Multisensory Worship

In the past few weeks I've attended a number of different worship services with friends, all different Christian denominations.

Lately, I've been trying hard to more clearly define why I am able to worship more completely in certain situations than in others.

My logical side takes issue with the known fact that I clearly feel more uplifted in a pleasing setting. After all, if I lived in a country where I was forced to worship in the dark in a dirt basement, for example, I'm sure that the fellowship would be sweet and our worship would be sincere. Probably more sincere than any I experience now. But the truth is, for me, that if I have choices, I feel much more worshipful in buildings that are not plain cement blocks. I like colored windows (no known preference for Biblical scenes vs. geometric patterns, but I do like symbols). I like banners, preferably changed with the seasons/church calendar. I like beautiful woodwork and fancy light fixtures. These things (colors, textures, designs) all flow together to create a sense of peace and well-being within me.

I like a variety of audio inputs. Today, I went to a church to hear a handbell choir that some friends belong to. I hadn't been to that church for a number of years and had forgotten that they have a pipe organ. What luscious, rich sound! The Prelude was an organ/piano duet. There was also a Power Point album of a youth retreat with modern music and lots of shots of happy kids. In some of the other churches recently attended, there were several scripture readers, a dramatic reading, and special music. I love to sing- I love almost all types of Christian music, with the exception of the most recent iteration (since about 1990?) with only a few words per song repeated over and over, and no tune to speak of.

I've also reached a point where I'm not willing to listen to sermons of an hour or more in length. Blame it on being a speech major (learning about public speaking... more is not usually more), blame it on grad school(too many long lectures), blame it on old age ADD, blame it on sheer cantankerousness. Right or wrong, it's where I am right now.

Now, all of you who are ready to leap on me with the reminder that worship is not about how I feel, it's about focusing on God, I'm ready to agree wholeheartedly. And yet... I find it difficult to worship where the services only touch a couple of my senses.

I guess I would ask those of you who may feel critical toward this post to ask yourself the question, "If I were asked to worship week after week in a setting I found unpleasant, with music I didn't care for, would I feel enthusiastic about worship?"

This may be "off the wall," but it's honest.

Off the Wall- Relics and Miracles

How many people believe in healings? How many people believe that someone could be healed just by touching something that belonged to a highly spiritual person, a relic? It all seems pretty hokey, doesn’t it?

I’m frankly uncomfortable with “faith healers.” When I was ten years old, our family vacationed in Quebec. We visited St. Anne DeBeaupre, and watched a long line of people waiting to enter the church, hoping to be cured of various ills. I gazed, somewhat scornfully, at thousands of framed coins which had passed harmlessly through the digestive tracts of an equal number of people, with the escapes from death attributed to St. Anne. I had a harder time accounting for displays of crutches left behind, but even then, I wasn’t buying that modern-day miracle stuff.

Now, I’m way past ten years old, my faith in a God who can heal is secure, but I still wonder about the veracity of a number of claims associated with relics.

Throughout Christian history, items which belonged to, or were associated with “saints,” have been venerated. The official definition of “venerated,” is that the relics are valued because they cause us to better “adore him whose martyrs they are” (Saint Jerome). It’s become something of a joke... if all the purported pieces of the cross of Christ were assembled, they would make plenty of crosses. In the 16th century, Erasmus wrote: “There was so much wood from the cross, Christ must have been crucified on a whole forest.”

But, when you put the silliness of humans aside, in their intense desires to experience something better, or even something thrilling, what’s left?

Surprisingly, what’s left are several Scriptural references to miracles associated with relics.

The best known is certainly the instance when the unclean woman touched Jesus robe and was healed. Despite the fact that Jesus was in a crowd, surrounded by people who were probably touching him, he recognized that power had gone out from him, to accomplish this healing. Jesus did, in reality, make his clothing holy! OK, that’s Jesus... he’s a special case, right? And he was wearing the garment when the miracle happened.

Try this one... In Acts 19, this sentence just seems to be eased in “under the radar.” OK, not really, but Baptists (as I was raised) don’t tend to read it out loud. “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.” Not too many fanciful ways to interpret that one and explain it away.

There is also a striking report in the Old Testament. The prophet Elisha (one of the greatest of the prophets) had died and was buried. While some Israelites were burying another man, Moabite raiders attacked. They wanted to get out of there, fast! So they threw the body into Elisha’s grave. When his body touched Elisha’s bones he came to life! Really? That's astonishing, but there it is, in the Bible.

Bones, aprons, napkins, fragments of the cross? Where do we draw the line? Should we be making any of these decisions as to what is a “true relic?” I have no idea, but any true miracle is sure to come from the power of God alone.

Holy Atoms
I Kings 13
Acts 19
Luke 8

Off the Wall- Holy Atoms

I like to explore wild ideas which are not essential to my basic faith, and which may not even be valid, but they are always thought provoking.
Recycling is good. Recycling is GREAT. But this post is not about environmental topics, exactly. I did get to thinking a while back about the truth learned in a Solid Waste Management class that we can't ever make things go away, we just move them around. (Well, we can transform them, or compartmentalize them. But I promised that this is not on environmental issues.)

So, I was thinking about the atoms in the universe. They get recycled constantly. The oxygen molecule I breathe in probably was transformed by a plant from carbon dioxide, which might have been released by a bacteria that ate a molecule of some nasty pollutant, which stole the oxygen from the water column in a stream, which incorporated it from the atmosphere, which.... Well, you get the idea. I read once that every atom in our bodies is exchanged over a 3-year period. I really am a different person than I was 3 years ago!

There is some mysterious way in which we are so linked to all of creation that our attitudes toward God affect the natural world. Obedience to God will allow the trees to "clap their hands," and the hills to "skip for joy." (Isaiah 35:1-8 has an example of the response of the natural world to holiness) But when we sin, rebel, act deceitfully, or worship other gods, all creation responds with lowered production, or lowered resistance to pollution. (Jeremiah 7:17-20 is one example) Creation also suffers in our judgment.

The physical, atomic, material parts of us are real. God's creation of them granted them a reality. But as noted above this material universe is totally fluid. Is my big toe made up of an atom of the star Betelgeuse, one of elm bark, and another of leopard spots? More to the point, is the Mississippi River made up of atoms of me, Jesse James, Billy Graham, the Unibomber, and of you? Do these recycled atoms somehow mystically carry the imprint of my spirit?

Can I literally make the world a holy, or a godless place just by the nature of the atomic fairy dust I sprinkle everywhere?

Off the Wall- Meat Eaters

I like to explore wild ideas which are not essential to my basic faith, and which may not even be valid, but they are always thought provoking.

We are clearly given permission by God to eat meat, all kinds of meat (Acts 10:9-17 and other references). However I think that it is possible to make a case for a reason to choose to not eat meat.

This idea must begin with the realization that Christ's redemptive work was for all creation. John 3:16- God so loved "the world." God loved the cosmos- the entire universe, not just the human world. Again in II Corinthians 5:19, God reconciled the cosmos to himself in Christ. Certainly this does not deny the spiritual