"Worshiping with the Windows Open"

A sermon by the Rev. Matthew B. Reeves
Parkville Presbyterian Church, Parkville, Missouri
The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 12, 2007

Texts: Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Every summer there comes a week that breaks me. Each year, there comes a time when the native Southern Californian in me rears its bleached blond head and gripes, "What in the world are you doing here?" This past week was that week. Six a.m. Tuesday the night was fading, I went outside to run and it was warmer outside than inside. My latent Californian moaned. On Wednesday the high in my childhood home of San Diego was the same as the low in Kansas City. I’m training for a fall marathon so sweat and I are very close this time of year. But sweat is getting way too clingy and I’m ready leave of the relationship.

My brother Josh moved back to San Diego a few months ago. I don’t care to go back there myself—on the whole, Midwestern life suits me better—but boy am I jealous! His job is in the student affairs office at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute. The building where he works is block-shaped with beige stucco and lots of windows. It stands 30 feet from the Pacific. (Like I said, I really don’t want to move back, but boy am I jealous!) This building was built in 1909—that’s pretty old by California standards—and because it’s an historic building it can’t have air conditioning. So in the summer they wear short sleeves, open all those windows and let the sea breeze do the cooling.

Those are the days I long for—those spring and fall Kansas City days when you can live with the windows open. Those days when the thermostat inside says 75 because it’s 75 outside. Through screen doors come smells of cut grass and charcoal grills and the sounds of children playing, while baking apple pie and roasting squash waft out windows. The outside air flows in, the inside flows out. Inside, outside, it’s all the same. There’s no difference. Inside, outside, it’s congruent.

These sanctuary windows open. The last time I saw them open was fall of 2005, when sanctuary renovation was finished but the air conditioning wasn’t installed. We’d be crazy to open the windows today. Ten minutes and we’d be sweltering! But worship with windows open makes sense because the atmosphere of faith, the temperature of faithfulness should be the same inside and out. Congruent. Our fervency of praise and hope in a sanctuary the same as our praise and hope in our dining room; our response to God’s Word at work the same as in worship; our earnestness in prayer with the congregation the same as alone in traffic. Inside church walls, outside church walls, all the same: the same faith, the same hope, the same love, the same worship of our Lord Jesus Christ, all in the same presence of God. That’s how it should be.

Outside the Temple walls in Judah, life is pretty sweet. Isaiah and his people ride a prosperous moment in history. King Uzziah’s got high approval ratings. On the religious side, he’s a God-fearing man. On the national security side, he’s secured the borders and pushed back the Philistines. On the military side, he’s built up the army, adopted the latest in battlefield technology. On the economic side, he’s boosted agriculture. The region of Judah is booming. Isaiah’s opening chapters show the people buying up land, building large houses, enjoying luxury and music, wine and fine clothing. And the Temple is buzzing. By all accounts religion thrives in Isaiah’s day. People bustle about with their sacrifices. Smoke from burnt offerings and incense pour out Temple windows. Songs and prayers echo off the ceiling and float to the street. Whether it’s life inside or out of the Temple it looks like good times.

But under the surface, beneath the sacrifices and domestic prosperity, something is deeply wrong. Prayers that float from the Temple soon drop with a thud. The aroma of incense lacks the scent of true thanksgiving. The people’s outside world faith doesn’t burn half as hot as the sacrifice fires. A spiritual thermometer says the people of Judah are sick. Worship within Temple walls looks vastly different from the life lived outside. The life of praise and promised faithfulness in worship isn’t getting translating into God glorifying living out in Judah’s homes and marketplaces and streets. Temple worship seems good, but really it’s completely unacceptable. That’s why Isaiah starts preaching.

"Here’s what God says: Worship is cancelled. Take your bulls home, put out your incense. I’ve had enough. Call off your special services, cancel your meetings. I’m sick of it. God’s message to you."

Isaiah has their attention now. A message like this is the last thing they’d expect from God, calling off worship—telling the praise team, stop praising; the handbells, stop ringing; the people, stop praying. You’d never expect it, but that’s what God says.

"You can pack it up," says God. "Put out the altar fires, put a cork in the prayers because I’m not listening. It’s all show—religion, religion, religion—so much commotion with so little substance. Those hands you lift in praise—look at them! They’re full of blood! You’ve been tearing people to pieces out there. Go home and wash up. I’m not going to listen until you’ve cleaned up your act."

The worship of God can dangerous. It sounds strange to say but the truth is, worship can be one of the most deceptive, self-serving spiritual devices we’ve got. It’s the easiest thing to gather in a seemingly holy place to do apparently holy things, use holy words like God and Jesus and grace and faith, feel uplifted and charged, and then head the door forgetting most of what we just said constitutes our life.

Outside these walls, that word from God is so much harder to hear, much less live. The bustle of life crowds out prayer. The environment of the world encourages indulgence in self and makes hard the love of neighbor. It’s an ages-old dilemma. Isaiah’s Temple worshipers have good worship technique, but their skills for living all things to God’s glory are lacking. They pray the prayers, but neglect the needy. They give their offerings, but let the poor fend for themselves. They ask God’s mercy, then live like they are the only ones that matter. Their lives have become compartmentalized: there’s one compartment called "worship," and another called "life."

Isaiah speaks a word that cuts us to the quick. There are 168 hours in a week. Isaiah says the extent to which we worship God and serve God’s purposes the week’s other 167 hours define our 1 hour of worship on the Sabbath. 167 hours of life out of step with God turns Sunday worship foul. This is why a Prayer of Confession is one of the first acts of our gathering. We need to be honest that since we last gathered, much of the worshiping we’ve done outside the sanctuary—whether at school or at home or with family or alone—much of our living has not been directed toward God. We need to tell the truth about his so we can know God’s forgiveness and be changed.

Change is God’s invitation to Judah. God asks them to start their worship lives over. "Let’s sit down and get to the bottom of this," says God. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they’ll be like snow; though they’re red like crimson, they shall become like wool." You’ve gotten it wrong, but I’m here to forgive, says God, and to help you get it right.

Let’s open the windows, God says, and let the winds of Temple worship out. Let’s open the windows and let your whole-life worship in. And let’s be clear about what a life of worship looks like:

Cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed.
Defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Worship? Seeking justice, defending the vulnerable? This is worship? It sounds like what we’d call "missions." Put God’s instructions into today’s church growth language and it might sound something like, "People of Judah need to focus less on your worship ministries and more on your missions programs. Maybe you could hire a staff person to lead this."

But God doesn’t say that. God’s talking about orphans and the needy and the seeking of justice, but it’s not missions. It’s worship. The text couldn’t be more clear—attention to the poor, the defenseless, the down and out, this is worship ever bit as important as what happens in the Temple.

Texts like this make us think again about what worship really is. Worship is an experience, but it’s not about the experience. Worship is uplifting, but it’s not about being lifted up. Worship is singing and praying and hearing, but all of that can be done in such a way that God gets left behind as soon as we leave the doors. Worship is fundamental to who God made us to be. For nearly 360 years Westminster Shorter Catechism’s opening question has helped Reformed Christians like us know what life is for: "What is the chief end of humanity? The chief end of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."

The worship of God is our main purpose in life. And worship of God, whether it be inside a sanctuary or out on a ball field, is giving God praise and loving that God is our God. To worship is behold God is and to delight in him. At it’s most basic, worship is just enjoying God. Isn’t it lovely to think of worship that way? That here we delight in who God is, our hearts, minds and souls singing, praying, hearing, "God, you are like this, and how we enjoy who you are! We’re overjoyed that you are a God who hears people cry and you leads them to promised land. You are a God whose Son "brings good news to the poor, who proclaims release to the captives, who lets the oppressed go free." How we love you for that! In your Spirit Jesus raised a widows Son, fed the thousands, restored the lives of the troubled. You’re God like that, and we get a kick out of you." This is worship, to be thrilled with the God we’ve got.

But that’s not all. Because if we’re thrilled with how God is, we’ll want to be that way too.

Cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed.
Defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

This is what God does, and God’s invitation to worshiping people is to enjoy God by enjoying God’s work.

For prophet Isaiah, all God’s work boils down to creation. The words "create" and "Creator" show up more times in Isaiah than any other book of the Bible—10 more times in Isaiah than in Genesis. Isaiah’s ministry is to return God’s people to their created identities, and here in chapter 1 he sets the tone. He says we are alive to be worshipers. We are here to enjoy God for who God is, and thrill at doing what God enjoys doing.

Last month I took part in a conference for pastors in which part of the week was spent thinking on the church’s responsibility to the global poor. We heard a lot about AIDS and the plight of sub-Saharan Africa. We took in staggering statistics—that by 2010 the life expectancy in Botswana will be 27 because of AIDS; that more than 14 million children have lost at least one parent to AIDS, and it might be 25 million by 2010; that the United States spends 30 times more on the military than it does on foreign aid.

But the take home message was that God enjoys helping the poor. God stands up for the beaten down. God goes to bat for the defenseless. The God we worship works for justice and loves to set things right. Our worship of this God, our enjoyment of this God who bears us through life, lasts for more than an hour. Worshippers of God are people whose delight in their maker means that God’s work is their work. Their worship flows out sanctuary windows and happens in streets and classrooms. It’s shown in bank accounts and ballots. For most of the week our worship of God happens "out there." But really, there’s no such thing as "out there." Inside, outside, for worshippers of God it’s all the same.

When worship closes and the people are blessed in the name of Almighty God, it’s like throwing open the windows. "Go out into the world in peace! Go with blessing!" But that benediction, it’s more than a blessing. It’s a call to worship.