Creekside Church Sermon of October 26, 2003 "Gratuitous Praise " Psalm 95:1-7	Rev. David Bibbee
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Last Friday on Big Chetac Lake in Wisconsin a heavy northwest wind made fishing an ordeal. To get out of the big blow, I went to the west shore for calmer water. There was a small bay I hadn't fished. As I rounded the point into the mouth of the bay, I cut the motor. It wasn't a bay, but a cathedral. The water was smooth as glass. The shore was on fire. A large maple was adorned in gold leaves tinged with red. The other trees clustered around it like an autumnal choir. The scene was silent, save for the cry of a loon in the distance. The water reflected the trees like a mirror, doubling the red and gold glory. We instinctively put down our rods, and stood in awe without the desire to say a word.

Thirty-three years ago at Annual Conference, a dozen high school students were part of a moving experience which led them to the top of a hotel. Holding a love feast service seemed the appropriate response. The basin for feet washing was the swimming pool. The blessed sacrament was potato chips and Coke. It was one of the most memorable moments of their lives.

In a delivery room at Memorial Hospital a mother is about to give birth. To the staff, the father looks "intimidating." He wears leather pants, boots, and a vest with no shirt. He is adorned with chains, tattoos, an unkept beard, and hair tied in a pony tail. The back of his vest has no insignia for the Outlaws or Hell's Angels, but he looks like he belongs to a motorcycle gang. You KNOW he brought his wife to the hospital on a Harley-Davidson hog. Minutes later, a baby girl announces her arrival with a cry, and her leather-clad father holds this tiny, delicate ball of life in his big, burly hands, and he bawls like a baby.

The writer Anne Lamott was for years a hard-core alcoholic and drug addict. Once while coming down from a cocaine high, she stumbled into a little, run down Presbyterian church in Oakland, California. The singing pulled her in. She would stand at the back of the sanctuary for the singing, but always left before the sermon. She contemplated becoming a Christian, but always told herself the idea was crazy.

Listen to her description of what happened one Sunday morning. "When I went back to church I was so hungover that I couldn't stand up for the songs, and this time, I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so DEEP and RAW and PURE that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling-- and it washed over me.

I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home, past the dock, past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams. I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, 'This sucks: I quit.' I took a long deep breath and said out loud, 'All right, Jesus. You can come in.'"

What is the common thread which connects these moments? Each was an experience of worship, though only one happened in church. In each something unexpected happened. In each a portal opened between the material and spiritual realm and people were immersed in the beauty, unity, and wonder, and the goodness and mercy of God that follows us all the days of our lives.

Two weeks ago we looked at the inadequacy of the church membership model. I said the discipleship model must take center stage in order to rediscover the reality of Jesus' presence, and once again grow the church in the manner described in the book of Acts. There are six marks that characterize the life of a Christian disciple. Last Sunday Ginny Haney spoke about the primacy of prayer, stressing that prayer isn't something "tacked on to" our lives, but a "dynamic connection" that under girds and guides us.

Before us today is the second mark of discipleship-- WORSHIP, or, as I've called it, "gratuitous praise." We are aware of the gratuitous violence and sex that permeates American society, but what is gratuitous praise? A gratuitous act is something done that does not involve a return, benefit, or compensation. In worship we praise God for God's sake./ We praise God because God "IS."/ We worship in response to the glimpses of God we see, hear, feel, and apprehend with our minds. We DO NOT worship to "butter up" God so God will look favorably upon us. [Worship is beneficial for us, but it is not for our benefit!]

Making a case for the necessity of regular worship I'll start with an obvious observation. Prayer and worship were the linchpin of Jesus' life. Luke 4:16 says, "And Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day." It wouldn't surprise me if there were days Jesus didn't feel like going to worship. Maybe Joe and Mary had to give their teenage son some "extra" encouragement to get out of bed on Saturday mornings now and then. But early on Jesus realized worship was not a mere ritual, a formality, or an obligation.

Worship was the heart of Judaism. In worship God's people gathered for prayer and instruction from the Torah. Worship reminded them that they were not like everyone else. They were chosen by God to be different and make a difference in the world.

When teenagers go out with their friends, some parents say, "Don't do anything stupid and be back by midnight!" Other parents appeal to identity: "Remember who you are. We don't care what everyone else is doing. You are not everyone else." Worship shapes identity. In the book, "Power Surge," Pastor Mike Foss says:

It is in the gathering of God's people in worship that the community of faith affirms its calling, receives the gifts of grace, is nourished and strengthened, and sent back into the world to love as God loves.

A theologian has said there are seven questions which address the needs of our being. They are:

1) "Who am I?
2) To whom do I belong and trust?
3) By what shall I live? What do I pass on to my children?
4) How can I protect myself?
5) To what larger story do I belong?
6) Why should I live?
7) How can there be a future? How do I live with the messes of our times?

This week I talked to a woman whose father is wrestling with these questions. He is dying of cancer. She asked me to see him, but not as a minister. "If he knows you're a pastor he won't talk. Something happened years ago that soured him on the church. He thinks the church is always on the make." "I'll be damned if they're going to convert me!" he says. "If I'm not a pastor, who am I?" I asked. "His religion is fishing. Talk fishing and he'll let you in."

I don't know if I'll have a chance to tell him, but he has already been converted. All sorts of influences try to convert us. [He has been converted to thinking the church is a sham.] Millions have converted to believing that neither God nor spiritual matters have a place in secular culture. The question isn't "whether" we will be converted, but, "What we will be converted to."

You may recall a song by Whitney Houston called, "The Greatest Love of All." Its a beautiful song, but the chorus made me itch.

Because the greatest love of all is happening to me.
I've found the greatest love of all inside of me.
The greatest love of all is easy to achieve,
Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

I know Jesus said we must love our neighbors as ourselves. Loving the guy next door is tough if you don't love yourself. But we can't manufacture love. Have you ever tried to "force" yourself into loving someone? Didn't work, did it? Love is not self-contained. Will Willimon said, "Jesus didn't urge us to love one another. He came to establish a condition where love is possible."

The "condition" where love is possible; the classroom where it is learned and shared and taken into the world is the worshiping community of faith. "Love comes from God," it says in 1 John. Its not our project. We don't worship to get a shot of will power so we can bring it into being. In worship, the "needs of our being" questions find answers. "Who am I?" A unique, unrepealable child of God. "To whom do I belong?" The God who fearfully and wonderfully made us. "By what shall I live?" By every word that comes from the mouth of God and as followers of Jesus. These are conversion questions.

Maybe you haven't thought of it this way, but we've been converted by a story. Marva Dawn calls it a "master-story." "Once upon a time the earth was without form and void..." "Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place this way." "There was a father who had two sons." "And Jesus said, 'It is finished'; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." "On the first day of the week, Mary came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb."

Our lives are stories with a beginning and end. All that we experience in life -- its beauty and ugliness; all the joy and sorrow; the pleasure and pain-- it doesn't amount to a plug nickel if we are on our own. But in God's master scheme our stories count, and worship helps us keep our stories straight.

Years ago I came across a gem describing an interrupted transmission between an alien vessel and its home base after the alien had visited a typical worship service: "Today I went to a place called church. The earthlings sit in straight rows and read the same thing to each other. Some chosen ones make special tones as their leader waves, points, smiles and grimaces. At times, all are encouraged to make tones... not all comply. Another one talks a long time. Everyone sits silent. Some sleep or take notes. When its over they debrief each other. The big emphasis is on what was said, the performance of the tone section, and whether the participants knew the tonal arrangements. They call this worship. This is NOT gratuitous praise!

Think about who you are, then contemplate God's being. We realize the inadequacy of language and all we do in worship to adequately respond to God. Still, we come each Sunday to worship and bow down before the Lord our maker. We come to discover who we are and the story to which we belong. We worship to be converted and reconverted to the truth. When we worship, we disrupt the powers which could be our undoing.

In the recent Messenger magazine, is this quote from Tilden Edwards. "We will be restless until we realize finally the one place of rest is in God, not just as a concept but as a living reality."

In Psalm 95 there is no question about the Subject of praise. "Let us sing to the rock of our salvation./ Come into his presence with thanksgiving. The Lord is a great God... the king above all gods. /The earth's depths are in his hand. /The mountains are his./ The seas are his, for he made it./ O come, let us worship and bow down before the Lord our maker."

The only way to know awe, adoration, mystery, majesty, and true praise is to put the Infinite-Center, at the center of worship. The focus of worship isn't the pastor, the musicians, the music, the children, our likes, our needs, or the needs of the world. There are infinite ways to worship, but only one Subject of worship… God who makes it possible to be in his presence. Though all we do in worship is an absolutely inadequate response to God's goodness to us, God loves it when we try.

Disciples of Jesus are people who pray. Disciples of Jesus lose themselves in gratuitous praise, worshiping God for God's sake. Next week we will examine the importance the good book.

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