Worship

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, July 26, 2014

Texts

Exodus 20:1-6. A conservative translation.

Revelation 4:1-11 (the entire chapter)

Synopsis

In worship we affirm and celebrate an astounding hope: God will win. Peace, well-being and happiness will triumph. This is incredible! We are not blind or unfeeling. We see tragedy and injustice. We weep at the hurt. Sometimes, we get angry at God for the mess in God's world. Then we come to worship and join the saints across the millennia and God, too, in dreaming of better things. In worship, we rekindle our hope that ultimately peace will flow like a mighty river. Beauty and goodness will be as common as beach sand and rain. In worship we savor this unbelievable truth, allowing its sweet influence to shape our souls and fuel our own participation in the purpose of God.

The first Friday night of my freshman year at Southern Adventist University I was sitting in the university church. The place was full. You could feel the electricity of a thousand, maybe 1500 students, alive with dreams and ambitions, full of confidence they could master the knowledge and skills necessary to change the world and build careers. For many of the students, all this earthy expectation was connected deeply with God. We believed God had plans for our lives.

I had my own dreams. I was going to be a doctor doing research on the unique physiological challenges divers faced when they spent a long time working at great depth. Or I was going to be a minister who help people bridge the chasm between the ordinary life and God. My dreams of making discoveries in medicine were connected to the stories of the greats of medical history—Pasteur, Fleming and Salk and Sabin. My dreams of ministerial greatness were fueled by the stories of Fernando Stahl, the Adventist missionary and social revolutionary who improved life for the indigenous people of Peru, David Livingstone, the missionary/adventurer/explorer in Africa, and Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer who broke the stranglehold of the medieval Catholic Church on the minds and souls of people in Europe.

Doctor or preacher, I would join a stream of noble humanity. My work—whether furthering knowledge of physiology or helping people experience God—would become part of this grand work of God through humanity.

Sitting there in church at the very beginning of my college life, it was easy to dream these dreams.

Then the organ began the introduction for the opening hymn for the evening worship service. Full volume. Pounding bass. A thousand college students stood and sang the words:

1. For all the saints, who from their labors rest,

who thee by faith before the world confessed,

thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

2. Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might;

thou Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;

thou in the darkness drear, their one true light.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

3. O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,

fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,

and win with them the victor's crown of gold.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

4. This verse was not in the Adventist Hymnal

O blest communion, fellowship divine!

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

5. And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

6. From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,

through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,

singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:

Alleluia, Alleluia!

As we sang I felt myself to be truly part of that countless host. I, we, the thousand students in that university church, the Adventist doctors and nurses working as missionaries in Africa, the Albert Schweitzers and Mother Teresa's of the world, the Mohammad Unases and Paul Farmers of the world—we were all part of the grand stream of humans participating in the Kingdom of Heaven. We were all part of the work of God in the world.

Singing that hymn that evening was perhaps the closest I've ever come to Pentecostal ecstasy in worship. I felt my connection with good people, God's people, all across the ages. All the doctors who have worked to ease suffering and enhance health, all preachers who have inspired people to hope and to pursue wisdom and goodness.

As I've gotten older my understanding of the value of human work has expanded. Caregivers and IT professionals, plumbers and fashion designers, biologists and electrical engineers, chemists and hair stylists, moms and dads, aunts and uncles and grandparents—all us are indispensable agents of the Kingdom of Heaven. Each of us touches life, enriches life in a unique way.

And when we gather in worship, we affirm that our work, our lives, are part of the grand dream of God of a world that will one day be free of pain and sorrow, a world where peace will flow like a river and beauty and goodness will be as common place as sand and rain. In worship we dream together of the day when the happiness of God and the happiness of humanity flow mingled in a mighty, unbroken current.

A couple of weeks ago I was visiting with a young man. We were talking about God and faith. We explored questions about who's in and who's out when it comes to God's eternal plans.

I told him I no longer worried about damnation. If I, as a father, could not imagine damning my children for their imperfections and failures, how could I imagine that the heavenly Father would damn his children because they had failed to grasp just the right idea about faith or had failed to transcend some deeply-rooted character flaw.

“But now, you're just doing anthropomorphism.” My young friend protested. “You're ascribing human characteristics to God.”

“Guilty as charged.” I said. “And that is what Christianity does. It takes the grandest, most beautiful attributes of humanity and says God is something like that, only better.”

God is like the best father who ever existed. Only better.

God is like the best mother who ever existed. Only better.

God is like the most skillful, compassionate psychiatrist who ever help people find sanity. Only better.

God is a brilliant engineer, only smarter.

God is a wise governor, only wiser.

A generous philanthropist, only more generous.

A musician, only capable of stirring our souls even more deeply.

We believe that at the heart of the universe there is goodness, wisdom and compassion. But it's unbelievable. So we come here to worship and in worship rekindle our faith.

Some of us come with a buoyant, confident faith. When we sing here, we are singing the same song our heart sings all week. Others of us come barely believing anything good. Our hearts are crushed with what we read in the news or what has happened to our friends. Our own lives are so full of pain, we vacillate between wishing for healing and praying for death.

We come here and worship.

We turn our attention once more to the incredible Christian affirmations of God. We celebrate the richest, sweetest, grandest affirmations about God imaginable. We let go of our arguments because they merely touch the front of our heads. In worship we believe with our gut, with our bodies.

We believe God would rather die than live without us.

The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the poor in spirit. That is the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to me. And to my friends whose mental illness whips them from sanity to insanity, from appropriate behavior to violence, from speaking blessings to spouting curses. Their situation is hopeless. Maybe medication can dampen the swings. Maybe hospitalization can contain their illness. In worship, we say theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God has good plans for them. And God is able to accomplish those plans. In worship we hope again, even for hopeless people.

And we know that our hope is the hope shared across two thousand years of Christian hoping.

And our theology, our religious theory, takes us back another two thousand years to Abraham, so that in our worship we are keeping company with the hoping saints across 4000 years of time. Adventist theology pushes our worship connection back another 2000 years to Adam and Eve. In our worship we are joining 6000 years of human hope and confidence in God.

The world is full of pain and tragedy. Yes. We are not blind. We are not unfeeling. We weep at the hurt. We get angry with God for the mess in God's world. Then we come to here to worship and join the saints across the millennia and join God, too, in dreaming of better things. We sing of hope and promise and the triumph of love.

Here, we insist God is committed to the ultimate triumph of shalom—peace, well-being, happiness. And God will finally get his way.

Here, in worship, we insist that justice ultimately looks like reconciliation and redemption.

These things are unbelievable. When we pay attention to the news, sometimes listening to the stories of our friends, this all seems like foolishness. For some of us, our own personal pain threatens to drown out this happy song. Our experience whispers hopelessness.

So we come together in worship to sing again about hope. We sing together about the triumph of the community of God—our community. We come together again and again, stubbornly fanning the flame of hope.

Yes, the struggle is fierce and long. Sometimes our arms grow weak, our hearts become faint. So we come again to worship. We join the song. Our hearts are made brave again and our arms strong as we sing Alleluia.