Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 10th August 2008 by Rev. Kwok Nai Wang. The scripture readings that day were Psalms 33 and Ephesians 3:14-21.


Two months ago, a dysfunctioned Japanese man drove his pick-up truck and romped into a store in a busy shopping area in Tokyo. Then he got out calmly, chopped a dozen innocent passer-bys, killing 7 before he was overpowered by the police. Why? Why this merciless and senseless killing? Is this only a sign or a symptom showing a total breaking down of people’s relationships?

The famous writer John Donne wrote, “Nobody is an island entire of itself: everyman is a part of the main… Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.”

No person is an island. Indeed all of us live in a community of people. We are related to each other. We are interdependent: we depend on one another. Further as Christians, we believe we are all God’s children. We are the keepers of our brothers and sisters. We should care for one another.

Even our God, the God of history and the God of the universe is never alone. According to Psalm 8:5 and Hebrews 2:7, God is always in communion with His court of angels. In the Creation stories, we read, God said, “…and now we will make human beings…” (Gen 1:26) and in the story of the Tower of Babel, God said, “let us go down and mix…” (Gen 11:7).

In fact, in Hebrew, the word God or “Elohim” is always in plural form. It signifies above all God’s fullness. God as the Creator is always in community with His creation.

In the Biblical tradition, everybody lived and worked in community, the Judges, the Priests, the Prophets, the Psalmists, later the rabbis, etc. This tradition continued in the New Testament Times. Jesus’ disciples turned apostles, the early Church as a community of the faithful… The famous “we” passage found in Acts 16:10 to 20:15 is a good example. Because of the collective efforts, the Christian Church was able to develop full-speed.

Togetherness is key to any organization, KUC included. There is a Chinese saying, when two persons have the same heart, it can cut gold.

To-day corporate power has taken over from individual maneuvers, however powerful the latter may be. The globalization process is tightly controlled by big corporations. Many non-governmental organizations or NGOs want to fight the dominance of these big corporations and their allies, governmental regimes. Yet it has not been very successful. One of the main reasons is that leaders of these NGOs are liberals in the worse sense. Most of them fall into the dungeons of individualism. They treasure individual rights and freedom rather than the common welfare.

I watched some of the final games of the 2007-2008 NBA series of basketball games. The teams from the Western Conference were full of famous stars, but in the end the Celtics of Boston from the Eastern conference won the overall champions. They won Los Angeles’ Lakers by four games to two. In the final game, the team work of the Celtics was most impressive. They won by 40 points. United we stand, divided we fall. Lakers suffered the loss of one of the worst games because it was divided. The team spirit was just not present in that crucial game.

To-day human beings are in quandary. We say the younger generation exists without purpose and direction. But are we not in the same state?

Almost a year ago, David Cameroon, the British Conservative Party leader said that the British Society is broken. It needs to be repaired. But he has yet to offer some tenable solutions. So in the past Easter, Cambridge University invited Roland Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York to offer their view points. According to these two important Christian leaders, the problems the Britishers face to-day cannot be solved politically. They have to look for religious solutions. Indeed the most deep-seeded problem we have to-day is the fact that we are no longer related, related to our friends, colleagues and families. We are not even related to ourselves. All this happens because we are alienated from God, our ground or reason of existence.

Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, years ago made this comment: If people only care for their rights and not their responsibilities, no society (or community) is possible. A society is possible only if people decide to share with the less fortunate.

I think this is good, but not radical enough. People must turn their focus on people to the focus once again on God. We must repent, that is, turn back to God. That’s why the activity of worship is so very vital. In worship, we turn our full and undivided attention to God. In worship, we seek to be reunited with God.

What then is Christian worship?

In Christian worship, we express together our faith in and our reliance on God. In worship we are reminded that we are humans. We are reminded of our frailty turned arrogance – that we do not want to be God’s creation. We have cut-off our relationship with God because of our pride. We forget what Apostle Paul once said, “it is in God we live, move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). It is in worship that once again we are related to God, that we find the purpose and meaning” in our life.

Yet, the God we have faith in is not a concept for theologians to investigate. God is not a Supreme Being high above us and only intervenes – blesses or curses – us in His Whims. The God we believe in is the God who acts in history as well as in our midst. That explains why in every worship, no matter which church tradition, there are three basic elements: confession, praise and offering. This is to reflect on God’s continuing creating, redeeming and sustaining activities in this world.

The Hebrew Bible teaches us that the God we worship is the God of history. That is why the Hebrew people insist that God is the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob (Ex. 3:15) This God of our forefathers is the same God who calls us into meaningful existence. Indeed from page one to the very last page of our Bible, it asserts that God is the God who acts and intervenes. The very first verse of the our Bible reads, “when God began creating heaven and earth…”. (Gen 1:1). The very last verse of the Bible, i.e. Revelation 21:13 reads, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Indeed God embraces all human history and each and everyone of us as well.

At the same time, every page in the Bible is about worship, the relationship between God and people.

In the call of Prophet Isaiah as recorded in Isaiah chapter 6: first, the angels in heaven praised God saying,

“Holy, Holy, Holy!
The Lord Almighty is Holy!
His Glory fills the world!” (6:3)

Isaiah then confessed:
“Woe to me! I am lost,
for I am a man of unclean lips,
and I live among a people of unclean lips,
and my eyes have seen the King Almighty.” (6:5)
This is Confession.

“Look, this has touched your lips,
your guilt has been removed
and your sin forgiven.” (6:7)
This is God’s Absolution or forgiveness of sins.

The Lord then said,
“Who shall I send? Who will go for us?”
Isaiah replied,
“Here am I, send me.” (6:8)

This is offering; and it is to be followed by a lengthy Commission:
“Go say to the people… and change their ways and be healed.” (vs. 9-10)

The Christian worship pattern is found on every episode or story in both we Old and the New Testaments. Let us illustrate this with a healing story of Jesus as recorded in chapter 5 of the Gospel according to John. This story is about how Jesus healed a man who had been ill for 38 years.

When asked by Jesus whether he wanted to get well, he answered, “Sir I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am trying to get in, somebody else gets there first.” This is the confession – confessing the state of the man’s being.

Then Jesus’ Word came to the man: “Get up, pick up your mat and walk.”

The man then responded: “Immediately, the man got well, he picked up his mat and started walking.”

Yes, in worship we rebuild our relationship with God through dialogue with God.

In the Act of Confession: God calls us to turn back to Him. We confess to God our alienated state of existence. God then absolves us.

In the Act of Praise: we praise and thank God. God’s Word comes to us. We acknowledge once again that He is our God.

In the Act of offering: God demands us to care for His whole creation. We rededicate ourselves again for God’s service. This follows with God’s final commission to us.

Worship is To God. In worship we give our full and undivided attention to God. As Prophet Hosea observed, “God is God, not man, the Holy One in our midst” (11:7). So in worship, our mood must be utter serious, solemn, respectful and reverend.

A rather casual and informal atmosphere has no place in worship! Over the past two years, I notice when we begin our worship at KUC, the pews are usually fairly empty. Half of the congregation members tend to arrive late. I often wonder if we go for a job interview, can we afford to arrive late? Worship is the most important activity in our life. Let us decide to arrive at 10:25 and use the five precious minutes to prepare our minds and our hearts to worship God.

Oftentimes, we come to worship God with our own agenda: to hear a good sermon, to meet our friends, to seek for spiritual comfort… This is all wrong. Worship is for God. It is never for ourselves, for our own benefits, according to our likes or dislikes. Worship is for God’s glory. Hundred of years, in ancient times, magnificent psalms, like the one we read this morning; in medieval times, Gregorian chants; and in modern times, different types of hymns were sung in beautiful churches and grand cathedrals. This is the traditional way to glorify God.

Yet God is not only the God within the four walls of any kind of holy places. God is the God of the whole universe. Worshipping God or magnify God’s name in the entire world is just as if not even more important.

To glorify God ultimately means to let people in all corners of the world know that God is our God and we are God’s people.

Kowloon Union Church, just as any church in a locality, must be foremost a worshipping community.

Years back, when a student asked we what is the most important activity of a Christian? I answered, it is to participate fully and faithfully in the Sunday worship of his church. I even quote a famous verse from the Psalm, “I was glad when they said to me, Let us go the Lord’s House.” (122:1)

Since, I have matured and changed quite a bit. Yes, the most crucial task for any church is still to worship God; but the major reason is not for personal joy or gratification; rather it is to preserve or even to enhance humanness. I believe human beings are a lot poorer when they break away from God, the ultimate reality or the ground or reason of their existence. They may then easily become inhuman and cast others in becoming sub-human. Thus, to glorify God is to make human beings more human.

So next time you come to worship, please take it most seriously and respectfully. In a genuine sense, you are representing the whole humankind to worship God, to glorify God, that is to strengthen the God-people relationship.

“Let the whole earth fear the Lord, let all who dwell in the world revere him; for the moment he spoke, it was so, no sooner had he commanded, than there it stood.” (Ps 33:8-9)