Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on 11th March 2007, Third Sunday in Lent, by Rev. Kwok Nai Wang. The scripture readings that day were Amos 5:21-27 and Mark 16:9-20.


Lent is a season for us to re-examine our relationship with God. Worship does help us to focus. For worship is for God and God only. In worship, we have only one purpose; to glorify God, or to put it more plainly, to manifest God’s mighty acts. Therefore, the highest point in any traditional worship is Te Deum Laudamus: to laud or to magnify God’s glory. In order to do that, we have to worship in the appropriate manner. This is to safeguard that we are not doing something for ourselves, according to our likes or dislikes.

Another important theme for lent is repentance. Repentance means to turn back. We may or may not be aware most of our lives have become “me” - centered now. We need to turn back to “God” - centered. Actually, that was the original purpose of God’s creation.

“God created man, the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:27)

As human beings we must be like God who is the God of Love and Justice; who is also the God of Peace (c.f. I Cor. 14:33).

Likewise, in wanting to learn more about Christian worship, we must go back to its origins. This is what we plan to do in this year’s Lenten Sundays. We shall have a good look at Christian worship, tracing its origins and foundations. Hopefully through this venture, we will find our worship more meaningful so as to allow worship to really empower our life.

Two Sundays ago, we reflected on God as the focus of our worship. God only must we worship. Last Sunday we reflected on: in worship, we discern and dramatize God’s mighty acts. God acts in history as well in our midst. After we have reflected on Who do we worship, and What is worship, this Sunday we will reflect on Where do we worship. Is worship in the sanctuary sufficient?

First of all, God is not only the God inside the Church; though throughout the centuries, people built great churches and cathedrals to symbolize God’s presence. In reality, God is the God of the whole universe. So extolled the psalmist of ancient times,

“For Yahweh is a great God, a king greater than all the gods. In his power and the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are his; the sea belongs to him, for he made it, and the dry land, moulded by his hands.” (Ps. 95:3-5)

Of course, we must glorify God, and magnify God’s holy name in our sanctuaries. But at the same time we should not and cannot ignore the fact that there is massive human suffering in every corner of the world. Undoubtedly these will discredit God and will bring God’s name into disrepute. Moreover, wars, famines, social injustices; and any forms of exploitation, discrimination and suppression are all inconsistent with God’s will.

The Roman Catholic Church in the past decade has decided to combat poverty. For according to its teaching, poverty causes people of untimely death and deprives people of basic human dignity. As human beings bear the image of God, poverty of any form mutilate the image of God or defaces God so to speak.

God is the God of the oikoumene, or the whole inhibited earth. God loves whoever and whichever God creates. The Anglican collect for Ash Wednesday (a collect is a short prayer to collect our thoughts on a particular occasion) put it in this way, “God hates nothing that God has made.” To put it in another way, “God loves everything and especially every human being.”

That explains why the Israelites believed that God never turned away from human suffering.

“I cry to God in distress
I cry to God and God hears me.” (Ps. 27:1)

(God said) If you call to me in time of trouble, I will rescue you.” (Ps. 50:15)

This was how the faith in God of the Israelites began. It all began when they were in Egypt being suppressed and were suffering,

“God said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their crying for help on account of their task-master. Yes, I am well aware of their sufferings. Therefore, I shall come down to rescue them.” (Ex 3:7f).

God was always aware of our suffering. Again, as the psalmist wrote,

“For God has not despised nor disregarded the poverty of the poor, has not turned away his face, but has listened to the cry for help.” (Ps. 22:34)

In human history we have seen time and again that God was not only aware of human suffering, God also responded in God’s own way to all human miseries and pain.

This world is in calamitous need. Poverty is the number one problem in the world. According to the reports by the various agencies of the United Nations, one billion people have less than one American dollar to live on each day; more than 10% of the people in the world go to bed hungry at night. They have no clean water and/or
displaced. Most of them do not have a safe shelter. One in five children in this world is deprived of any form of school education. Many of these children have lost one or both parents. Are we aware of the plight of the millions of God’s children? Are we aware that many of our sisters and brothers are struggling hard just to survive?

As Christians we have a responsibility to glorify God. As Paul admonished the early Christians, “Whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.” (I Cor. 10:31, c.f. Col. 3:17). To turn a blind eye to all these calamities and human suffering is the same as to turn away from God. So as responsible Christians, to worship God or to glorify God in the sanctuary is far from enough. This was how Amos, an Israelite prophet of the 8th Century BCE interpreted God’s will:

“I hate, I scorn your festivals, I take no pleasure in your solemn assemblies. When you bring me burnt offerings, your oblations, I do not accept them and I do not look at your communion sacrifices of fat cattle. Spare me the din of your chanting, let me hear none of your strumming of lyres, but let justice flow like water, and uprightness like a never-failing stream.” (Amos 5:21-24).

God demands our good work in the world more than our devotion and our worship inside the church.

Another contemporary prophet Hosea struck the same tune:

“For faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not burnt offering.” (Hosea 6:6)

To have knowledge in God is more than to know God’s will. It implies that we try our best to manifest God’s will or to witness God’s love, justice and salvation for all in our word as well as in our deed.

Likewise, to have faithful love implies that we do not only love God with all our soul, all our mind and all our heart; but also to love our neighbours as ourselves. This is the core of the Holiness Code as found in Leviticus 17-26 as well as the summary of the Law. (c.f. Mt. 22:37-40).

To love God and to love our neighbours, especially those in need are equally important. To-day, too many Christians only know God conceptually but pay little or no attention to our suffering sisters and brothers. In other words if we concentrate our worshipping life only inside the Church, our faith becomes hollow and meaningless. One of the early Christian letters put it in this way:

“Anyone who says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brothers, is a liar, since no one who fails to love the brother whom he can see can love God whom he has not seen.” (I Jn. 4:20)

When we say we love God, we must pay special attention to the weak and the young. For this is how Jesus taught his disciples.

“See that you never despise any of these little ones, for the Son of Man has come to save what was lost. Tell me. Suppose a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays; will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go in search of the stray? In truth, I tell you, if he finds it, it gives him more joy than do the ninety-nine that did not stray at all. Similarly, it is never the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost. (Mt. 18:10-14).

The primary purpose of worshipping God is to glorify God. So to worship God only in the sanctuary is far from adequate. We must also glorify God outside the church. To worship God is to serve God. That is why many church traditions label their Sunday worship as Sunday service. To serve God and to serve all human beings whom God loves are two sides of the same coin. Worship God in the sanctuary must be extended to serve God in the whole world.

One of my former teachers Joseph Matthews used to say that worship in the sanctuary is the rehearsal of serving God and all humanity in the world. Of course we must take this rehearsal sincerely. Long time ago, I went to hear a rehearsal of the Boston Pop. Since it was a rehearsal, musicians did not wear black tie. However they still charged exorbitant entrance fees. All I noticed was that during the entire rehearsal the conductor and all musicians were dead serious. So must we. We must take our Sunday worship with utmost seriousness. Only then can we be serious at our daily life as the salt and the light in the world.

Worship in the sanctuary can never be isolated from what is going on in the world. I have come across a church in Stamford, Connecticut. It has only glass walls. Symbolically, all passer-bys could see what’s going on inside the sanctuary. In the same way, worshippers could not ignore what was going on outside the sanctuary. I have also come across a Roman Catholic Church in Metro Manila which went one step further. It has no walls at all. It has only a roof. The pews are arranged in a circle. In the middle is the altar or the communion table. In the local church where I served in the 1960s, there was a big world map at the back of the sanctuary.

The Church cannot be separated from the world. In all worship services, preaching, intercessory prayers and concerns of the church can never be devoid of what is going in the world.

Few churches pay attention to the ending of a worship service. Most end will be a benediction. No, all worship services must end with a commission. The commission helps us to connect the church to the society; to connect our worshipping life to our life of service at home, in our work, or our mission. The commission does not have to be lengthy. The following sentence is sufficient: “After you have worshipped God in the sanctuary, you are now sent out in the world, to continue to serve God and God’s creation in your daily life.” This brief commission does not only remind us, but also drives us to live a life of continuing service to God and all humanity. The end of our act of worship in the sanctuary is the beginning of our service in the world.

Just as Jesus’ commission to his disciples, all commissions end with a blessing or a promise of God’s power. This is a powerful reminder that we are not alone, whatever we do God is with us. Our life and our mission are never our own. Emmanuel, God is with us. Our mission is God’s as well. That is why it is called com-mission, since “Com” means together. God is together with us in doing God’s Mission. The commission at the end of the worship service will not only give us a sense of purpose and direction of life; but also strength and wisdom to live our life as well.