on the following Sunday he preached a rousing sermon on the evils of smoking. Again, the chairman of deacons cautioned him on his subject matter. He reminded the preacher that he was also in the middle of tobacco country and that the majority of the tithe money that came to the church was because of the tobacco industry. The next Sunday the preacher preached bitterly against alcohol, only to learn that Kentucky was the home to several distilleries. "Well, what can I preach on?" asked the preacher. "Why don't you preach against those heathen witch doctors the deacon chairman replied, "there isn't one of them within a thousand miles of here!"
"The greatest among you will be the one who serve the rest." In order to be honest with God and with each other in this worship experience, we must be willing to preach the truth that God has given us. For too long we have preached a gospel that is easy to swallow. We have preached around the edges of the truth so we would not upset the status-quo. And, God forgive us, some people have come to church for years and sat in worship service and listened to sermons and sang hymns and have gone home having enjoyed the experience; but never in their lives have they been confronted with their own sinfulness and lostness. Never have they been placed at the foot of the cross under the shadow of God's redeeming love. Never have they knelt at the altar and prayed, "God, forgive me, a sinner!"
You and I must examine ourselves for signs of our rejection of our own need. "Away with your noisy songs!" These words are meant for those who regularly worship God. God wants no part of a church or a people or an individual that does not reflect his love to a lost and dying world, no matter how well we may worship on Sunday! The prayers, the songs, the sermon, are worse than nothing in God's eyes, unless they are sung and spoken and listened to by a community of people who are committed to justice, love, and mercy.
The bottom line is this: the true worship of God does not happen exclusively in this building. The things we do here can be glorious if we do them to gain spiritual strength and insight for the living in our life tomorrow at work, at home and at school. If we are worshipping for the sake of worshipping, if it is an end in itself, we will never carry anything past the back door. God will reject what we have done here. He hates it!
This morning you are the only one who knows your heart. What did you come to receive today? What do you intend to take with you when you leave? You can leave here new and clean and fit for service if you will allow God to work in your life. You can leave here with a pleasant memory of music, hymns and a sermon meant for someone else, and you will leave with nothing that will help you become the servant that God deserves.
Does God accept your worship today? Or does he hate it? Why didn't it happen for you today?
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