Articles
To Worship and Back Unchanged
Jesus once told a parable about two men who went to the temple to pray. One, a Pharisee, prayed about his greatness, how much better he was than others. Interestingly, Jesus said he prayed to himself. The other man, a tax collector, would not come near or lift up his eyes toward heaven. He beat his breast and pled, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” Jesus’ conclusion was, “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).
In his commentary on Luke, Ray Summers observes: “There is something a bit terrifying about the parable—the prospect it places before the reader today. There is within every person that which makes it possible for him to do the same thing the Pharisee did. He can go to the place of worship and go through the forms of worship and still go home the same person he was. He has been through the form but not the function of worship. Nothing has happened; nothing is changed.”
How does that happen? How can we go to worship and come home unchanged? It may have to do with why we went. If our motive was simply to accommodate someone else or only out of a sense of obligation or for some self-serving reason, it is little surprise that we are unaffected by what occurs. The problem may be that we pay too little attention: to the words of hymns, to the prayers, to the sermon. Or, we may be listening but mostly with the thought of how someone else needs this lesson. When the teaching contradicts our thinking, do we simply dismiss the possibility that we may be wrong? When it “steps on our toes,” do we take it to heart?
Perhaps we are more like the Pharisee in Jesus’ story than we care to admit: satisfied before we darken the door that we are right with God and have little need for improvement. Of course, few would admit that. But when we sit through service after service with no significant change, our actions (or lack of them) reveal our true colors. “Lord, is it I?”
