Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on 4th March 2007, Second Sunday in Lent, by Rev. Kwok Nai Wang. The scripture readings that day were Hosea 11:1-12 and Romans 1:18-25.


In this Lenten Season, I suggest we concentrate on Christian Worship in our thoughts. Last Sunday, we reflected on the only focus of worship is “God”: God alone must we worship. In worship, we must give our undivided attention to God. In worship, it is to God and for God; rather than to and for ourselves. It is absolutely pagan if we come to worship merely to look for our spiritual welfare and benefits; and according to our likes and dislikes.

God only shall we worship. The God we worship is not a concept for theologians to investigate. God is not even a supreme being high above, gives blessings to people at his whims and turns a blind eye to human suffering and injustices. “No” to all this. God is the God who cares and acts. “My Father still goes on working; and I am at work too,” so says our Lord Jesus Christ! (Jn 5:17).

One of the most important pillars of the history of the Jewish people is the “Exodus Event”. In fact this Exodus Event is the core of their creed (c.f. Deut 6:21b-25; 26:5b-9; Joshua 24:2-13); their historical psalms (such as Ps 68, 105 etc.); and their important prayer in the temple (Neh 9:5b-31). This is also how the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words) started, “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt”. (Ex 20:1). [In fact, according to Judaism, this is the very first and most important commandment of God. The rest of the commandments are the extension of this first commandment.]

The Exodus Event was an historical event which happened approximately 3,300 years ago. Many Israelites had settled in Egypt. After Joseph, they were gradually treated as slaves by the Egyptians. Finally around 1,250 BCE, God sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt: from the land of bondage to the wilderness in the Sinai Peninsula. From this event, the Israelite sages came to realize how God acts in human history. Out of Love, God always directs human beings from bondage to freedom; from no people to people; from meaninglessness in life to a life full of purpose and meaning; from brokenness to wholeness; from darkness to light. In a word, from CHAOS to ORDER. This was also how these sages described God’s creation. To them, God’s creation was not so much “creatio ex nihilo” or creation out of nothing; but rather it is from chaos to order. Let us look at Genesis 1:1-2:4a, the so called “P” account of the creation myth. In Gen 1:1, we read, “When God began to create heaven and earth, it was formless and void”. God then decided to put some order into this chaotic situation stage by stage. That explains why in every stage or epoch of God’s creation, it was specifically stated that “God saw that it was good”. (repeated 7 times, in Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25 and 31). Here “good” means perfect or wholesome in terms of an order.

The Exodus Event has become the symbol of God’s deliverance of people either corporately or individually from Chaos to order. It has become the locus about how God acts in human history. Gerhard von Rad, one of the most important Biblical scholars in the last century called the Israelite history as recorded in the Old Testament as Heilsgeschichte or Salvation History. Indeed the Israelites later understood that God’s salvation plan was not for Israel only. But rather, God chose Israel as God’s servants to declare God’s salvation to all humankind.

The Exodus Event was never meant to explain things in the past. God’s salvation is forever present. As my faculty adviser and professor B. Davie Napier pointed out, there is only “isness” in the Old Testament. Indeed the message in the Old Testament concerning God’s purpose and mighty acts applies to all peoples in all ages: past, present and future.

This was also how Hosea, a prophet of Israel in the 8th Century BCE understood the meaning of history of his people. In the Old Testament reading this morning, Hosea outlined God’s mighty acts in a 3-act drama:

The first act: God called the Israelites from Egypt, the land of bondage; gathered them together and eventually gave them a purpose of living as a people. However, the Israelites turned away from or even turned against God. They started to follow many idols which included Baal. Consequently they should go back to the land of bondage. This time the land of bondage was Syria, rather than Egypt. (vss 1-7).

The second act: However, God’s love was stronger than vengeance and punishment. God would save them again and the Israelites would return from exile (vss 8-9).

The third act: After the delivance; the people of Israel would follow God again. (vss 10-11).

This was known later as the 3-act drama of God’s might acts: creation, redemption and continuing sustenance. Indeed this 3-act drama of God’s mighty acts did not only reflect in the history of Israel, but also in the history of humankind as well. It reflects time and again God calls people into meaningful existence through His Word, through ancient prophets and ultimately through Jesus Christ. Furthermore, God incessantly calls people to participate in His Saving Acts.

The early Roman Christians introduced the Trinity or the triune God: God the Father as the Creator; God the Son as the Redeemer; as well as God the Holy Spirit as the Sustainer to describe God’s mighty acts in the richest possible manner.

In worship, we re-enact God’s mighty acts. Christian worship has its origin in Judaism. Worship as recorded in the Old Testament was sometimes lengthy but simple. It centered around in the pronouncement of the Ten Commandments and the reciting of the Creed; the singing of psalms; the reading of a portion of the Law (or the Pentateuch) and exposition or teaching of it; and finally a series of prayers. A good example can be found in Nehemiah chapter 9. This form of Jewish worship became clearer as we read God’s call of Prophet Isaiah as found in Isaiah chapter 6. It began with Praise: “Holy, Holy, Holy; The Lord almighty is holy; His glory filled the whole earth” (vs.3); then Confession: “There is no hope in me. My lips are not clean.” (vs.5); Absolution: a seraph used a burning coal to touch Isaiah’s lips (vs.6). Finally God’s commission and Isaiah’s response, vss 8 and following).

Worship in the New Testament basically followed worship in the Old Testament with the addition of the preaching on the Kerygma or the crucifixion and the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

It was Emperor Constantine who declared Christianity as the state religion of his Roman Empire in 323AD added many of the court rituals and made Christian worship, that is, the Byzantine liturgy or the divine liturgy of the Orthodox Church as well as the Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church very elaborate to this day.

Since the Reformation of the Church in the 16th Century, Christian worship became more and more pluralistic. Unfortunately while some have gradually lost some of the essential elements of Christian worship; many have become very homo-centric or human centred rather than theo-centric or God-centered.

We are reminded by apostle Paul that God is not the God of disorder. Rather God is the God of harmony and order (I Cor. 14:33). So must Christian worship which tries to glorify God. All genuine worship must have an appropriate order or form. Without an appropriate form we can easily fall into the “do as I please” pit. The form of Christian worship must also comprehensively reflect God’s mighty acts. Otherwise we may fall into the trap of reducing God into just “my personal god”.

Almost all great European composers in the 18th and 19th centuries like Mozart, Bach and Bethoven had written at least one mass of some kind. All these masses had a fixed form. It consists of the Kyrie (or Lord have mercy); Gloria; Credo (or the Creed), Sanctus (or holy, holy, holy…) and Beneditus (or Blessed are you Lord God) and finally Agnes Dei (or the Lamb of God). Needless to say, all these brilliant master-pieces have one thing in common: God’s magesty and human frailty.

So Christian worship cannot be just singing a few favourite hymns, reading a couple of Biblical passages, a lengthy exposition of the Bible, a series of prayers, etc. Christian worship must have an order or a form to express our adoration of God and God’s mighty acts.

As you probably notice all worship services on Sundays at Kowloon Union Church consist of three acts: the First act is confession. In confession, we confess once again God is our God. Yet in our daily life, we often forget that we are not God; but rather we are only finite human beings. Our alienation with God gives rise to many forms of our “sins”. So we ask for God’s forgiveness. “Whenever we acknowledge our sins” says an early Christian letter of John “God will forgive us” (I Jn 1:8) or as Paul pointed out, “Whose sin increased, God’s grace increased much more” (Rom 5:20). So in the Christian thought, the confession of sins and absolution or the assurance of forgiveness go hand in hand.

The second act is the Word of God. In this act, we hear the ancient Word of God by the reading of both the Old and the New Testaments. We also hear the contemporary Word of God as we listen to the sermon. In preaching the Word of God, the preacher tries to interpret how God’s Word and hence God’s work is relevant to us to-day in our own situations. We then respond by confessing our faith in God by reciting the ancient Creed together. We recite the Nicene Creed on communion Sundays and the Apostles’ Creed on non-communion Sundays.

The third act is Offertory. In this vital act of offering, we do not only offer our concerns to God through prayers, but also offer our total life for the service of God and the whole humankind, especially the people in dire need.

In every first Sunday of the month, we also celebrate the Holy Communion. We give our full thanks to God not only for God’s Word, but also the Christ Deed of ultimate sacrificial love to each and everyone of us.

As I emphasized before, every worship should have a form or an appropriate order. This is normally called a liturgy. The Greek word lituorgia comes from two words, laos (or laity) and ergon (or work). Literally, it means people’s work. Yes, worship is God’s people at work. It has one and only one purpose, i.e. to reflect God’s work. So in final analysis, it is through worship that we learn and begin to participate in God’s work in this whole world.

Glory be to the triune God, the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sustainer. Amen.