On The Talent of Others

Since I retired, I get to spend a great amount of my time in the mountains. It is of utmost importance to me to have a place to worship on Sundays, but as we have visited around, I have found that most churches ARE surely involved in worship - the worship of themselves. The church in America (generally speaking) has gone mad.

Could you imagine going to a wedding because of your love of the bride and groom only to have the "service" interrupted by announcements, the singing of "Happy Birthday", special music (by grossly untalented singers), recognition of veterans, someone telling a funny story or maybe have someone stand up and give his or her "personal testimony"! Maybe one could come down front and tell about the latest "meeting" they had attended and what it meant to their "personal walk"! Could you? Certainly not! So why do we have to tolerate this crap in 99% of our churches. I had come to worship God - not to hear navel-gazers blab on about how wonderful they are.

Or maybe you're the type of person who loves for your spouse to talk on the telephone or watch television while you are engaged in the physical act of love! I don't think so.

We are a Narcissistic culture and our churches have taken the bait - hook, line and sinker. Look at me! Look at me! Look Mom - no hands!

Worship is about God through the mediation of Christ - not about us!

On the Lord's Day the church bell rings and calls His people together. There is a Holy dialog taking place: God speaks - we respond! God speaks - we respond! We do not speak - only respond! Then through the "foolishness of preaching", God speaks to us through the exegesis of the Word. Finally we hear the benediction - the Good Word - and we leave to go back into the world to do our callings - Vocations! We don't worship out of fear of punishment or hope of reward, but out of gratitude! The Word kills us with the Law and then gives us life through the Gospel. The Gospel IS NOT something we do. The Gospel is what Christ did. It is all about Him and not about us. Can we not see this?

This Narcissism epidemic has caused us to not see our sinful condition. If we are wonderful, then we don't need a Savior. We're really nice folks who just need a little advice to help us be better! We don't need the ugliness of the Cross, we need self-help programs or 3 easy steps to being better at doing something!

I wish I had the talent to express my disappointment with the "rot" of the American church, but I will have to borrow the writing talent of others to make my point.

First from Frederick Buechner in "Magnificent Defeat":

There is little that we can point to in our lives as deserving anything but God's wrath. Our best moments have been mostly grotesque parodies. Our best loves have been almost always blurred with selfishness and deceit. But there is something to which we can point. Not anything that we ever did or were, but something that was done for us by another. Not our own lives, but the life of one who died in our behalf and yet is still alive. This is our only glory and our only hope. And the sound that it makes is the sound of excitement and gladness and laughter that floats through the night air from a great banquet.

Secondly a quote from John Calvin:

In short, the name of Christ excludes all merit, and everything which men have of themselves; for when he says that we are chosen in Christ, it follows that in ourselves we are unworthy.

And finally - a few words from Martin Luther:

There is no such thing as merit; but all who are justified are justified for nothing (gratis), and this is credited to no one but to the grace of God ... For Christ alone is is proper to help and save others with His mercies and works.