What It Means to Worship: The Word

by John V. Upton, Executive Director

Recently, I have been focused on the different movements of worship and have offered my insights related to praise, prayer and offering (click here for those articles). As a result, I have had some ask if I would eventually address preaching. Well, this not about preaching, per se. It is about what it means to hear and to answer God’s living Word.  Preaching is part of that, but what I would like to address is hearing and answering the scriptures.

It is interesting that when we think of the “Word” in worship, we generally do not think of the Bible.  We think of the sermon.  It’s amazing to me that in most of our churches there is such a strange silence regarding the Bible itself in our worship.  We call ourselves “People of the Book”.  We carry Bibles, wave Bibles, talk about the Bible, argue about the Bible, and sometimes even clobber each other with the Bible – but we don’t read it together in church much. 

The flow of worship regarding the Word that I’ve observed in churches over the years seems to reflect several traditions.  The first is one I deeply appreciate.  It is where many churches place a great big Bible on the altar.  Do you know why so many of our churches do that?  We do it to say our worship never begins with our words to God but rather worship begins with God’s Word given to us.  Every week we bring many concerns, many needs.  Long before these concerns of ours came to be, God’s word was given – waiting all these ages to minister to us.  It waited on our ancestors; on our fathers and mothers in faith who brought their concerns and needs to the same Word and were healed.

The second tradition comes with reading it as the text for the day.  Personally, I like it when someone aside from the pastor reads the Bible in worship.  It reminds me that the Bible isn’t just the preacher’s book.  The Bible is a gift to every son and daughter of God in the family of Christ.

Do you find it hard to listen when the Bible is being read in the worship service?  Many do.  Sometimes that is the case because as preachers we don’t do a very good job in its reading.  It takes preparation to read this Book faithfully aloud.  But that is not the only problem.  The problem is we are losing the art of listening together to the Word as it is read.  Our culture, largely because of the television, is great at producing people of the eye and lousy at making people of the ear.  If we just sit there in worship, we won’t get it.  Something in us needs to lean forward toward the Word as if we were hard of hearing, because we are hard of hearing.  Sometimes I want to shout, “Hey you, with the world in your ears, this Word is not like any other you’ve ever heard!  This Word is alive and has power to change everything.  Be awake to what this Word is saying to you!”

Then the third use of the Word in worship comes.  The time has now arrived for the “preaching” and the congregation settles back.  People do some of the strangest things at this moment.  In one church where I was preaching a man put a jaw breaker in his mouth to measure the length of the sermon.  He told me he did this every Sunday.

In the sermon the congregation asks:  “What does this mean for us?  How does this Word judge us, accuse us, direct us, teach us, heal us?”  Worship is about answering God’s invitation.  The sermon is to move us to give our own answer that is personal and specific and real.

Why does one preach?  I’ll speak for me.  I preach because I have felt what can only be named as the “call of God” to do this.  It has always amazed me how God calls ordinary people to do this wonderful and strange work of preaching.  If you want to know what it feels like to do this, I’ll tell you, it is humbling.  Who am I to stand before a congregation week by week and speak of sacred things?  I’m a sinner.  I’m wrong about many things, and I know it.  Furthermore, I know that every word I use to convey the truth about our God falls pathetically short of conveying the depth and height of the truth of our Lord.  I would not do this if I did not believe that somehow, by God’s almost comical grace and mercy, the words of ordinary people are chosen to bring the best news of all.  Those words that communicate the Word become instruments in the saving of lives and the healing of lives.

For most of us faith comes by hearing.  That is how I got my faith.  I imagine for most of you that is how you got yours.  You heard someone speak it and in their words, a Word bigger than theirs got inside you and came to life.  Miracles occur when ordinary people put their poor words in the service of the Word.

That brings me to that for which I am most grateful. I am most grateful for what God brings to our preaching.  I try to bring my best.  You try to bring your best.  All of that is empty unless the Spirit of God comes and breathes and gives life where there is no life.  The preaching can be dull.  The congregation can be all but asleep, but if one heart is open to receive the Word, the power of God will work to transform a life forever.

Carlyle Marney, the great theologian and preacher, was shopping in his city one day and saw a display of local artists.  He saw on one table a sculpture that took his breath away.  It was one human being held in the arms of another.  It was entitled:  “Compassion”.  It looked like the father of the prodigal welcoming him home.  Marney had never seen such elegant lines; every movement showed depth of love, anguish, and compassion.  Marney said to the sculptor, “Where did you learn compassion like this?”  And she answered, “From sitting on the back pew of your church for the last 10 years.”

That is what the Word does.  It is why we come to worship every week.  It is changing who we are.  It is why we open our doors to others who need the Word to be changed and led to faith by it.  We tell the story of what we’ve heard, what we’ve seen with our eyes.  We preach – lives are changed. Even when the preacher stops talking, the living Word continues to speak.  And if we are wise, we will answer.