12 February 2006
Remove watches.
Here in this space we are on God's time. God's time cannot be measured by watches, clocks, or calendars. Wherever and whenever Christians cease from their daily activities and gather together in the name of Jesus Christ, the world's clocks don't really work. In fact, they may confuse us about what time it really is.
God's kind of time has lots of different names in the Bible -- Sabbath, Jubilee, new creation, Lord's Day, the kingdom of heaven, the day of resurrection, and the fullness of time, to name just a few. It turns out all of these ways of naming time describe the ways we recognize God's presence in our midst. Most often, however, God's time is just called worship. Worship is time out of time -- that is, time out of the world's time. In worship time, the ways we usually think about time itself no longer hold. Think about it: is worship mostly about the past, the present, or the future? Actually, it's about the presence of God, which comprehends all of these. We do lots of different things in worship -- we sing, we confess, we pray for ourselves and the world, we give thanks, we laugh and cry, we listen to sermons and share communion. All of these practices are really expressions of three fundamental disciplines of Christian time keeping. Worship is about remembering where we have come from, knowing whose we are now, and anticipating where we are going. Everything else we do flows from these. And as we remember where we have come from, whose we are now, and where we are going, we are transformed from a people who live by the world's time and world's stories into people who live in God's time and God's story. This alternative imagination of things generates both a sense of what things "might be" like in God's presence and an accompanying frustration with the way things still are in this world. The Bible has a name for this experience, too: hope.
While we may not always put the words worship and hope right next to each in our everyday speech, in fact, these two words do belong together -- you can't have one without the other. We worship because we are people of hope, and we hope because we worship God who has redeemed us and is restoring this broken creation. Worship is the disciplined practice of hope. And hope is both the cause and the goal of worship.
Unfortunately, hope is also another one of those overused words, like love or peace or freedom. It sounds good. It sounds like something we should do. But what is it really? For many people today hope is little more than wishful thinking, what "might be" or "pie in the sky by and by." In popular culture hope is associated with "positive thinking," optimism, or progress, or the future. But all of these are something less than what the Bible has in mind when it speaks of hope. Biblical hope is not about human progress, but about trust in God's power to redeem and restore. Biblical hope is not just positive thinking, but the certain recognition of what God has done and is doing in the world, in the face of all worldly evidence to the contrary. Christian hope is not merely optimism, but the truest form of clear-eyed realism. And Biblical hope sets its sights not only on the future, but also on the past and the present, on the signs of God's presence that have attended our steps all the way along the journey. Both hope and worship, in other words, are rooted in tri-focal vision -- remembering the past, seeing the present, and living expectantly into what God is doing in the world. Most important, hope-filled worship is what God always calls us to in times of crisis and transition, for it's very hard, maybe impossible, to nurture hope and faithful vision by yourself. We need each other - together -- where God's name is named.
Both of the passages we have read today have everything to do with hope-filled worship in the face of crisis. The Apocalypse, you may recall, was written first for Christians in Asia Minor, who were suffering opposition and persecution at the hands of the Roman empire. In this book filled with visions of dragons and beasts, of human violence and destruction, the Seer repeatedly takes us to visions of heavenly worship. In fact, contrary to popular imagination, the Revelation is not so much about the end of the world as the ends of the world, that is, worship itself. No other book in the Bible is so full of the language and images of worship, nor calls us so frequently, insistently, and finally to worship as our primary way of joining God in the redemption of this world.
Revelation 22:1-5 is the culmination of the Seer's final vision of God's new creation of heaven and earth. This vision is actually the fulfillment of God's original intention for creation; it's filled with images of water and river, the tree of life, fruit, light, and pure presence -- all images from the creation story in Genesis. In this new creation to which we are headed, there is neither sun nor moon, day or night, for God is its light. Time itself, in other words, disappears. The symptoms of the fall, death, mourning, crying and pain will be no more. Remarkably, there is also no temple or any other religious institution, for God and the Lamb are themselves the temple. It turns out that in the new creation, when God dwells face-to-face with humankind, there is no need for politics, economics, entertainment, or even religion, for all of life is itself pure worship and fellowship, face to face with God. In a sense, John's vision is simple: we are going where we came from. All of life has come from, exists in, and is headed toward the worship of God.
This may not be quite like what many of us think about worship. We often operate with more "pragmatic" notions, like the idea that the purpose of worship is to recharge our spiritual batteries on Sunday so that we can go out and reform the world, or at least survive it, the rest of the week. Or we may even think of worship as part of what we have to endure in order to enter into glory some day. We do it because we are told to do it. End of story. But John, the Seer of Revelation, like the rest of the biblical visionaries holds more to the view that our real purpose in life is to prepare ourselves for life in God's full presence. As John Calvin put it, humanity's "chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever." This is our destiny and our hope. Worship is where we have come from and where we are headed. It's in our DNA. It's where we discover who we really are and what is really true about the world. Worship embodies both our memory and our anticipation of life with God. Our life together in worship is the practice of this hope.
We see this same focus on worship in the story of Israel in the wilderness, in which the passage we have read from Exodus 20 is set. This passage should have sounded familiar, for it is the first part of what we call the "Ten Commandments." But because the Ten Commandments are so familiar to us, we often forget that they have a real and concrete historical setting. Do you remember where Israel was when God gave them these words for life? The preceding chapters of Exodus describe in detail the suffering, oppression, and despair of God's people under the rule of Pharaoh, and then how God led the people out of slavery in Egypt and through times of wandering in the wilderness. But as we know, just getting free of the Egyptians is not the end of the story. As soon as the people are on their way toward the holy land, they find themselves without sufficient water or food, and eventually under attack by the Amalekites. They repeatedly grumble against Moses and wonder why they ever left the security and comfort of their bondage in Egypt. In their crisis of wandering, the old, familiar bonds begin look good again. Why does slavery seem to them like such an attractive alternative? Because they're in the wilderness, they have already forgotten the pain and humiliation of slavery, and they aren't really sure of where they're going. Let me say that again. They have forgotten where they came from. . . they don't know or like where they are . . .and they are uncertain about where they are going. The real crisis is not the wilderness itself, but their failure to remember who they are, who God is, and the certainty of their destination. It's a failure of hope and worship.
So what does God do? As the people are encamped in the wilderness at the foot of Mount Sinai, God comes to them and speaks to them through Moses. But notice a couple of things about what God says. The name "Ten Commandments," which was supplied by later editors, makes us think that God just issues some basic laws. What Exodus actually says is that God spoke "all these words," or things. There are actually more than ten things or words God says here, and the very first thing God speaks -- probably the most important thing -- is not a commandment at all, but rather a statement of who God is and what God has been doing for the people of Israel: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." It's as if God is saying, if you are to be a people of faithfulness and hope, you will have to remember where you have come from and whose you are. So, God's first word to the people is not only about them, but even more about who God is. It turns out that this first table of commandments is riddled with first-person statements about God, who has not only set the people free, but is jealous and punishes those who turn away, but also unswervingly loyal to those who love him. This is the God who has created the world but also rests on the Sabbath. These assertions about who God is are the foundation for everything that follows in the way of commandments. The One who is revealed before them on Mount Sinai is the very same God who delivered them from Egypt and from slavery. The same One who has turned brackish water pure, caused springs to flow from rocks, given manna to eat in the wilderness, and delivered the people from their enemies. God has been present, and will be present, all the way along the journey. That's who God is, the first word from which everything else comes. Remember where you came from, and whose you are.
And this first word is also a word of promise about where they are going together with God. God's actions do not stop with Israel's deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Israel is on its way to the promised land, where God will dwell with them and they will worship God in the Temple. And after that God will deliver them again and again from their bondage, and give them a savior, and make of them a holy temple, the body of Christ, and finally a lasting temple that is God's own body. God will deliver the people from human empires, and from the powers of sin and death. This is the promise already contained in the claims of Exodus about who God is. Their worship is remembering, and participating in, and practicing for this reality.
The second thing to note about God's words here is that each of these first commandments focuses in some way on worship -- on not making idols or following after other gods, on not using God's name dismissively, and on keeping the Sabbath. At the heart of Israel's great law code is not a courtroom, but the space and time in which the people gather together to worship God. The life and law of God's people are meant to flow from this worship-filled relationship. So, God says, you shall have no other gods before me, or make idols or bow down before any one or anything else, or use my holy name in vain. And on the Sabbath, cease all your work, all of your participation in the economies and politics of this world, so that you can remember this God who delivers, liberates, creates, protects, and saves you, gives you everything you need every day, and is leading you to the promised land.
In other words: Are you lost in the wilderness? Worship God. Uncertain about the future? Worship God. Hungry and thirsty, and don't know where the next meal will come from? Worship God. Are you confused, angry, disappointed, disillusioned, and despairing? Don't forget to worship God.
The main point of these first words that God speaks on Sinai is the same that we find in the visions of Revelation. Devotion to anyone or anything else leads to death. God is the only One worthy of our worship. There is a promise in this relationship: that even before we have God to worship, God has us. Before Israel was a people, God knew her and called her. When Israel was lost, God found her again and again. When Israel wandered, God caught her, and when she was in the wilderness, God led her. That is the way it has always been, is now, and always will be. God is before us, beside us, over against us, with us, among us, the starting point and the ending point of all we do and all we are. Everything else is distraction.
So Israel. So, too, First Christian Church of Atlanta in Tucker, Georgia:
what now will we do with the God we have, and with the promise that God, through it all, has us and won't let us go?
Like all those before us, we keep gathering in this time out of time. We journey together, not in our own resources, but in the hope God gives us. And we worship, fine-tuning our memory, renewing our vision, and practicing for life to come with God.
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