In
1999, the Christian theologian and author, Marva Dawn published a book entitled
A Royal Waste of Time. It was
book that looked at emerging trends in worship as well as providing social
commentary on worship and the Church.
Her title came from a common critique of worship given by folks who are
not part of worshiping communities.
Worship is a waste of time.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates once said, “Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is
not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.”
Dawn’s
response was not to argue. To the rest
of the world, worship is a waste of time.
We gather together and accomplish nothing much. Yet by adding the adjective, “royal” she was
pointing out that worship is a different kind of losing time than watching
funny YouTube videos. From a Christian
perspective we are not losing time so much as offering it back to God. God has given us every second, every breath,
and we choose to gather together to offer some of those seconds and breaths
back to God in love, in hope and in celebration.
Building
on ideas previously written about the nature of Sabbath practice, we do not
worship because it gets something done, but because, like God, it is good and
beautiful. In worship, we intentionally
center ourselves in the divine, taking time to notice the One whose presence is
constant and whose love is eternal.
In
this way, worship becomes a form of protest.
As we go about our regular days, we receive messages that tell of our
inadequacies, that our bodies are too flabby, that our teeth are too yellow,
that our lives are not enough. We hear
messages of the need for productivity and making things happen. We hear all sorts of messages that call us to
be acquisitive, being more by getting more:
more stuff or more likes or more sex.
In worship we turn away, if only for an hour. We say, “No” to productivity and waste time
in the love of God. We say, “No” to
acquisition, and give of our resources and our time. Most importantly, we say “No” to our imagined
inadequacies and celebrate a God who receives us and loves us as we are.
In
the Gospel of Mark, the idea of repentance is not so much about changing your
ways but changing how you look at the world.
Good worship is an opportunity to see how things could be and, at the
end of things, will be. We talk of the
Eucharist as “a foretaste of the feast to come.” We are sampling eternity together, an
eternity shaped by compassion, abundance and kindness.
Then
we turn around and go out the door back into the world that tries to shame us
as not good enough. Hopefully we go out
a little stronger and a little more convinced that the eternity we have sampled
in worship is the real world, the real vision, the real place for hope. Hopefully we go out a little more empowered
to share that vision of compassion and kindness, love and abundance, with the
world around us through our words and actions.
Hopefully we go out a little more prepared to stand in loving protest of
messages of hate, division and greed.
Sometimes
we will stumble and forget the reality revealed in worship. We will rediscover those inadequacies and
pick them up (after all, we have carried them for such a long time). Yet there will be another Sunday; another
sample of eternity; another royal waste of time to lay such burdens down. We will stand before God in praise and thanks
and adoration, and once again God will nourish us with teaching and peace and
nourishment. God will send us once again
with renewed vision and good news to share.
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