Minister’s Musing

September 4, 2012

So, why go to church?  Perhaps because it’s an OMG moment.

Me? Go to church?  Why?  What difference does it make?  Some days, I just want to boldly text, “OMG, why worship?” Except maybe that’s the point, “Oh My God!”  It really is all about God.  It’s a God thing.

I think we get it wrong if worship is all about ourselves. We may worship to find absolute answers or be entertained.  Though it is true that a good sermon, great music can be entertaining and meaningful, that’s not only why we worship. Actually many choose to get their answers and be entertained from watching the best preachers, the best music and the most relevant and deeply significant reflections from multi media. Yes, these modes of engagement with God’s story can connect us to God and God’s power, love and purpose in profound relevant revelation. However, I believe worship is much more than that.  O my God, much more.

First, we worship to praise God. We live in a world of abundance and awe.  There is beauty, amazing discoveries, and profound moments. We know friends, joy, food, shelter and more. We have danced, loved and lived with great excitement.  Blessings abound and the moments of OMG are abundant. We worship to give God praise.

And, it’s also true that are lives are filled with experiences that exhaust and challenge us, overwhelm and drain us, Yet, God invites and gathers saying, “I am your God and you are my people.” God gathers us for restoration as we are marginalized, overwhelmed exhausted, suffer, worry, and hurt during the week. God gathers us in worship. Love is spoken, sung and practiced.   In worship we re-affirm our dignity as God’s love is proclaimed and pronounced.

But we are not loved only individually. We know the love of God through prayer and song AND through the hands, voice and actions of another. We come to worship to connect to others, through an I-Thou relationship.  It is like a wonderful wheel. As God draws us to God’s self in the hub, we are drawn closer to each other like spokes in the wheel. We gather on a Sunday morning to worship to connect to each other and to see God’s love through people very different than ourselves. God gathers us in community because someone in worship may need us there. We show up for the other and that’s also a God thing.

And we go to be fed.  We are hungry and long for peace. We are hungry and long for hope and healing. We are hungry and long for meaning.  We are hungry and long for life.  We are hungry from within. And God feeds.  Jesus says, “ Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Jesus says, “Come and eat.” Jesus joins the broken, the hungry, the lonely and the outcast and feeds them love from his very being, Jesus says, ‘O, my God is here for you to love you, to heal you, to forgive you and to feed you.”

So worship is an OMG moment.  For it’s about God as God gives to us abundantly. It’s about God as God reclaims our dignity. It’s about God as God connects us to others. It’s about God as God feeds us the love revealed in the Jesus. OMG, worship is a God thing.

See you in church.

Pr. E