by Vicky Davies.
I have felt uncomfortable about the word ‘worship’ for some time now. It started with me wondering whether it might be the kind of word that would put people outside the church off God and religion. But it was brought into real focus for me one Trinity Sunday. The preacher focussed on the reading from Isaiah 6, talking about the majesty and awe of God. However, during the readings I opened the pew Bible at the epistle, Romans 8, thinking there was bound to be something interesting and of value there. As the preacher continued to focus on Isaiah, my eyes strayed back to this passage where I read “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ”. What a contrast to what the preacher was talking about! How could I square the fear and awe of Isaiah with referring to God as father, teacher or mentor? I couldn’t help thinking that I might be ‘of Paul’ rather than ‘of Isaiah’. And so, I began to think about ‘worshipping’ more seriously.
What does it mean to worship and what kind of relationship does it imply? It is, of course, a highly asymmetric and unequal relationship, which carries with it elements of deference, submission and prostration that make me feel particularly uneasy. Is this the kind of relationship that can ever be positive and one we should be encouraging? What, after all, do the worshipper and worshipped gain from such a relationship? Does a relationship involving worship of one by another really do much beyond massaging the ego of the worshipped?
My own spiritual journey has taken me to a place where I am more convinced than ever, that God, as revealed to us in Jesus, values closeness and depth of relationship. Jesus always seems to seek a close engagement with others, which doesn’t value ceremony, and disregards social norms and conventions in favour of enabling closeness, love, respect, and the healing and wholeness that flow from that. In the stories and sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels, God is often the one reaching out to us unconditionally. Jesus may be our teacher, but he calls us friends not servants. The Gospel of John, in particular, emphasises our closeness to God: Jesus and God as one, and us as abiding in Jesus (and therefore in God). Paul Tillich’s description of God as ‘the ground of our being’ gives expression to this infinite closeness. How can I worship something so bound up with my own being? And finally, Jesus chooses a path of suffering and torture, culminating in death on the cross – not exactly the behaviour of someone who longs to be worshipped.
In the writings of W.H. Vanstone and Benignus O’Rourke (and there are many others, I am sure) I have come across the notion that we work in partnership with God. O’Rourke in his book on silence writes: “[God’s] wish is to draw us into partnership with him. God invites. We respond. He works alongside us. His love brings out the best in us. His love releases our talents. In all the good things we do in our partnership with him our gifts shine, our personality blossoms. […] God comes graciously to us, inviting us to share with him the work of caring for and loving his people. It is surely this gentle, gracious approach of God that draws such a whole-hearted response from many people.”[1] Such a partnership is one of mutual dependency: we are dependent on God’s love which gives us the strength, desire, courage and endurance to love others and God in turn is dependent on us to bring God’s love to greater fruition in the world.
Over the past year or so I have also begun to engage with the theology of safeguarding and the difficulty of unequal power relationships. It makes we wonder how wise it is to have a radically unequal relationship of worshipper and worshipped at the centre of our faith. Is that not liable to encourage hierarchies, submissiveness and deference? Doesn’t that precisely go against the kind of culture we want to foster in our churches where we are all accountable to one another and nobody is beyond questioning, regardless of their status, responsibilities or power?
Where does all of this leave me in practical terms? I could try to redefine the word worship or go back to its roots of ‘worth-ship’. That may help me when someone else uses that word or I come across it in hymns. But if I am going to communicate with others, then I have to live with the common definitions and associations of the word. So, I am now trialling dropping the word ‘worship’ from my vocabulary. This means I do not worship at a particular church, but attend or go to it; I don’t lead worship, but lead services; I don’t start my services with a Call to Worship, but with a Welcome or an Invitation. Perhaps one day I will find that I want to return to the word ‘worship’, after all. But for the time being, I find that when I am awed by God wanting to form such a close and intimate relationship with me, I simply want to celebrate God’s love, proclaim it, share it, give thanks, ponder it in wonder, consider God with reverence, love God in return, or honour God by spending time with God. As yet, I don’t feel a need to worship God.
Theology Everywhere is in a transitional period at present, so we are posting articles occasionally rather than weekly. See the moderator’s message at the end of this article for more information – The church may close, but Christ is Risen!
[1] Benignus O’Rourke, Finding your hidden treasure (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2010)
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