What exactly is worship? Like many concepts or words, worship has become too familiar. A watchful dragon as C. S. Lewis would put it. We cozy up to it because it is ours, forgetting it is a slimy serpent. Such dragons require the magic of elf land to free us from our delusion.
Thinking about some other contexts will free us from our dragons. What does it mean to worship a king? Of course a king wants praise, anyone does. There is some new use of the word thirsty among the post Christians that means desiring online comments. But this is only fun for a while. Only the simple are content with mere praise. And what is the praise for? Most leaders want to earn their praise and be praise by those qualified to praise. If someone praises your work, who knows nothing about your field, it doesn’t mean much. And if you don’t have any work to praise it means even less, unless you are a Kardashian. Perhaps there is some divergence between the sexes on this one. Men like to accomplish and build things, women like to build relationships. Relationships for relationships sake, is a house of cards or compliments as the case might be. And so perhaps this feminine propensity has affected our view of praise in and around worship. But there are very few kings who are known merely for being kings. Well maybe if you count the Marxists, but in the pre modern world that wasn’t enough. There have been many great leaders in history who were asses, yet we must revere them because they got things done. This is true from Steve Jobs to Alexander the Great.
Saint Hedwig and the New Convent. Silesia, Poland. c. 1353.
“At the top of the page an inscription describes one of Saint Hedwig’s charitable acts: “Here she convinces her husband to have a monastery for Cistercian nuns built at Trebnitz with his own money.” Hedwig stands with her husband, supervising the construction of the building. Her emphatic gesture suggests that, although Henry supplied the funds, she was the guiding force of the project. Henry wears full ducal regalia, with numerous heraldic devices, while Hedwig is modestly dressed. On the right, laborers construct the Gothic building, using scaffolding and a pulley system. “
The first part of getting things, big things, done is getting other people to do what you want. One man might throw words about on a blog but it takes many men to accomplish great things. The pyramids on the plain of Giza are a testament to organization and leadership. The great Pharaohs didn’t want praise they wanted every man to put those massive stones in the correct order, according to his plan. He didn’t want sycophantic managers repeating ridiculous choruses over and over, he wanted them to get every last worker to work, to meet his goals. And he heard the prase of every generation until now. But then a neighboring kingdom decides to attack. He doesn’t just want people standing around telling him he is a good commander. He wants to win the war. He wants his generals to execute his battle plan. And his generals want the same of those under them all the way down the line to the lowly foot soldier putting his foot in the right spot. Refraining from badmouthing your superior is important but praise without works is dead as St. James might say(James 2:14).
There is little difference in these matters between a tyrant and a good leader. Both want their commands followed. The difference is in the goals or intentions. Some men want only to make a name for themselves like Obama. Other men like Churchill want to make all England great again. But both must be obeyed. One uses his talents for his own glory the other for the glory of all, which ultimately gets him more glory. And so there is a slight distinction in the nature of the commands. Tyrants issue arbitrary commands, which make no logical sense, in order to prove that they are obeyed. If the command made sense the peon might just be doing what makes sense on his own. If the command makes no sense you can be sure that he is doing it just because the tyrant commanded it. You see this in gangster movies. Hold your hand over the flame—because I said so. Shoot your friend—because I said so. Prove your loyalty. Biblical leaders should never be tyrants but they should still be followed. That’s how hierarchy works, someone must lead.
For the Church, that someone is Jesus the Christ. You would think this was simple. But we Americans don’t like kings and we have been pretending for a long time that pastors are not leaders, that they are just hanging out and sharing. We also pretend Jesus is not a King. Which is why things have gotten so bad in our culture. We have lots of praise floating around but nothing gets built. Then we invent orthopraxies to suggest that buildings don’t matter, even though every person on the earth, ever, knows that they do. Christ wants us to take dominion. We are children of the king, we should be acting out his will, not just singing repetitive, simple, stupid praise choruses over and over until we feel good. This doesn’t make Jesus feel good, it’s clear, as the King of Kings he isn’t interested in our stupid songs. He wants his whole Kingdom to flourish, to defeat it’s enemies, to make the whole world one under his rule. He wants us to build Christian things and write Christian books and compose Christian symphonies. Where is the proof that you follow Jesus? Is it just in your heart? What good is that? Who cares how you feel?
I thought of another example, which has almost become so ridiculous as not even to work. The feminists have ruined our concept of marriage, but I will try nonetheless. What sort of marriage would it be where the woman said to her husband, “I like the way you make me feel on Sunday morning in the bedroom, but I don’t really want to have anything to do with you the rest of the week.”? Sadly this is almost the case, in marriage and in the Church. But the Bible, the New Testament even, says that Sarah was blessed when she called her husband Lord(I Peter 3:6). And repeatedly the husband is said to be the head of the wife. Surely even we can understand how shallow it is to only like your husband for sex, when he is making you feel good? Surely we must see that wanting to execute his idea of a house for you and the kids is a good thing? And any decent husband only seeks to organize his house for the good of everyone in it. Do you really think praising him for being a good husband and then not doing anything he says makes any sense? Don’t you see this is a sure formula for sending him into depression? To be praised for the work of your hands when it all disintegrates is not healthy. Then why do we do the same thing to Jesus? We repeat over and over “I have come to worship” and God is thinking, “Ok, good, so do it. Stop telling me you are going to do it and do it already!” Stop telling him he is a good husband and instead trust what he says. He is looking out for you, he loves you, so truly worship him by believing that. Do what he says. Make his words reality and then he will have something worthy of praise. Other men will praise him in the gates as the Proverbs 31 woman accomplishes for her husband. So we should see Christ praised in all the world, for our works of redemption.
We might need special revelation some day, when we have executed everything that the Bible already commands us. Like that rich young ruler saying “these have I kept from my youth, what should I do now?(Mat. 19:20)” it’s mostly ridiculous. We don’t need something more. Chesterton said that Christianity had not been tried and found wanting but found difficult and left untried. So why don’t we make a change and stop talking about worship as mere words flung about in a warehouse thinly veiled to look like a church? Worship is action. The true Christian is a militant Christian. Faith without works is dead. Faith with works is true religion, true worship. Do you love me? Feed my lambs(John 21:17). Do what I told you to do. He who loves me is he who does the will of my father(Mat. 12:50). So stop allowing music to make you feel good on Sunday, and start feeling bad about what you don’t do the rest of the week. This is true worship.