Why do we worship?

Worship. It seems to be a fairly universal human trait. But did you ever stop and ask yourself why we do it?

Before we address that question, I'd like to start with an even deeper series of probing questions: What if we found out that God isn't who we think he is? If you stripped away, one by one, the characteristics that we assign to the person known as YHWH, would you stop worshiping him at some point?

I grabbed a list of some of the most common attributes that are ascribed to God. Let's peel them away and talk about them each briefly.

Omnipresent. A fancy word that means that he's not only capable of being everywhere at once, he IS everywhere at once. It's interesting to me that we apply this attribute to God, because there are certain passages in the Bible that can seem to indicate otherwise. If God is everywhere, why did he require the Israelites to go through so much trouble to build him a tabernacle and later a temple? When God calls out to Adam and Eve, "Where are you?", was it indeed a rhetorical question? Putting those questions aside for a moment, does it matter? If you discovered that God had a limited number of places he could be at one time, would you stop worshiping him?

Omniscience. Or in other words, all-knowing. Most of us make use of this attribute on a day-to-day basis, any time we pray to him silently. We expect that he knows our thoughts. But what if he doesn't? I can't think of a time in the Bible where people prayed to God silently. Now, this may just be because it would make for a lousy narrative if the main character just closed his eyes at some point and we never get to "hear" what he said. But what if we did need to say things out loud in order for him to hear us? Would we stop worshiping him?

Omnipotent. All-powerful. We think of God in terms of being able to anything imaginable. If he wanted to destroy the the planet we call earth, he could do it with just a word. But what if he was bound by the same laws of physics that we were? Maybe he just knows how to manipulate them in ways we cannot. Would you still worship him?

Eternal. If God had an origin, would we still worship him? What if he has an end?

I could go on. However, for most people, the answer would probably still be yes. Why?

Imagine for a moment, that God was more like a character from a sci-fi novel or a comic book. Imagine Him as a super-being who had his origin somewhere outside our galaxy. Maybe there's a whole race of beings just like Him. A race that can manipulate the building blocks of the universe at will. Imagine that this race of super-beings spread out over the universe in search of suitable planets to create life on. Our particular God found a small rock, 3 orbits away from a young sun, that would be perfect for the life forms he had in mind, and set to work. Now, after programming the genetic code for the multitude of species He had designed, He decided to make a very special type of life form and imbue them with a special spark; an eternal soul. After their bodies stopped functioning, the eternal soul would return to Him as a spiritual being and He would chose which ones that would stay with him for eternity and which ones that would be destroyed.

Imagine, for a moment, that all of that was true. Would you worship him?

Hold that thought for a moment and let's take a scenic detour. Let's take a look at what it means to "worship". Worship usually involves two things, praise/honor and obedience. When we worship God, we typically do two things; 1) we tell Him and other people we meet that he's a really great guy and about the great things he has done (praise) and 2) we do the things he asks us to do (obedience).

Praise almost always involves things that have been done in the past. You don't typically praise someone for something they haven't done yet, unless it's something like a promise and you trust that they will follow through. When it comes to God, there's one very big thing that he did in the past: he created us. If he didn't do anything more than just that, he would be worthy of praise. Of course, he's done more, but we'll just start with that because it's an act that is fairly universally attributed to God.

But the second part of worship is a little more tricky. Obedience. It's easy to give out honor and praise. We do it all the time. Think about how much honor and praise we ascribe to the "Founding Fathers" and people like Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King. Heck, we even have a gigantic stone statue of Abraham Lincoln in our nation's capital! That's quite a bit of honor to show one person. However, if Abraham Lincoln was alive today and he told you to do something, would you always do whatever he asked? Maybe, maybe not, right? If he tells you to release all your slaves, you'd probably be cool with that. If he asks you to accompany his wife to the theater and sit in his box seat, you might decline.

Let's dip into the comic book world for an example of a being that would deserve praise, if he existed; Superman. He's a pretty good guy, right? Not omnipotent, but pretty powerful. Not omniscient, but that super hearing and X-ray vision probably means he's aware of what's going on more than the average person. Not omnipresent, but fast enough that it might appear that he's in more than one place at a time.

Imagine the following conversation with Superman:

Citizen: Hurray! You just saved the whole east coast of the U.S. from that massive hurricane with your super-breath! You're the greatest guy in the whole world, Superman! We should build a statue in your honor! We should make a national holiday in your honor!

Superman: Really? Well, I'll tell you what; skip the statue and holiday. What I could really use is some cash. Do you have any idea the peanuts I earn at the Daily Planet? So, how about, say, 10%? You can all pay me 10% of your income. Sound fair?

Citizen: Um.. well... I don't really think....

Superman: Well, you know, there is this asteroid... could threaten all of life on earth... but, hey, I might be busy trying to earn a living at my mediocre job....

Citizen: .... ah, right. So, who do I make the check out to? Clark Kent or Kal-El?

Naturally, as mortal humans, we care very much about our fate and our future. Because of this, it stands to reason that we obey the people who hold some sort of influence over our fate. In the Superman example, we'd be willing to do almost anything he asked if it meant that our future would be safe. For the same reasons, we obey the government because they have the ability to imprison us or make our life pretty miserable. We pay our bills because the banks have the ability to influence our future. But all of these people can only influence our destiny up to a very specific point: our death. Beyond that point, they have no control. That realm belongs to God, and it's a major factor in why we worship him. He holds our fate, both in life and in death, in his hands. No wonder we obey him.

Honor and obedience aren't necessarily tied together, though. You can praise someone and yet not obey them and you can obey someone but not praise them. For an example of the latter, look at the government; we obey the law, but we rarely worship it.

Imagine this scenario for a moment: What if there were TWO gods, one who governed life and one who governed death? The former was responsible for creating you, while the latter is responsible for your existence after you die. They both request that you show up at their temple on Sunday morning and bring an offering. When Sunday rolls around, which temple would you be found in? I don't know about you, but I'd probably be praising the one for what he has done but obeying the other.

Fortunately, in the Christian faith, God is responsible for the beginning of life and the ending of life and everything between and beyond, so there's no question of where to direct our gratitude and obedience. Out of this realization flows the words and actions that we call worship. This is why we worship. We praise and obey Him for what He has done in the past and what He has promised he will do in the future.

So, would it matter if it turned out that God wasn't everything we think he is? Yes and no. It would be disappointing to find out that He's not quite as amazing as I thought He was. But, in the end, as long as he's the one that created me and he's the one that controls my destiny, I'll keep right on giving him the glory he deserves and doing the things that he asks of me.

Stop Tripping Your Brother!

By request, the next topic to tackle is "Christian Freedom". Before we go any further, let's nail that phrase down a bit. Christian Freedom refers to the fact that we, as Christians, are not bound by a rigid set of rules and regulations; we're free to do what we please as long as we maintain a healthy relationship with God. Wait, what? I thought that Christianity was all about a list of things you are and aren't supposed to do? What about the 10 Commandments and all that? I thought Christians aren't supposed to drink and smoke and swear!

In the U.S.A, we tend to worship Freedom. We are proud that we live in a country that boasts of freedom of religion and freedom of speech and yet we understand so little about freedom. The fact is, no one is ever truly free and unrestricted; there are always limits. But you may say, I have freedom of speech; I can say whatever I want! Oh yeah? Try calling up your local government office and informing them of a bomb you left there, some time. That's "freedom of speech", right? Let me know how that goes.

No matter how free we think we are, there are always boundaries we may not cross. Despite what you may think, this is a good thing. I'm much happier to knowing that my neighbor is NOT free to murder me simply because I didn't cut my grass. The government puts laws in place to define the boundaries of what we can and cannot do. The larger that boundary is, the more freedom we feel we have.

Christian Freedom works pretty much the same way; there are things that are right to do and things that are wrong to do. When Jesus established his Church on Earth, replacing the Jewish law-oriented structure, he opened up the boundaries of what was acceptable to do quite a bit.

The problem is that the boundary can get kind of blurry sometimes. God has given us plenty of examples of things that are good and things that are bad, but what about the things that just plain aren't mentioned?

Fortunately, God has equipped us with a facility to help us navigate the grey area between Good and Evil; it's our conscience. If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that it's tough to go wrong if you avoid things that your conscience tells you to stay away from. And the converse is true also; if you regularly disregard what your conscience is telling you, you're headed for trouble.

The problem is that one person's conscience can differ greatly from another person's conscience. This is where Christians get into arguments. One of the central verses that gets dragged into these arguments is:

Romans 14:19-21
¹⁹Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. ²⁰Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. ²¹It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

So, the central idea here is that we should avoid "causing someone else to stumble". Yup, there you go. Don't do it. No sir... Ok, wait, what does it mean to "stumble"? Do I just have to avoid tripping people or eating meat?

The definition of "stumble" here, is very important, because it gets misused horribly otherwise. If the Christian life is described as a walk, or sometimes a race, then "stumbling" would be something that gets in the way of achieving your goal, which is a good personal relationship with the Creator and His Son. Or, in other words, causing someone to do something that violates their conscience and causes them to feel "dirty" when God looks down upon them.

So, as Christians, we have the freedom to do whatever we want as long as we stay within the boundaries set up by God's Word for the black and white areas and our own consciences for the grey areas. However, even though that gives us quite a lot of freedom, there are times when we may want to consider NOT doing certain things out of respect for our fellow Christians.

To illustrate, imagine that you are an excellent skier. You can handle the toughest hills the mountain can throw at you, with the greatest of ease. One day you head out to the mountain with a friend. Now, you know that your friend is a beginner skier and gets shaky on anything larger than the Bunny Hill. Would you take them to the top of a double black diamond hill and push them off? Of course not; they would be "stumbling" all the way to the bottom. But that doesn't mean that you're not free to ski that hill when they're not around. You are strong enough to handle it even if they are not.

Where Christians go wrong is they abuse this concept of voluntarily giving up your freedom to enforce limits on other Christians. This is where Christianity gets its bad reputation for the list of things you can't do. You can't drink. You can't smoke. You can't swear. You can't watch R-rated movies... the list goes on and on.

This is absolutely WRONG. Christians do not have the right to deny other Christians the freedom that was given by God. If God didn't declare something to be wrong, who are you to add an amendment to His laws? Churches that require their members to not drink, not smoke, etc, are trampling on the freedom given by God.

Seems pretty simple, right? Don't do things that you know will trip up your fellow Christian. But hold on, what if you don't know what weaknesses your fellow Christian is hiding? I mean, you usually know your close friends well enough to steer clear of weaknesses, but what if you're hanging out with people you don't know so well? Or even tougher, what if you're in charge of planning events at your Church? What's OK to do and what should you avoid?

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution, but I think it's reasonable to apply a little common sense. I think a lot of it comes down to culture and likelihood. You have to ask yourself, "if someone participates in an activity with me, what are the chances that it could lead to damaging their relationship with God?" Let's tackle a couple examples so that you can see what I mean. I'm not going to tackle the big ones, i.e. the "vices", because those are big enough to warrant their own blog posts. Instead, I've chosen a couple that aren't always in the spotlight.

Meat. The verses in Romans 14 deal specifically with eating meat sacrificed to false gods. As I understand it, in those days, your local butcher shop many times doubled as a place where pagan rituals were held and the meat that you bought there was likely to have been used in a ritual sacrifice. Understandably, there were many Christians who had a problem with this and so chose to become vegetarians rather than support Hezekiah's Pagan Meat Market. (Bring your Baal coupon and get 25% off!!) Other Christians looked at the problem, shrugged their shoulders and said, "meat is just meat" and bought a couple steaks to bring home for dinner. Now, in today's day and age, it's highly unlikely that the butcher at your local supermarket is performing pagan rituals in the back room, so we don't really need to worry about this issue anymore.

However, what about People who have chosen to become vegetarians because the Eating of Tasty Animals truly bothers their conscience? This is definitely a situation you are more likely to encounter in our culture today. Well, on a small scale, this question is fairly easy to answer. If you want to show respect to them, you might alter your menu a bit when they come over to your house for dinner. But it gets a little more tricky if you're in charge of planning the church potluck! What do you do? Are you required to skip the hotdogs and burgers at the next church picnic? Would it "cause a brother to stumble" if you brought your usual "hamburger helper" dish? Common sense to the rescue! I would dare say, you probably know (or know of) one or more people who are vegetarians. Ask yourself, if we hold a backyard barbecue, how likely are they to violate their conscience and damage their relationship with God by chowing down on a burger? Unless you know some very different vegetarians than I do, the chances of this happening are slim to none. Why? Because they are not weak people! Most of them would rather go hungry than violate their convictions. Seeing someone else digging into a rack of ribs is more likely to gross them out than tempt them to join in. So relax, there's no need to ban all meat at the next potluck. Maybe include a leafy salad or a meatless pasta dish in the mix out of respect, but I'd say vegetarians can take care of themselves.

Fetishes. Face it; no matter what you do, there's probably some some screwed up individual out there that could be affected by it. I read an article about a pastor who was counselling a person who had a shoe fetish. He was sexually aroused whenever someone took off their shoes. Seriously. Not making it up. So what do we do with this information? As a Christian community, do we ban the removal of our shoes in the presence of any other person, JUST IN CASE they might have this particular weakness, and JUST IN CASE they might stumble? That would be just plain ridiculous! Again, we have to apply some common sense. What percentage of the population has this problem? How likely is there to be someone with this issue in your church? Chances are, you can go ahead with your foot washing ceremony and not worry about it.

See, most of the time when the issue comes up, it has nothing to do with someone having a legitimate weakness and it is all about someone being offended and trying to control what people do. Being offended is very much different than being "in danger of stumbling". Most of the time, the people who get offended about something are the least likely to be affected by it. Think about the Christians who get upset over "rock music". I'm pretty sure you know someone like this. Go on, think about them. Got their face in your head? Good; now, how likely are they to damage their relationship with God due to the messages contained in a hard rock song? Can you imagine them discarding their ties and dress pants for a pair of ripped jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt and rocking out to an AC/DC song? Would you have cause to worry about their salvation if ever they were exposed to a gangsta rap song?

The fact is, Jesus was extremely offensive. He took the established religion of Legalism and tore it down. He *gasp* allowed his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath! He obviously didn't care too much whether the religious officials would fall away into sin because they witnessed this 'disgraceful' act. We need to be able to discern between when there's a legitimate concern we need to be aware of and when people are just trying to shove us into the prison of legalism.

I'd like to take some time in the future to do a few posts on some of the specific issues that Christians tend to argue about, that I didn't have the time to address. Things like celebrating Halloween, drinking, going to restaurants on Sunday, seeing R-rated movies, listening to rock music, using a modern translation of the Bible (i.e. non-King James), using drums in a worship service, swearing, etc. If any of these things interest you as future topics, please let me know!