Avoiding Worship Narcissism

Reading the latest Relevant Magazine Online, I was intrigued by the writer’s recent experience at a nationwide worship event called TheCall.  It is a 12 hour fasting and worship experience, happening in various cities this year, for people “serious about encountering God and changing the world.”

And maybe it is a life changing experience.  Maybe it is an event different from so many others, where people come for the mountain top adrenaline rush of a stadium rally.  But I wonder how much of what we call worship today, in that context, or in most Sunday services, is really worship.  Robert Webber, in one of his last books before his death, Divine Embrace, speaks to the “worship narcissism” prevalent in so many gatherings today, where the main attention is given to seeking some transcendent experience.  But under the cover of these words, and more than we realize, our focus is much closer to home--on us and our experience--on our story rather than on God and His story, His purpose for us.  And here’s how we can tell if it is located in our story: we leave this gathering asking one another—“Did you like the sound?”  “Did you sense the presence of God?”  “Did the message speak to you?”  “Did you like the worship?”

Maybe we should be asking—did God like our worship?  But even this question, according to Webber, misses the point. It misunderstands the purpose of worship.  Authentic worship is not about approaching God as the object of worship.  It is rather about seeing God as the subject of worship.  This statement in itself brings me up short for sure.  It causes me to stop and ask myself how often I have entered worship with this perspective.  Far more than I would like to admit, I have come in as subject.  I have come to ask God to participate in my story.  I have come with no expectation God is already actively doing something, asking me to get in step with.  I have come consumed with my needs, hoping worship does something for me.  If I am moved to get the attention off myself and unto God, even here, God is simply a transcendent being to be adored.

Webber’s point is that if God is the object of worship, then worship must proceed from us.  We, then, are the subject of this gathering, and in this, the true worship of God is located in me.  But if God is the subject of worship, acting in this world, involved with creation, ruling over the heaven and earth, then we gather to do something else.  We come to engage in what He is presently doing, God acting through Word and Spirit, song and sacrament.  We come to contemplate and celebrate our present union with Him.  We enter, not waiting for something to happen, planned in advance by the worship leader.  We enter to continue God’s redemptive story, living out our death and resurrection.  We step into His present purposes in community, proclaiming and living out the good news, offering our bodies as living sacrifices, which is our “spiritual act of worship” (Rom. 12:1-2).

It was one of my hopes to meet Webber, who was scheduled to teach a doctoral class for our program, until his illness forced him to cancel.  There are a lot of things about worship I would have liked to ask.  So I am guessing a bit, but in this final writing, where Webber seems to be gathering the fruit of a lifetime of teaching, he is underscoring--that while there is a “bowing down to adore Him” side of worship (proskuneo), it really isn’t worship if it is not first rooted in His story.  It is not worship if it does not generate--at the same time--a participation in community—praying, healing, ministering spiritual gifts, mutually releasing the indwelling Spirit to one another, moving out in a corporate way to advance God’s kingdom and continue the work of Jesus.  The early church called this leitergeo, (lit. the “work of the people”), a public works term borrowed from the culture of its day, and it too became a term for worship. This is why worship in its earliest form was called “service”.  But “service” today means little more than a time of gathering.  And if in that gathering, it is reduced to mere verbal response or singing, treating God as merely one who sits in heaven rather than the God who acts in this world, inviting us to get in step with Him and His story as we enter, then no matter the emotion it generated, something besides worship happened. 

Comments

[Fred]

Well Pastor, that is about as well said as anything I've ever read. No, I have never read anything quite like it but it resonates in me to the core. It sounds like Puritan preaching, God is in control, God is working, engaged in this world and we are to listen in worship and hear where He is going and what He is doing and how we fit in. I just keep going back and re-reading his opinion, great insight.
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I heard about "The Call" and I think it is the real deal. Not a Pep rally, but a time of supplication. Just glad to hear people are praying.
Great post, I can't wait to pass this on.
Fred

[George]

I find the distinction between subject and object of worship interesting...and confusing. To me, they are virtually synonymous. So the distinction is somewhat lost on me.

That may be a bit of a red herring, though: if the point being made is that God is the focus of our worship, and that our experience while worshiping should not be focal, then I can see that point to at least some degree. I became a Christian in the Presbyterian church, and we subscribed to the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In that document, the chief end of man is listed as “…to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Pointedly focused on God primarily, but not discounting our own capacity to enjoy the experience of worshiping Him. That experience should be the result, not the goal.

I’d appreciate your comments…