I'll Never See Life the Same Again: I'll Never See Sunday the Same

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Comedy is funny, they say, because it mirrors reality. The reason we can laugh at Mr. Bean going to church is because there are so many elements of truth that we saw portrayed there. If you think about the stereotypical picture of what it is to go to church and to go to worship, we see a group of people gathered quietly in a small chapel setting. They instinctively know when to stand up, when to sit down, when to fall asleep, when to wake up, when to stand up, sing and when to leave. And the amazing thing of all of that is they can do the entire thing without giving it a second thought. It’s just a routine.

It’s so easy to fall into that. It really doesn’t matter whether we have a beautiful organist and choir anthems or we have a praise band and a worship leader, it is easy for us, given a little bit of practice, to fall into place, to just say the right words at the right time, to do the right actions, even offer up the prayers and to never give it a second thought. Worship can become just a routine.

But worship is meant to be so much more than just a routine, so much more than just a set of actions and empty words and mindless activity. The resurrected Savior has opened up for us a relationship with our Father in heaven once again. Worship is much more than a routine. Worship is about our relationship with God and an opportunity to build that relationship with God. You see, God never intended that our worship would be something where we just went through the motions, something that we didn’t even think about. We can go all the way back even to the Old Testament times with all of their ritual and all of their traditions and we can see what God has to say about worship. The prophet Isaiah writes this, “‘The multitudes of your sacrifices, what are they to me,’ says the Lord. ‘I have more than enough burnt offerings. I have no pleasure in the blood of your bulls or the lamb and goats that you offer to me.’” What? God doesn’t want their sacrifices? This is the Old Testament. The Old Testament is built upon the sacrificial system. Hold on here. Didn’t God institute the sacrificial system? Wasn’t that how their worship was supposed to be? Was it not God who told them what to sacrifice, when to sacrifice and how to sacrifice? Then why, all of a sudden, through the prophet Isaiah is He saying to them, “I’ve had enough. I don’t want your sacrifices anymore.”

Read on a little bit further and we find out. He says, “Stop bringing meaningless offerings.” Stop bringing meaningless offerings. The people had gotten into a rut. It was simply a routine. It was an obligation to be fulfilled. They knew what to do, when to do it and how to do it, check it off their list and move on to something else. God says, “I don’t need that. That’s not what worship is about. I don’t need mindless activities and empty words.” God wants so much more. Again, He says in the prophet Amos and He gets a little bit stronger here with Amos, “I hate, I despise your religious feast. I cannot stand your assemblies.” Holy cow. Can you imagine hearing that as His people? I can’t stand your worship.

God has no room for thoughtless, mindless routine. And if we’re honest with ourselves, it is so easy, though, to fall into that. It is so easy for us to fall just into the routine of doing the right things at the right times. Cannot worship just become a part of your weekly schedule? This is what happens on Sunday morning at 7:45 or Saturday night at 5:30 or Sunday at 10:30. It just becomes part of your regimen of what happens each week. Does it become just another meeting that you attend and that you sit through and, once it’s done, then you can move on to something else. That means we have our favorite pew we’re going to sit in. We know the music we like. We know the songs we like to sing and we have a pretty good idea how long this whole thing should take. And our whole world gets rocked if one of those things doesn’t fall into place. If one of the songs doesn’t quite hit the way it’s supposed to, if the service is too short or the service is too long, then all of a sudden it throws off our entire routine. Is worship just routine?

Let’s ask ourselves some tough questions this morning. You can even raise your hand if you’re bold. How many of you have sung either a song or a hymn you had absolutely no idea what the words meant but you liked it? Oh, come on, I am not the only one. Right? How many times have you left the sanctuary and said, “Well, I made it to worship today.” What does that mean? I made it to worship. Does that mean I fulfilled my obligation? I did my duty? I put in my time and now it’s time to go off for the rest of my week?

Worship is meant to be so much more. Christ desires that worship is so much deeper for us and so much more meaningful for us. Now don’t get me wrong. I think worship should be part of our routine. It should be a habit that we’re in. After all, we just read in the gospel lesson that Jesus came into His home town and, on the Sabbath, as was His custom, He went into the synagogue to worship. As was His custom, that was His routine. That was part of His schedule that, as the Sabbath came around, Jesus was in the synagogue worshiping but it was more than just routine. It was more than just a habit.

I’m not suggesting this morning that you should change where you sit. Frankly, if all of you move to a different spot, I wouldn’t know where I was when I walked down. There’s a certain comfort level in seeing you there. But if by moving to a different spot, if that pulls you out of a rut, if that all of a sudden opens your eyes, that you’re paying more attention to what’s happening in worship, then by all means, next week sit someplace different. Because worship is not just a routine. Worship is meant to build our relationship with God, a relationship that Jesus Himself opened up for us.

That’s what the writer of Hebrews was saying to us. Let’s look at that first verse again, Verse 19, but I’m going to read it in the New Living translation because I think it’s clear, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s most holy place because of the blood of Jesus. By His death, Jesus opened a whole new life giving way through the curtain into the most holy place, for our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean.” The bottom line here is that Jesus has opened for us access to our Father in heaven. The sin that prohibited us from being in the presence of God, the sin that separated us from our God in heaven, through His life, His death and His resurrection, through His blood, that sin has been removed from us so we can enter into that most holy place. Worship then is coming into the presence of God. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can come into the presence of God because our sins have been removed from us and God invites us to restore our relationship with Him. The writer of Hebrews goes on, “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.” Draw near to God. The writer is not talking about physical proximity. The actual words means to enter into a relationship with God, a deep meaningful relationship. A relationship is possible because of what Jesus has done for us so worship is coming into the presence of God and engaging in this relationship with our Creator. That can be anything but routine.

So if worship is about building our relationship with God, well there are certain things that happen when building a relationship. The first is you have to be engaged. You have to give your attention over to God. Could you imagine going to a friend’s house, sitting down at the kitchen table and your friend starts pouring out their heart to you about how their son got into an accident the night before and, in the middle of their tears, you reached down into your purse or into your briefcase and you pull out a pile of papers and you start paging through them and go, “Hum-um. Hum-um.” You would never do that. You would be locked onto that person giving them their full and complete attention, hanging on every word they were saying.

Another tough question. How many times in worship have you worked out the schedule for the rest of your day? What you’re going to do this afternoon? How many times have you made out your grocery list during worship? Worship is a time to be engaged, to give our full and complete attention to God, as God comes to us and as we respond back to God. That means when we hear the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” we are locked onto that baptismal font. And as we see the baptism, we remember our own baptism and we know by those very same waters, we became a child of God. When we hear the words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all of your sins,” we’re locked on and we remember the life of Jesus and all that He’s done for us. We see that in the bread and the wine that there’s more there. It’s the very body and blood of Jesus which is given for us, that life-giving forgiveness is going to be shared with us once again. It means that we respond back to God so when we sing to Him, we sing from the bottom of our soul and from our heart as we offer up our prayers and our praise and thanksgiving. It means when we approach His throne through prayer, we speak sincerely to Him and we think about each word and we worship Him with our offerings. We are engaged. We are giving God our total and complete attention so that relationship between us and our Creator can be built up and strengthened.

Another thing about relationships is when you have relationships, you like to see the people you’re talking to. Hey, you all are still there. I love the sunshine, Lord, don’t get me wrong. Relationships mean you have to stay in contact. You have to be in communication with that person. Again, the writer of the Hebrews shares with us, “Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. Let’s not stop worshiping. Let’s not stop coming into the presence of God and hearing from God and responding back to God.” If you think about it, what kind of a relationship can you have if you never talk to somebody else, if you never correspond with them, if you never send them an e-mail, if you don’t have any contact with them? Is there really any kind of a relationship there?

This past Wednesday, I got an e-mail from somebody who I had not spoken to in 20 years, not because I’m mad at him. I don’t know what happened. We had a strong friendship. I moved away from St. Louis and, I don’t know, things just kind of faded. 20 years, I haven’t heard from him, all of a sudden, bang, there’s an e-mail on my computer. I had to be honest with you, I felt awkward writing back to him. Now at one point, we were very close. But since we had not kept in contact, had no idea what’s going on in his life, he had no idea what’s going on in my life, it was awkward writing back to him. Relationships mean that you stay in contact, you stay in touch and communication. So it is with our God. We have to stay in touch, stay in contact. Is that once a year? Once a month? Once a week?

Think about the people you’re the closest to. How often are you in contact with them? Do you just see them once a week? Don’t you see them on a daily basis? Call them? E-mail them? You’re always in contact with them. You see, worship is not confined to these four walls and these 60 minutes. We can come into the presence of God anytime, anyplace. That’s what Jesus has done for us. That means we can talk to God directly, anytime, anyplace. As we’re going about our daily activities, we can be in contact with God. God can speak to us on a daily basis through His word or through devotionals. It means we can come into God’s presence seven days a week. We can worship Him. And our corporate worship, our worship together as a family, just becomes one avenue of that, an important avenue as we come together as the body of Christ and we come into the presence of God but we can worship Him anytime, anyplace because we want to build up that relationship with Him and stay in contact with him.

But the relationship we have in God is also about the relationship we have with one another. Again we turn to the writer of the Hebrews. He has a couple of things to say to us, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds.” And then he goes on to say, “And let us encourage one another.” As we draw near to God, as we develop this relationship with our Creator, there is also this relationship that we have with one another. So how can we spur each other on? How can we encourage one another? Again, think about your own family. You have a family gathering and all of a sudden one person doesn’t show up to the family gathering. Do you just shrug it off or do you call and say, “Is everything okay? Are you still coming to the birthday party?” What about your group of friends that you hang out with and all of a sudden you notice that one of them or a couple of them, all of a sudden they’re not with you anymore at your social gatherings. Do you shrug it off or do you drop them an e-mail? Do you give them a phone call?

We come together as the body of Christ and we have a relationship with one another. Our common faith has that. If we don’t see someone, it’s not somebody else’s responsibility. It’s my responsibility to drop them a line, give them a call, send them an e-mail. Because our relationship together is also part of our relationship with God. The bottom line here is that the resurrection of Jesus confirms for us that what God is really interested in is a relationship with each one of you, not mindless activities, not just routine but a meaningful relationship. He was so serious about it, He sent His Son to live among us, so serious about it, He watched as His Son died for us so our sins could be removed and we could be in His presence, so serious about it that His Son was raised to life again to show us that the sacrifice was accepted. So in worship we could come into the presence of God. And, my friends, that is anything but routine. Amen.

Copyright 2008 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church