Unhewn Stones

In response to my previous post on "Formality in Worship," James wrote:

In Ex. 20.25 God gives instructions about building an altar for Him. "...do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it." We look at dressed stone as an improvement while God looks at it as defilement. Any form of worship will become old hat soon enough. I believe it takes faith to believe that an all powerful God would be satisfied and even pleased with plain stones used for His altar. What we might consider plain, God might consider obedience.

Am I looking to worship God for my own pleasure and experience or to worship God to please Him? I have often wondered why there is not a "worship" chapter as specific as the "love" chapter is in 1 Cor. 13, telling us the importance of worship in relation to faith, works and knowledge; what worship is and isn't, what is done in worship and what isn't.

I believe the answer is found in the conversation with Jesus in Mark 12.28-34. The conclusion drawn by one of the teachers in verse 33 was that, "To love (God) with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

Jesus' reply in verse 34 is "...You are not far from the kingdom of God."...

Good thoughts there, James. I'd like to riff on them for a while, starting with your third paragraph and working my way up from there.

Christ's teachings on "the greatest commandments" is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. I taught on it two weeks ago in my teen class, and I'll teach it again next week in my adult class. I often remind my students and friends that our brief hours of corporate worship and Bible study are only a small part of our Christian life. The true test of a disciple is one's loyalty to God and love for one's neighbors. Being able to get together and worship is just gravy.

In regard to formality in worship, I'm sure you would agree that form cannot be divorced from function. Certain forms of music, prayer, and instruction are more conducive to helping us worship in spirit and truth. God gave us Scripture reading, singing, and the supper so that worship could be an immersive auditory, visual, olfactory, culinary, and relational experience. All I'm arguing for is that our worship leaders could often stand to be more thoughtful, creative, and deliberate in how they plan to lead our spirits before God's throne.

I don't desire or expect anyone in the COC to go "high church" in the ways that Bill Gnade describes. What I do respond to is his observation (which is quite biblical, I believe -- read all 5 articles) that worship in spirit and truth is inherently formal (to a degree). Formality is our natural reverent/fearful response to our awesome God.

So, to finish up your third paragraph, it is certainly true that love is exponentially more important than "burnt offerings and sacrifice" (i.e., the forms of worship). But that's not to say that "burnt offerings and sacrifice" aren't still terribly important. Cf. Matt. 23:23 -- Jesus tells the Pharisees that justice, mercy, and faithfulness are more important than tithing their herbs. . . but they still need to keep tithing!

James writes, "Am I looking to worship God for my own pleasure and experience or to worship God to please Him?" I've heard this so many times, and I think it sets up a false dichotomy. To me it gives the unintended impression that I can either choose bland worship (which pleases God) or pleasing worship (which God doesn't like). I think that worship done right should please us BOTH. Remember that the Sabbath was given for man, not man for the Sabbath. When we encounter God properly, it leaves him glorified and leaves us spiritually and emotionally enriched.

"God is the audience," as my friend Owen Olbricht likes to say. But at a good perfomance, the audience and performers both leave satisfied.

I'm glad you also recognized in your second paragraph that there is no detailed pattern for worship given in the NT. God leaves it up to us to experiment (within his word's broad boundaries) and find meaningful ways to approach him that both honor his divinity and nourish our souls in a way that is appropriate to our own personal and cultural needs. This freedom that we find in the Bible's silence obliges us to continually question and re-evaluate our worship practices.

The catch-phrase today is "relevance" in worship -- a concept that often makes me uncomfortable. Yet I do believe that our worship ought to be relevant to God and relevant to how we communicate praise and contrition. To paraphrase Jesus again, we ought not do one to the neglect of the other.

Now for something a bit more negative. . .

I'm sorry about your first paragraph because I think it's a very selective use of OT typology. Sure, Ex. 20:25 makes a point about unhewn stones, but in contradiction to this isolated example I could stack up dozens if not hundreds of OT passages that point to the formality and fanciness of Jewish worship. In the following chapters of Exodus we read about Israel's golden box (ark), golden table, golden lampstand, golden utensils, elaborate tabernacle, bronze altar, fancy outfits for priests, rituals of ordination and sacrifice, etc. Could I not much more easily point to any of these features from Exodus as typological examples of how we ought to approach God in formality, surrounded by fancy, expensive things? That's the typological move the Catholics and Orthodox have always made.

It's not that I disagree with what you're saying. I come to worship as an unhewn stone surrounded by other unhewn stones. I just couldn't let a use of sloppy hermeneutics slide by without comment. In my readings on the subject, it seems like there's something of a taboo in the OT against the use of metal instruments at places of worship (for example, the components of Solomon's temple were constructed at another location and then brought to Mt. Moriah).

Please forgive me if I've been too harsh or presumptuous in using your post as a teaching moment. I really appreciate thoughtful responses such as yours, because they give me an opportunity to clarify what I wish to say. "As iron sharpens iron, so one friend sharpens another." In short written texts, it's so easy to be misunderstood.

It's clear that worship was rather informal in the NT. And our restorationist impulse draws us to imitate that informality (though it hasn't stopped us from building cathedrals and gymnasiums and hiring highly polished professional preachers, but I digress. . .). The question remains, though. If the earliest Christians were not poor and persecuted, would they have worshipped differently? Would they have built buildings and hired church staffs and shopped for Sunday dress shoes? Or would they have theologically objected to such things as inappropriately "old wine?"

Finding the answer to that question is our interminable, God-given struggle.