March 23, 2011
Re-Runs
In my study on prayer one author describes the Roman religion and the emphasis of performing the correct rites and ceremonies. “In time the rituals became so formalized that the slightest error in speech would invalidate a ceremony, and the presiding priest would have to do it all over again.” I don’t think of my church practicing rites and ceremonies, but we do have an order of service that that we generally follow. A few months ago one of our men had already started the Communion meditation when the servers discovered that the trays of juice and bread hadn’t yet been prepared. With a little scrambling the meditation was lengthened, we sang an extra verse and moved the congregational prayer. I can’t help but think that the Lord enjoys watching our worship glitches much more than He would watching us do re-runs until we get it perfect.
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Gail;
-----The gods served by the ancients and everyone today who tries to approach God other than through Christ are just concepts of human imagination. They might bear some correct aspects of God, but overall, they are concoctions of human experience. So it is no wonder that these gods wind up being at best marginally involved in the worshippers’ lives, and more often, indifferent to people, or even hostile such that those who approach them must get their attention by impeccably performed incantations, meditations, and the likes. These are the ways people must get attention from others; they are a fundamental part of human experience. In addition, the more precisely performed the call for attention must be, the more opportunity there is to derive a religious feeling from it on the one hand, and the greater is the occasion for some folks to claim superiority over the rest on the other hand.
-----Those who approach God through Christ approach the One who is who He is, as He told Moses, “...I Am that I Am...” Nothing of human experience makes Him what He is. If you are going to direct your spiritual attention to the recognition of anything above you, I think this is the most important characteristic it should have. Thus you know you call upon something real since you know you’ve never created anything of and by yourself. Your experience attests to its possibility rather than participates in its design. Then, when it answers back your religious feeling comes from having the connection rather than coming from your own actions in acquiring it.
-----We are fortunate that the greatest power in existence is love. The God who sees and weighs everything, the God who created everything and exists to uphold it is love. Don’t take me for trying to replace the living, active, individual being of God with a concept; I merely refer to the concept of Him stated by Himself. His desire is towards everyone’s good. His ambition is total involvement. He is far from indifferent. He is not hostile. So He does not require incantations and rituals and ceremonies for the making of connection with us. He wants the connection more than do we. So all He requires is our humble desire for the same. From there we begin coming to things we did not imagine or make. First to the Christ He gave. then into the attitudes He is, and on to the others humbled the same. The things we do together, however we do them together, He accepts and honors and enjoys not because of how we do them, or even how well we do them, but because of why we do them - our desire to participate in His desire to participate, our found mercy in His shown mercy.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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