June 14, 2009
2 Corinthians 5:6-10 & 14-17
“The Essence Of Worship: Humble Vision”
Rev. Allen V. Harris

Hear this sermon in MP3 format by clicking HERE!

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The Setting: Pastor Allen is sitting at a desk with what looks like a stage mirror on it. Next to him is a clothing rack with various brightly colored clothes, perhaps costumes, hanging from it. While he is talking, he is putting in hair gel, putting on his earrings, putting on his tie… etc.

Getting ready for the performance
- Want to do my best
- Very demanding audience
- Week after week, performance after performance, I continue to try to improve my performance: sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
- There have been others who have filled my role, but I feel like it is my performance which will make or break this play

After all, this is the greatest story ever told, the most important drama on the stage of eternity!

What? Why, you think I am speaking of a performance as in a theater, as at Playhouse Square, or Karamu House, Cleveland Public Theater, or even Near West Theatre? No! Not at all! I am speaking of the greatest drama of them all: WORSHIP!

Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish theologian of the 19th century, challenged our understanding of worship. He felt, and so do I, that worship was very much like a great drama on “the stage of eternity.” While there are certainly limits to the analogy, Kierkegaard’s critique of worship has most certainly helped me in my role in worship. I’m sure his thoughts have helped you in your role. But then, of course, we are in the same role, are we not?

You don’t think so? Oh my… I believe you are under the completely wrong impression about my role. I am afraid that you have come to the conclusion that I am the pastor, the preacher, and that all which I have been talking about is in reference to the leaders in worship. Heavens no!

I am a member of the congregation!

A common but misguided understanding of worship, both in Kierkegaard’s time and in ours, is that:
God is the prompter
The preacher and worship leaders are the actors
The congregation is the audience

He felt there was “foolishness” in this, and caused the listeners to spend a lot of time passing judgment on the “actors,” or preacher and worship leader.

Haven’t you experienced this? Are have you, like me, allowed yourself to slip into this way of thinking. “I really couldn’t worship today because the pastor preached too long!” “The hymns were so slow there is no way I could get into the spirit of worship.” That Elder’s meditation was so off-the-mark I couldn’t think of anything worshipful for the rest of the service!” Yes, we have come to think of worship as a performance and WE are the audience. Kinda gets us off the hook pretty nicely, don’t you think?

Instead, Kierkegaard understood:
The preacher and worship leaders were the prompters,
God is the audience
The members of the congregation are the actors!

I love it when he writes, “There are no mere theatergoers present, for each listener will be looking into his [or her] own heart.” If we are really allowing worship to transform us, change us, then we must see worship as an act, a work, and undertaking offered before God. This is the humility of which Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.”

Just like the world, after Galileo and others proved our way of thinking as misguided and we began to understand that the earth is not the center of the universe, we realize that WE are not the CENTER of WORSHIP. In worship, we must change our point of view from a purely human vantage point, to that which is much bigger: God’s point of view. We no longer come here to be entertained, but to entertain and delight God! Therefore it is EACH of our task to ensure worship is meaningful, inspiring, and moves us closer to that which is holy, sacred, and divine.

And we build on Kierkegaard’s understanding, because we know from the very first act of this play, in the creation of humankind, that we have been in interactive partnership with God. So, God is not just the passive audience member, sitting in judgment in order to write a scathing review in the next Plain Dealer. God is the eager theatergoer, sitting on the edge of the divine seat, laughing when we offer joy on the stage, cringing back into the cushion of the seat when we offer horror or pain, crying tears of either joy or sorrow as we perform the drama of our lives.

And we feel God’s reactions and our acting changes because of it.

No, God is no passive critic, but an active and involved part of this play called liturgy. And we do not offer it mechanically, whether or not there is any audience at all. We offer worship, our sacred performance, because we know God is there watching, waiting, longing for the story to be told, and even needing us to show our love and devotion to the One who created the very stage we are acting upon: life.

And how do we know God is pleased with our worship? Well, that’s the part when Paul said, “We walk by faith, not by sight!”

Oh my, it’s almost curtain time.

Everyone to his or her places! The show is about to begin!




WORD-FOR-WORD FROM KIERKEGAARD

What goes on between the speaker and the hearer in a genuine edifying discourse? It is so on the stage, as you know well enough, that someone sits and prompts by whispers; [he is hidden;] he is the inconspicuous one; he is and wishes to be overlooked. But then there is another, he strides out prominently, he draws every eye to himself. For that reason he has been given his name, that is: actor. He impersonates a distinct individual. In the skillful sense of this illusionary art, each word becomes true when embodied in him, true through him—and yet he is told what he shall say by the hidden one that sits and whispers. No one is so foolish as to regard the prompter as more important than the actor.

Now forget this light talk about art. Alas, in regard to things spiritual, the foolishness of many is this, that they in the secular sense look upon the speaker as an actor, and the listeners as theatergoers who are to pass judgment upon the artist. But the speaker is not the actor—not in the remotest sense. No, the speaker is the prompter. There are no mere theatergoers present, for each listener will be looking into his own heart. The stage is eternity, and the listener, if he is the true listener (and if he is not, he is at fault) stands before God during the talk. The prompter whispers to the actor what he is to say, but the actor's repetition of it is the main concern—is the solemn charm of the art. The speaker whispers the word to the listeners. But the main concern is earnestness: that the listeners by themselves, with themselves, and to themselves, in the silence before God, may speak with the help of this address.

The address is not given for the speaker's sake, in order that men may praise or blame him. The listener's repetition of it is what is aimed at. If the speaker has the responsibility for what he whispers, then the listener has an equally great responsibility not to fail short in his task. In the theater, the play is staged before an audience who are called theatergoers; but at the devotional address, God himself is present. In the most earnest sense, God is the critical theatergoer, who looks on to see how the lines are spoken and how they are listened to: hence here the customary audience is wanting. The speaker is then the prompter, and the listener stands openly before God. The listener ... is the actor, who in all truth acts before God.
—Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart, pp. 180-81 (SV XI114-15); reprinted in Parables of Kierkegaard, Thomas C. Oden, ed.

From: “Who's the Host? We may be getting carried away with Kierkegaard's analogy”
by Emily R. Brink in Reformed Worship, Issue # 33, September, 1994, found online at: http://www.reformedworship.org/magazine/article.cfm?article_id=837


Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2009 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096