As I stood in church this week and sang “behold Him seated on the throne” or something, over and over. I wondered how often we treat him like he is actually seated on that throne.

Then an entire sermon about worship, or something. It was interesting that one of the points was how the woman came prepared to anoint Jesus, we should come prepared for worship. I’ve never heard a more succinct definition of liturgy than “coming prepared”, yet liturgy is constantly berated. Though of course we have our own liturgy. Trying to keep things random and pretending you are two different churches, complete with two different pulpits, every other week, isn’t the absence of a liturgy. That is your liturgy, that which you have prepared for worship. Of course some of it becomes routine. So during the days when you don’t feel like it you can go through the motions anyway. Because the motions lead to a right heart. We, in our bohemian evil, fancy that it doesn’t work that way. But how does a spanking reform a heart? God and sensible experience tells us it does. How does bread and wine unite a people? If this isn’t your experience, perhaps it’s because you are using grape juice. Experience and the word of God say it does. The fact remains, every group of people who meet together, have a liturgy. So you might as well have the best one you can.

But I might say it’s not all about the passion. It’s easy to paint the disciples as pure evil in this situation and then assign their behavior to whichever group of people happen to disagree with you in the current day. Oh those disciples were just like the people today who try to say you have to use a certain style. “Ho ho. Shame on you, don’t you know it’s all about the passion and the content doesn’t really matter? Silly person, not like me, how dare you, slink away now.” But I was reminded of a story a couple chapters back which is in stark contrast to this one. No doubt Mark did it deliberately. There was another dinner party and another woman trying to honor another king, with lewd dancing. Family lust was not a new problem for Herod, he had already stolen his brothers wife and now he was prepared to offer her daughter anything she wanted. At her mother’s behest she asked for the head of John the Baptist. But all in all I’m sure Jesus would have been fine if the woman had filled the house of Simon with lewd dancing instead of a fragrant aroma. It’s all about the passion right? But in the other story, the gloomy rain-on-your parade figure was John the Baptist, who spoke up about an immoral marriage. Because God does have standards, and he has standards for worship. It’s not all about the passion.  The what, the actions, the liturgy matters. Both kings accepted the worship. Jesus rewarded this woman with eternal notoriety. Not her passion but her actions, we don’t know anything about her motives nor any of the motives in that room, except for Judas, and Mark omits that detail here because apparently it matters not to his story. Mark emphasizing the kingly role of Jesus, says she poured it over his head, which calls to mind the way kings were anointed. She treated him as king, even when it didn’t look like it. That is true worship, which we can follow. She prepared him for his death, for by it he would become king over all.

No doubt the quest for endless, real, live, passion has caused us to sweep a great many things aside. What would you think of a church that paid people to come to every service? No doubt the church could then pride themselves on the growth and the passionate engagement of the new people. But it’s easy to see that’s not real, they are doing it for the wrong reason, for the money. Now what about a worship leader always adapting the music to what the people want, to what makes them feel good? We might easily write off their feeling as passion, but how do we know it’s not just because we gave them ear candy? This woman bore the cost as she anointed Jesus. Do we bear the cost, do we worship when we don’t like the music? Or do we complain and go to another church? Is it really about the worship or just worship of ourselves and our preferences. As Luther said, ideally the music should be horrible and then you would know the people were there for the right reasons. A people constantly obsessed with the next new thing is a people constantly throwing away. Then it makes you wonder why they threw away the great hymn tradition of Isaac Watts. Was it for good reason, or to fulfill their desire for throwing away? The sad reality is that we miss about 90% of the doctrine of the Psalms and about 90% of the musical complexity our forefathers gave us. We were supposed to be conformed to the scriptures not the other way around. And what better way to practice than by laying aside our preferences for a tradition which has proven itself for hundreds of years? That sounds like real worship to me.

Something we don’t learn during the constant repetitions of certain passages from Revelation, is the result of worship on earth. Worship is warfare. As the people of God worship around the throne, actual events take place on earth. But it’s not just something that happens behind church doors. The church is to be the rally cry for the rest of our lives. Which is why many old hymns were vibrant marches. We sing about Jesus as our King, but then we go out in the world as if we were part of the Ron Paul for President campaign. We think we are right, and more informed than everyone else, but we know in the end we are losers. While we sing the exact opposite, because it’s true, Jesus is King. Whether you believe it or not, that’s the reality. The devil is still pretending he is king, but he has been defeated. He loves it when you pretend he is king too, and lament the evils of this world, or give up and wait for the rapture. Worship is warfare. When you obey the commands of scripture, you plant the flag for your king, Jesus. This is his world and it operates by his rules and so do you!  What good does it do to sing how great he is if you don’t act like it? If you don’t live by his decrees during the week before men? If instead you go out in the world and get tips on music and life and bring them back and alter the church? If you bring lewd dancing back and then claim it’s your worship style? And so we have. And so we have a church that is impotent. We let the world cut off our head and we didn’t even notice.

The Feast of Herod, Peter Paul Rubens, c.1635

Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee, Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1620
Interesting the he painted the two episodes similarly and titled them both ‘feasts’.