Worship is not just us talking, praying, and singing to God. Worship is meant to be a conversation between us and God – a dialogue in which we hear from God and reply to him. Worship, then, is both God’s revelation and the people of God’s response.
Bob likes to sleep. He also likes to walk. Bob loves filling his nose with the plethora of smells in the outdoors. Unlike me, Bob can size up a person quickly before they even open their mouths.
There were two men walking and talking with Jesus along the Emmaus road without even knowing it (Luke 24:13-35). In fact, worship was happening, unbeknownst to them. Bob would have picked up on it immediately, if he were there.
“Liturgy” describes what we do in worship.
Liturgy is a Greek term that means “the work of the people.” Every church has a liturgy. All gatherings of believers have some sort of prescribed ways of moving through their worship. Liturgy is not only a reference to more traditional forms of worship. Contemporary styled worship may have less liturgical elements to it, but it still has a liturgy of several praise and worship choruses (in which the people know when to stand and sit), and an extended time of preaching.
After Christ’s resurrection, it was Jesus who approached the men. In this divine movement of liturgy, God is always the initiator of salvation and worship. If it were not for God approaching us, most fully expressed in Christ’s incarnation of coming to this earth, then we have no hope. Humanity in the vice grip of sin needs someone to help. So, when we begin worship, it is God himself who starts the conversation.
As the two men continued with their conversation, Jesus engaged them in the Scriptures. He went to the Old Testament and explained to them what it had to say about the Christ. They heard from God. To understand Holy Scripture, we too, need to walk with Jesus and converse with him. Liturgy exists to encourage a relationship between us and God. It is designed to create space whereby God and God’s people can be in a meaningful dialogue with each other.
Maybe it goes without saying, this means we must listen well. We cannot listen well if we our minds are wandering, and our hearts are somewhere else. Sometimes we intentionally make our lives overwhelmingly busy so that we either cannot or do not have time to listen to God. We might create noise and keep moving because we are much too uncomfortable with silence. We may not want to hear what is in our hearts.
Getting to the place of relaxing enough to listen can seem, for some, like a daunting task. This is not a plea for you to do more. It is really giving you permission to do less so that you can enjoy a conversation with Jesus. A good place to begin is to practice the Sabbath, and use the day, not just the morning, to connect with God.
Jesus became known to the two Emmaus friends through table fellowship.
It was at the table the two men’s eyes were opened to who Jesus really was. This would not have happened unless they were in meaningful conversation with Jesus. Then, after Jesus left them, the two men were inspired in their going. They went out as witnesses telling others of what they had seen and heard from their conversation with Jesus.
In this liturgical rhythm, this conversation between us and God, the good news of Jesus is presented. God first acts by seeking and desiring fellowship with us; God sent his Son, the living Word, to restore the fractured relationship – Jesus is the divine Word who has accomplished the restoration between us and God. This revelation, this realization of what God has done for us in Christ begs a response from us. We praise him for wanting fellowship with us.
Having glimpsed how holy God is, we realize how sinful we are, and so we confess our sins to him. God, in his grace, forgives us our sin and assures us of our pardon. In our gratitude for that grace, we joyfully listen and live according to his Word. And, so, back-and-forth we go, with the liturgy proclaiming the gospel to us in a divine dialogue that blesses both us and God.
Now, if you think about it, all of life is liturgical. We each have routines, habits, and life patterns that shape how we get things done. For example, in the first year of marriage, my wife and I experienced a clash of liturgies. Her family had their ways of doing things, and my family had theirs. I quickly learned what a proper liturgy was for folding towels.
A worship liturgy is neither only for Sunday morning nor to be always within a church building. We can deliberately build spiritual rhythms and spiritual conversation throughout each day in our homes, at our jobs, and throughout our daily lives. For example, our daily call to worship is when we wake up, realizing that we have been called into wakefulness to enter praise for a new day. My own personal daily prayer when I get out of bed is:
“Almighty God, thank you for bringing me in safety to this new day. Preserve me with your mighty power that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity. In all I do today direct me to the fulfilling of your purposes through Jesus Christ my Lord.”
As we go through our day, we can recognize sin when it happens, and be quick to confess it and accept God’s forgiveness. We can be intentional about hearing from God, by creating space and setting aside time for reading Scripture. When our heads hit the pillow at night, we receive the blessing of God in sleep, until a new day begins.
Whatever way we go about it, we have the privilege of developing spiritual rhythms and habits of approaching God, listening to God, and responding to God.
And we need to acknowledge that something can trip us up in this attempt to live a godly life. There are other secular liturgies that vie for our attention and our hearts. We just might be influenced as much or more by a different competing liturgy.
For example, a shopping website’s version of liturgy is to gather shoppers and develop practices of buying in us. If we shop because we feel that we would have a better life with new clothes, or more stuff, we might have a competing liturgy working in our lives. If we feel we need to shop because there is something we lack in our personhood, as if we are not enough, then we just might have another liturgy that wants our loyalty over God.
The point is not to avoid shopping but to realize there are competing loyalties to God’s kingdom, and that we are to be shaped as followers of Jesus as our primary commitment in life. Our lives are to revolve around the person and work of Jesus, and so we must intentionally cultivate liturgical practices in our daily lives and train ourselves to be godly.
Christianity is not merely a system of beliefs; it is a way of life. The kind of habits we develop in that life will determine what kind of disciples we will be. So, we must choose well the kinds of routines that we need to walk well with Jesus and carry on a delightful conversation with him… and Bob.
