I recently got reacquainted with the World magazine blogosphere (www.worldmagblog.com), and especially with Joel Brondos, a Lutheran pastor who blogs there. Here was his latest post, on worship as receiving, not giving.
http://joelbrondos.worldmagblog.com/joelbrondos/archives/015892.html
I just finished Jeff Meyers' The Lord's Service, and noticed a Lutheran emphasis there, too, and I agree it is something we Reformed people have lost. Conservatives see worship as "giving God all the glory," pridefully not wanting to think of continuing to receive from God. Contemporary folk see worship as giving Him a sacrifice of praise and worship - music, that is - which engulfs much of the service, focusing us on our emotions. In a quasi-good way, we pietistically want to offer those emotions up to the Lord as a sweet smell to Him. The problem is it focuses on us and our emotions; God is more pleased the stronger we feel, and conveniently, so are we. In an even more corrupted form of this, we start talking about the blessing we received from worship today, gauging the service's effectiveness by how inspired we felt. But either way, conservative or contemporary, we are giving to God. Mr. Brondos and Meyers provide a healthy corrective here.
My question is, why must we choose between giving and receiving at this point? Worship is about God acting - Lutherans and Reformed are both good at emphasizing this divine initiative, and we should retain it. But worship is also His people responding to His grace in song, prayers and confession (Rev 4-5, for example).
Here is a case where we need not say either/or; we can say both/and, as long as the two elements are in proper proportion.
No comments:
Post a Comment