I love the way St. Paul describes Christians as “bondservants.” Other translations besides the NKJ use the word slave, but bondservant seems much more appropriate since it is not associated with modern slavery. To be a bondservant of Christ means that we are indeed bound to our servant-hood. We are not slaves in the modern sense of not having freedom, but we are slaves in the spiritual sense of having freedom yet under the certain care and tutelage of Christ.
The doctrine of purgatory has fueled some of the most passionate division amongst Catholics and Protestants ever since the Reformation. But with a closer look at the doctrine and its different latitudes of dogma within the history of the Church, we may be able to put to rest the two extremes that continue to battle against each other.
Speaking of Evangelicalism and liturgy - I was listening to the radio the other day (I do a lot of driving) and there was this interview on the Christian station with some Olympic snowboarders. One of the snowboarders stated that when they snowboard they are at their best worship with God.
There seems to be some confusion as to just what “worship” is and is not. Although our lives are indeed a worship experience, we need to be careful what we identify as our “worship experience.” The climax of our worship is not when we are experiencing our favorite sport or even just enjoying the splendor of God’s beauty within nature, perhaps at the beach or within the mountains. St. Paul warned us in Romans by explaining that many have fallen to worship the creation and not the creator.
I’m not saying that this snowboarder is worshiping creation, but I am saying that this is the typical Evangelical error of over-realized eschatology. The climax of our worship experience, here on earth, is when we first kneel before the Lord our maker on Sunday. This may sound shocking, but if you are not throwing your entire life at the throne of the living God during your worship within the Church, then you will not experience an abundant life the days after. Our worship experience in life begins with the Eucharistic celebration of the Lord’s Day and dovetails from there, not from our favorite hobby.
If your worship experience is not where it should be, then make it so. If you are living in a house of cedar - as King David put it - but your God is dwelling in a tent, then obviously something needs to be done. No Christian should be complaining about their worship service unless they have first offered themselves to the ministry of Church; whether it be through service or finance.
The worship service of the Church, and not our favorite hobby, should be the pillar of our psychological well being. When disruptive thoughts come to mind, think of how you worship, and those thoughts will likely turn and run; unless your worship is disruptive or you rarely worship. I am absolutely convinced that contemporary, liturgicaless, Psalmless (not singing them as God commands), and Eucharistless (not including the Eucharist on the Lord’s Day service) worship is harmful to the Christian and the Church as a whole. If it were right, then the Church would have been partaking in it for the first 1800 years of existence prior to the Enlightenment.
Something to think about.
I recently heard a very popular Evangelical pastor preach a very common message on the radio. He said (and I have heard Reformed say this) that we should be always ready to give our testimony to others. What is a “testimony?” Ever since the days of the Enlightenment, and likely even before then, Christians have equated the Gospel with some sort of ethical conversion, “I was once that and now I am this.” Now, I am all for giving glory to God in what he does, and what he has done in the saints, this is why I like to celebrate the feast days. But to equate the Gospel to ethical conversion is a serious mistake.
Any self-help group can take a drug-addicted or other socially oppressed person off the streets and “clean up their life.” In fact, the world has a better track record, in these modern days, of doing such a thing. As a former minister to homeless and incarcerated, I witnessed much of this sort of secular rehabilitation: Many people could not decide between the rehabilitation of the Church or the rehabilitation of the cult of the state (the state issues them license to minister), because they are both able to help.
Change in social and civil ethic is certainly a result of the Gospel taking root in a person, but it is not the essence of the Gospel. The essence of the Gospel, in regards to the change in the elect, is the change in which what the new Christian worships. The new Christian is now no longer an idolater! Now, the new Christian worships the living God! But, this worship is not primarily ethical in the social and even personal sense. This worship that the new Christian begins to give themselves to is corporate and ceremonial. The new Christian is now identified with what Christ spoke about: The Eucharist, Baptism, and the Church in its entirety.
The temptation within the Church has been to begin to act like God, proclaiming who is and is not elect on the basis of one’s inner morality and, as we have discussed, their outward ethics. But we do not know the heart like God knows that heart. We only know what we have been given; the outward workings of Christ: The Eucharist, Baptism, and the Church as a whole. We have not been given jurisdiction of the heart, as judge.
By teaching the testimony doctrine, Evangelical theology has been teaching, not that we are idolaters, but that we are simply breaching modern ethics. With this doctrine anyone can be a Christian that lives a moral life and inserts the name of Jesus in their life. Proper and submissive worship is not vital in this doctrine.
The drastic change in the Christian life can be seen IN THE VERY WAY AND FREQUENCY THAT THEY WORSHIP! Is the Christian in submission to Godly forms of worship, or is the Christian desiring “worship” that appeases their flesh through modern worldliness? Worship involves the “evolving” manner of the liturgical actions as first portrayed by Christ and his Apostles. You will be judged in the end by this Christological standard. So my question is: Why would one risk all of this by worshiping within the context of modern paradigms, presuppositions, and culture? My other question is: Could many be deceived into thinking they are “saved” because they have reached a higher level of morality but not a higher level of worship?
Why would one want to leave a life of fleshly entertainment just to enter a ceremony of fleshly entertainment, such as found in most Evangelical churches? How much has really happened in our hearts if we cannot leave the worlds liturgy to the world?
Today is the feast day of St. Valentine. There is not a whole lot known about the Valentine (Valentinus) that is celebrated today, but apparently we have found the way to celebrate what God has done through him. If you are a heathen, you can celebrate via the emperor cult (Americanism), and not “commune” with the Church on this holiday. The choice is yours! Or is it?
This is my sermon on today’s Prayer Book reading: 1 Corinthians 13.
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