Tag Archives: Worship

Chapter-a-Day

Culture and Compromise

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Culture and Compromise (CaD Dan 3) – Wayfarer

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Daniel 3:16-18 (NIV)

I’ve recently been devouring a series of fictional spy thrillers by one of my favorite authors writing under a pen name. In one of the books, the author uses a real event from post-World War II history as a backdrop to one of the stories. As a lover of history, I was amazed that I don’t ever remember learning about it. Scholars have said it is the most horrific example of human cruelty in the 20th century, ranking its intensity as worse than the Holocaust though its scope was relatively small.

In Communist Romania, Pitesti Prison was the center of an experimental “re-education system” that was focused on mainly young men who politically opposed the Communist regime. Many of them did so because of their Jewish or Christian faith. No one knows how many victims were subjected to the horror. Estimates range from 780 to 5,000. It lasted from 1949-1951. The experiment’s goal was to re-educate prisoners into discarding past religious convictions and ideology, and, eventually, to alter their personalities to the point of absolute obedience. It systemically tortured subjects both psychologically and physically. Subjects were forced to identify those among their torturers who were less brutal or more indulgent in their torture. Public humiliation was used to get subjects to denounce all personal beliefs, loyalties, and values, which included sacrilegious and blasphemous rituals meant to mock the actual religious rituals the victims had originally held dear. The descriptions of the torture and humiliation are so horrific that I refuse to even describe them.

The past few days, the Pitesti Prison experiment has come to mind as I read about the “re-education” that the ancient Babylonians put Daniel and his friends through. Obviously, their experience as described in the past two chapters has been fairly benign, intended to identify the best-of-the-best for key roles in the King’s administration. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its dangers.

History is filled with stories of rulers with absolute power who entertained themselves by making subjects do unimaginable things and killing individuals in horrific ways for sport. The ancient Assyrians and Babylonians were known for their brutality. It’s one of the reasons they successfully conquered so much territory in building their empires.

Today’s chapter is one of the most famous stories within the Great Story. The king sets up a giant image out on a plain and demands everyone to bow down and worship it. The re-educated captives from Judah, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refuse to do so in obedience to the Law of Moses: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.”

The king, furious over their refusal, threw the three of them into a giant furnace (likely used in the forging and erecting of the giant statue). The king looks into the furnace to watch them burn only to see them hanging out with a fourth individual the king describes as “a son of the gods.” God miraculously protects the boys and Nebuchadnezzar promotes them.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself continuing to contemplate the idea of loving one’s enemy or enemies, and maintaining one’s faith even in the midst of an antagonistic culture. I’m eternally grateful not to have been subjected to an experience like Pitesti Prison or its ancient Babylonian equivalent. Nevertheless, I must consider – even in a relatively free and tolerant culture – how much I’m willing to compromise with popular culture and when I must draw the line because of the convictions of my faith. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were given a very clear line by King Nebuchadnezzar along with very stark consequences for non-capitulation. Along my spiritual journey, I’ve found it difficult when the lines of compromise are vague and the consequences seemingly non-existent.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Sacred Things

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Sacred Things (CaD 2 Ki 18) – Wayfarer

[King Hezekiah] broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)
2 Kings 18:4 (NIV)

Wendy and I had the joy of visiting a local high school yesterday to provide feedback on two student theatre pieces on their way to All-State contests this weekend. It was so much fun for us.

Before leaving, we got into a conversation with one of the teachers regarding the ways individuals get offended and bent out of shape by different things. It’s not unusual. In the years that I was President of our local community theatre, I got to field many calls and personal visits from people who were offended by this or that.

One of the things that I observed amidst the anger and the criticism I listened to is that people sometimes hold the most unusual things personally sacred – things I would never expect.

I’ve experienced the same with church. I remember once getting into hot water because the ratty, old, falling-apart King James pew bibles were replaced with new pew bibles in a more modern translation. The ratty, old, falling-apart bibles had become sacred to someone.

In today’s chapter, we begin the story of ancient King Hezekiah of Judah. As the author lists all of the things Hezekiah did to abolish idolatry in the kingdom, he mentions that people had been burning incense to a most unusual object.

Around 750 years before Hezekiah, Moses was leading the Hebrew tribes out of slavery in Egypt. Snakes were biting and killing the wandering tribes. God told Moses to make a snake on a pole out of bronze and anyone bitten by a snake could look at it and they would live. Fast forward to the days of Hezekiah (a time when snake worship was common), and individuals had begun worshipping the bronze pole rather than the God who miraculously used it for a specific purpose at a specific point in time to address a specific situation.

In the quiet this morning, I am simply reminded of the human tendency to make certain things sacred and worship them. I’ve observed people making sacred and worshipping homes, buildings (especially churches), children (deceased or living), ancestors, traditions (lots of these), memories, treasures, celebrities, hobbies, clothes, cars, et cetera.

It is especially easy for me to do exactly as the people of Hezekiah’s day had done. I can hold certain trappings of religion more sacred than the living God to which those trappings are supposed to point me.

So, what do I hold sacred? Are there things, other than God, that I actually worship without thinking about it in those terms?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Note: The featured image on today’s post was created with Wonder AI

Chapter-a-Day

Sacred Space

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Sacred Space (CaD 1 Ki 6) – Wayfarer

In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.
1 Kings 6:7 (NIV)

This past week, Wendy and I were tickled as we watched a young girl in our weekly gathering of Jesus’ followers. She was laying on the floor in the front of the gathering coloring in her coloring book, kicking her legs up and down as she hummed while the morning message. When I later told her mother that Wendy and I had enjoyed watching her daughter she commented, “Only [in our gathering] could that be acceptable.”

What she was poking at was the tradition of reverence and sacredness that people have traditionally had around church buildings, sanctuaries, and places of worship. I was raised in such a tradition. When entering the church, you were to be quiet, dignified, and respectful. Children were never supposed to run. The altar area in the sanctuary was a forbidden space. Wear your best clothes, sit up straight in the pew, behave, be quiet, be reverent. You’re in a sacred space!

After becoming a follower of Jesus and reading Jesus’ teachings and the teachings of the apostles for myself, I was amazed by the realization that almost everything about my experiences of church was nowhere to be found in either the teachings or examples of Jesus and His early followers. In fact, Jesus on at least two occasions speaks about the religious tradition of worshipping God at a temple being torn down and replaced. He was dismissive of His disciples’ awe and wonder at the Temple ( the same Temple we read about being built in today’s chapter) and tells them that it will ultimately be razed to rubble. In another episode, a woman from Samaria questions Jesus about one of the major differences between the Jews, whose worship was centered around the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Samaritans, whose worship was centered at Mount Gerizim. Jesus responds, “Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”

Jesus never prescribed church buildings, cathedrals, basilicas, sanctuaries, altars, or sacred spaces. The teaching of Jesus is that when I as a follower am indwelt by the Holy Spirit then I become the Temple of God. Sacred space, therefore, is wherever I happen to be. I bring the sacred with me because God’s Spirit is in me. The Jesus movement in the first century exploded as followers and disciples met anywhere and everywhere in homes, outdoors, and in public places.

We human beings, however, love our religious traditions. I found it interesting in today’s chapter that even at the building of the Temple the work area was to remain silent in reverence. It reminded me of the plethora of rules I was taught as a child about the church building being a sacred space.

Which reminded me of our sweet little girl Wendy and I watched in worship this past Sunday. Our local gathering has taken a different stance than the historic traditions about the place of worship being sacred and thus requiring silence, reverence, and rules like the removal of headwear. In our gatherings, children are allowed to be children. For many years, we had a weekly gaggle of little girls who would literally apply Psalm 149’s call to praise God with dancing as they would jump and spin and improvise dances in the corner of the room during songs. We have people who quite literally exercise the freedom to worship God with clapping, shouting, and raising hands as prescribed in the book of Psalms and elsewhere. On a few occasions, we’ve had an individual who expresses praise by applying Psalm 20’s encouragement to “lift up banners in the name of our God” and would quite literally do a flag routine like you’d see with a marching band. And, sometimes we are silent and reverent, not because of the room or the building but because silence is a form of both individual and corporate worship, too.

It is in the quiet where I find myself each morning as I read and ponder, and write each one of these chapter-a-day posts. My home office becomes sacred space, not because of anything having to do with the room, but because of everything having to do with God’s Spirit in me and communing with me in spirit, heart, and mind.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“This Chain that I Must Break”

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"This Chain That I Must Break" (CaD Jud 2) – Wayfarer

After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.
Judges 2:10 (NIV)

He came up to me out of the blue. I was just sitting with Wendy when he tapped my shoulder and asked me to pray for him. “I’m drunk,” he said to me as I stood and put my arm around him. I didn’t really need him to tell me this. He reeked of it. It was a rather unconventional state to be in at a mid-morning worship service.

One of my favorite songs of all time is Bob Dylan’s Every Grain of Sand. It’s a song about those waypoints on life’s journey when I find myself utterly broken; That moment when I’ve hit rock bottom and I know that something has to change. And, it’s about the life-changing grace that is found in those moments. One of my favorite lines from the song says, “Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.”

That line popped into my mind this morning as I read today’s chapter. The author of Judges continues his introduction to the book and introduces me to a chain of events, a systemic pattern, a repeated behavioral sequence that I will find recycled over and over again in the stories of the book of Judges.

Along this life journey, I have repeatedly found myself in negative cycles of both thought and behavior. I’ve faced trials along life’s journey that stemmed from difficult circumstances that were not of my own making. The truth, however, is that many of my rock bottom moments occurred because I put myself there.

That’s the overarching theme of these stories of the ancient Hebrew tribes and the period of their history known as the time of the Judges. They may be ancient stories, but they resonate with very immediate and personal lessons for me today. Civilization and culture may have changed in 3,000 years, but human nature has not. Bob Dylan sees himself in the story of Cain. I see myself in the stories of the Judges.

This brings me back to my new, intoxicated friend. I honestly wasn’t shocked by his drunken state. I immediately recognized that a man has to be at a rock bottom moment to show up for a worship service intoxicated and ask a complete stranger to pray for him. I was so glad he was there. I prayed for him and over him right there. Then I hugged him. With my arm still around him, I told him to look out over the group of people gathering in that room. I explained that we’re all broken people no different than himself, including me. I’ve had my own rock bottom moments when something needed to change. I welcomed him, and I encouraged him to keep joining us.

In the quiet this morning, I hear the lyric poetry of Bob Dylan in my head and heart:

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Of Change and Health

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Awake, harp and lyre!
    I will awaken the dawn.
Psalm 108:2 (NIV)

Do you ever have random conversations that stick in your memory? I was on a trip with a colleague. While aware that we are each followers of Jesus, we didn’t talk about spiritual things very often. My colleague comes from a very conservative, almost fundamentalist viewpoint on things and he surprised me by wanting to ask my opinion about the weekly worship among the institutional church where he was a member.

It happened that my colleagues tribe had recently made the switch from a very traditional worship experience that involved singing traditional hymns, many of them having been in existence for hundreds of years. The church was migrating to using songs of the present-day genre. He was clearly struggling with this.

I have shared many times that I have been a spiritual wayfarer who has experienced and participated in a rich diversity of spiritual traditions. I have been in the emotionally rockin’ pentecostal tradition, the corporate silence of the Quaker Meeting House, the high-church liturgy of Roman Catholic church, the call-and-response of the black church, the intellectual approach of mainline institutions, the simplicity and sincerity of rural worship in a developing country, and the down-home family environment of a “house church.” My attitude has never been to ask “Which is right?” In fact, I’ve never really worried about asking “Which is right for me?” I’ve always tried to be fully present where I have been been led and ask myself “What good can I gain from this experience?”

I am aware, however, that my colleague has a more black-and-white view of both faith and life. The change in music genres within his local gathering had him rattled.

Colleague: “I’m struggling with these ‘seven-eleven’ songs. It’s the same seven lines sung eleven times.”

Me: “You mean like Psalm 117 that only has two lines which were likely repeated in worship?”

Colleague: “It’s just so repetitive. Singing the same thing over and over.”

Me: “You mean like Psalm 136 that repeats ‘His love endures forever’ twenty-six times?”

Colleague: “It’s not right. They take little pieces of a great hymn and mess it up by changing it. It was meant to be sung in its entirety!”

As this point, I could have pointed my colleague to today’s chapter, Psalm 108, because the entire thing is simply a cut-and-paste mash-up of Psalm 57:7-11 and Psalm 60:5-12. In fact, there are multiple examples both in the Psalms and in the writings of the ancient prophets when entire sections would be cut-and-pasted into an updated work. There are also examples of this in other ancient Mesopotamian cultures. It was quite common.

I don’t really know how the conversation landed with my colleague. I could tell that he was disappointed (maybe even a little frustrated) that I didn’t agree with him and provide him an affirmation of his opinions. He never brought it up again.

In my life, I have found change to be really difficult for people in almost any circle of life. When you mix in both change and religious tradition it can take on an added layer of emotion. Suddenly the change gets escalated to a level of religious orthodoxy. Sides are taken. The discussion escalates to arguments. Then comes entrenchment. Very often the next step is the severing of relationships. Groups split.

Along my spiritual journey, I have always assumed that change is a natural part of creation. Most things in life cycle in one way or another. What goes around comes around. Styles come back around and get freshened up. Religious traditions and practices that were once abandoned as “old and outdated” come back in vogue to bless a new generation of Jesus’ followers.

So it is that as I watch the changes that constantly happen around me on multiple levels, I try to keep my emotional reactions in check. Instead of digging in my heels and demanding that my love of the perfectly acceptable way of doing things is understood, I try to divert my energy to asking “What good might be gained from this change?”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself reminded of a mantra that I was introduced to by my friend. It made its way around the internet and I am unsure of the source. I once used it in a message, but I don’t know that I’ve ever referenced it in one of my chapter-a-day posts. It’s always stuck with me:

Healthy things grow.
Growing things change.
Change challenges me.
Challenges force me to trust God.
Trust leads to obedience.
Obedience makes me healthy.
Healthy things grow...

Chapter-a-Day

Creation Contemplation

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Creation Contemplation (CaD Ps 104) – Wayfarer

May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    as I rejoice in the Lord.
Psalm 104:34 (NIV)

Among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers, we’ve been asking a lot of questions about distractions and attachments. Primarily, we’re asking ourselves some introspective questions regarding just how attached we are to our phones, tablets, and screens. And, how do those screens and the how the limitless amount of information and entertainment, literally at our fingertips, is forming us. While it might be easy to perceive this as some religious Luddite rail against technology, it’s really an attempt to ask some very sincere, personal questions about time, thought, habits, distractions, and Spirit.

Yesterday our Scottish crew (still stranded by COVID in America) was discussing the fact that back home in Edinburgh they would be spending a lot more time outside in the more temperate winter climate of the UK. Here in the snow and midwest deep-freeze of Iowa (-2 F this morning), that’s just not an enjoyable possibility. So there’s been a tremendous amount of screentime for the wee one as four adults try to work.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 104, is ancient Hebrew song of praise. The theme is the wonder of creation, and this is a great song for anyone who is fed spiritually by being out in nature. What is it that feeds your awe and wonder of the natural world? I know for a lot of people it’s the mountains. For me, it’s always been water. I love being on a ship out on the ocean, a sailboat, or even sitting on the dock in the morning at the lake. There is something spiritual and life-giving to sit in the quiet, to take it in, and to have undistracted time to think, ponder, dream, and meditate.

What’s really cool about Psalm 104 is the thought with which the songwriter structured his lyrics. This is obvious to the casual reader, but when you break it down, it’s really genius. It’s structured like concentric circles moving out from the center (like the expanding universe?), and as the stanzas move out from the center they are connected thematically:

Praise

Three Verses: Celebrating the celestial world above the earth

Five Verses: The earth’s foundations and boundaries

Nine Verses: The diversity and abundance of life on earth

Five Verses: The earth’s cycles and rhythms

Three Verses: Celebrating the nautical world below the earth

Praise

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning… (Actually, it wasn’t quiet. I had a three-year-old watching a YouTube of Transformer toys on my lap.)… I couldn’t help but think about the thought the songwriter put in to not only write a song about creation, but also craft it so that the whole song’s structure was another layer of metaphor that speaks to the design, order, and structure of the universe.

There is something so beautiful in this that was worth my time this morning with which to sit and meditate. It motivated me to whisper my own quiet prayer of praise for creation that’s all around me.

I also couldn’t help but be reminded of these questions Wendy and I have been asking ourselves about the things to which we are attached, the things that distract us, and the limitless information and entertainment waiting for me there on the phone, the tablet, the television, and the laptop. I can go down the online rabbit hole so quickly and become immersed in a world of information that offers me little or no spiritual benefit.

Or, I can be mindful of making different choices. Which is what I’m endeavoring to do today.

Chapter-a-Day

A Time to Shout!

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A Time to Shout! (CaD Ps 100) – Wayfarer

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Psalm 100:1 (NIV)

I have shared over the years that one of the things Wendy and I enjoy doing is being sports fans. We’re not “rabid win-at-all-costs because our lives are ruled by it” fans, which is a good thing since most of the teams we cheer for have long histories of being underdogs and perennial losers. We just enjoy choosing a team, following the team and the players, rooting for them through the season, and generally being loyal fans.

January in Iowa has typically been made even more bleak for Wendy and me because of the lack of sports that we enjoy. Our Vikings season generally ends early in disappointing fashion. Spring training for our Cubs is weeks away. Our son-in-law, Clayton, influenced Wendy and me to find a English Premier League team to cheer for in order to bridge the gap. It just so happens that his team and our team have a big match this weekend. We’re already planning our watch party. It will be something fun in the midst of quarantine.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 100, is the final in a series of ten ancient Hebrew songs of praise. This little ditty is only five verses long and it begins by calling the worshiper to “Shout with joy to the LORD.”

Throughout my spiritual journey, I have heard teachers challenge congregations with the fact that we cheer more for our teams than we do for God. This, in the institutional and denominational churches I’ve attended throughout my journey, is very true. When Christianity became the official religion of Rome, the Jesus movement became a political empire that was more interested in controlling the masses than it was in sincere worship. The Holy Roman Empire controlled worship in the Western world for 1200 years. When the Protestant Reformation came along, it led into the “age of reason” in which head knowledge of the scriptures and theology was held as utmost in importance. Thus, the Catholic Church and the vast majority of Protestant denominations were given to quiet, reverent, and generally passive worship styles.

And yet, throughout the Great Story the examples of worship and calls to worship I’ve been reading in the psalms are active, loud, and participatory. Shout, sing, dance, raise your hands, clap your hands, and raise the roof! King David got in trouble with his wife when he was so worked up in dancing and singing to God that he had peeled down like silly shirtless college boys in a December Iowa State football game. I confess that the last time Wendy and I got that excited was the Cubs winning the World Series and the Minneapolis Miracle.

At the same time, the further I’ve gotten in my spiritual journey, the freer I’ve become in worship among my local gathering of Jesus’ followers. I sing loud. I’ll lift my hands in prayer. Yes, I’ll even shout. And what’s hilarious is that this is not the worship tradition of my local gathering. I once had an elder of the church who was a pious, multi-generational loyalist of the denomination ask me sincerely why I raised my hands when I sang in worship. I pointed him to a number of places in the Great Story where God’s people are called to lift hands in praise and prayer. Funny how individuals who claim to live in devout obedience choose to ignore those things with which they are uncomfortable. Greet anyone with a holy kiss lately?

Don’t hear what I’m not saying. There are times for spiritual quiet, silence, and reverence. Lord knows we need a lot of it right now amidst the 24/7 din of politics and pandemic conflict in the news and on social media. The Sage who wrote Ecclesiastes would tell us that there is a time for quiet reverence, and there’s a time to shout, dance, and blow the roof off. And, I get that there are individuals who will forever be hands-in-your-pockets mouth shut type of followers, and that’s cool too. Whatever.

It’s just that Wendy and I have noticed as we worship that there’s often what feels like a spiritual lid on the room. You can feel people waiting for an excuse, or for someone to give permission to shout, cheer, and let out some God-given, human emotion. Countless times we’ve witnessed that when one person breaks the ice, then the praise really begins to flow.

In the quiet this morning, I’m thinking about all the worship traditions I’ve experienced and enjoyed along my spiritual journey from the silence of the Quakers to the call and response of a black Baptist congregation. From the pomp of a Roman Catholic cathedral in Ireland to the down-home fire-and-brimstone of a back-woods Pentecostal church in Appalachia. I find that so often people put their own spiritual experiences in the box of their traditions. Along the way, I’ve found that it’s not a right-or-wrong either-or thing. Once again, it’s a “yes, and.” I can learn from experiencing and participating in diverse styles and traditions of worship. I take things that are meaningful for me and find ways to weave them into my own spiritual expressions. It’s been good. It’s helped me grow. It’s expanded my spiritual understanding.

I promise that if/when I see you next I won’t greet you with a holy kiss.

Finally, it was a bit of synchronicity that I saw this post this morning of a mother shouting her praise as she finds out her son passed the bar exam. It’s worth the watch!

Chapter-a-Day

Rest Sans Rule-Keeping

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Rest Sans Rule-Keeping (CaD Ps 92) – Wayfarer

They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green…
Psalm 92:14 (NIV)

It’s the first full week of a New Year, and this morning marks the official end of the holidays. I’ve so enjoyed this Christmas and New Year’s having our kids home and celebrating our wedding anniversary. My soul is full.

I found some synergy this morning in the fullness of Spirit I feel coming out of the holiday season and today’s chapter, Psalm 92. This ancient Hebrew song lyric was a “Sabbath” song. Sabbath is the weekly “day of rest” which God commanded of the Hebrews. It’s number four in God’s Top Ten list of commandments given through Moses.

After the Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians, the Who’s Who of Hebrews had been forced into exile in Babylon. There, without a central place of worship, the Hebrews were forced to find ways to keep the faith without a physical location of worship. The result was that both their study of “the Law” (in layman’s terms that would be the first five books of the Great Story or Genesis through Deuteronomy) and keeping the Sabbath day became cornerstones of the faithful.

After the exiles returned and the Temple was rebuilt, the Sabbath continued to increase in importance. By the time Jesus arrived on the scene some 500 years later, the Sabbath had ceased to be a day of rest and celebration. It had become a burdensome, endless list of things you couldn’t do unless you wanted to be called out by religious busybodies and even face possible corporal punishment. That’s what human religion does; It takes a spiritual principle meant for health and well-being and reduces it to a burdensome list of rules used to determine who’s naughty or nice, who’s good or bad, who’s righteous or wicked, who’s in and who’s out.

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve learned to shun religious rule-keeping and seek those things that promote Life and Spirit. What I’ve learned is that there is a crucial difference between religious rule-keeping and spiritual discipline. I shun the former while fully embracing the latter.

Yesterday, Wendy and I attended worship with our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. We did so, not because we felt we had to but because we desired to do so. We’ve established a discipline over time of joining to worship with other believers because it refreshes our souls to worship corporately, to regularly connect with friends and loved ones, and to be spiritually challenged and encouraged. It’s part of the spiritual rhythm of our lives.

As I read the chapter this morning, I found that the overall vibe of Psalm 92’s lyrics matches the spirit of rest, community, friendship, and worship I experience each week. It promotes our spiritual health and has led to “fruitfulness” and keeping our souls “fresh” and “green” as prescribed.

In the quiet this morning, I find my mind and spirit ready to head into a new work week and a new year. The rest and time with family have been so good. God knows I need regular rest to recharge my bodies, my mind, and my spirit – not as religious rule-keeping, but as physical and spiritual rejuvenation.

Chapter-a-Day

Sui Generis

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Sui Generis (CaD Ps 33) – Wayfarer

Sing to him a new song;
    play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
Psalm 33:3 (NRSVCE)

Wendy and I attended worship with our local gathering of Jesus followers on Sunday. We’ve been sitting at home watching the live steam most Sundays since March. There are three spaces set aside for worship with proper space for physical distancing. The music and teaching are streamed from the main space to the other two. The auditorium that is where we usually call home is one of the spaces in which the live worship is streamed.

We walked in and sat down. I knew we were a minute or two late, so I was surprised when we weren’t greeting with the usual decibel level of worship music. It took me a second to realize that while the video of the worship music was live, the audio wasn’t being successfully streamed from the other room. Everyone sat and waited for our faithful tech volunteers to figure out the problem.

What struck me as we waited was that there were individuals already standing in anticipation of singing, clapping, and participating in corporate worship. I stood with them. Most people were sitting quietly while we waited. When the problem was fixed and the audio began to stream, everyone who was sitting immediately stood without prompt. People began to sing. Some people raised their hands in prayer. It was like the worship version of a Lamborghini accelerating from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds.

The thing that struck me in that moment was the feeling that everyone wanted to sing. There was a feeling of hunger to be there, to worship corporately with others and to sing, pray, and shout in praise and supplication.

Today’s psalm was most likely a song written for ancient corporate worship. If you step back and look at it, the “voice” of the lyrics lends itself to the first three verses being sung by a worship leader calling everyone to worship. Verses 4-19 could very well have been for a choir or select group to then instruct through song about God’s power, sovereignty, and goodness to protect and deliver those who place, in Him, their faith and trust.

The voice of verses 20-22 switch to a corporate “our” and could likely have been for the entire crowd gathered to sing in response to pledge their faith and trust.

There is something unique about a corporate worship experience when those gathered are not just going through ritualistic motions but are truly pouring out from their spirits their gratitude, praise, pain, need, faith, and desire.

Sui generis (pronounced soo-ee jen-er-is) is a latin term meaning “of its own kind.” Usually used as a legal term, its broader definition is something that is “unique” and in a “class by itself.” I once heard it used of certain worship experiences when a crowd of individuals begin to worship and, sui generis, a powerful whole emerges from the many. From many voices one voice. From many spirits one spirit. When it happens it is truly sui generis.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about worship, prayer, and praise. I’m grateful for technology that has allowed Wendy and me to join with our fellow Jesus followers through YouTube during the pandemic. Jesus assured His followers that He would always be present when “two or three are gathered” in His name. Wendy and I have enjoyed some really wonderful moments in our worship gatherings via YouTube. I am also grateful to join with others in one place and pour out our hearts and praise just as people have been doing for thousands of years like when Psalm 33 was introduced to the Hebrew people as a “new song” to corporately proclaim God’s protection and deliverance.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

I Smell.

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I Smell (CaD Ex 30) – Wayfarer

“You shall make an altar on which to offer incense…”
Exodus 30:1 (NRSVCE)

I typically keep a fragrant candle on the desk in my office. I like scents of vanilla the best. Right now I’ve been trying out a candle labeled as “tobacco and vanilla.” I thought it might remind me of the smell of my grandfather’s pipe. Not so much. I do, however, like the scent.

Along my life journey, I’ve observed that smell is the physical sense to which we give the least attention. Sight, hearing, taste, and touch get the most of our attention. Our olfactory senses aren’t as necessary for human survival as they once were. Nevertheless, a scent can create a powerful response with me. Some experts say that smells plays more of a role in attracting a mate than we even realize. More consciously, it can bring back a memory like the smell of a rose reminding me of my Grandma Vander Well’s perfume. It can create a sense of peace and security like the smell of freshly baked bread wafting up from the kitchen. It also works in negative terms. Some smells give me a headache or can make me feel physically ill.

Incense played a large part in ancient religious ceremonies. In today’s chapter, God continues to prescribe to Moses how the Hebrew tribes will worship. The chapter begins with designs for an altar on which incense is to be perpetually burned and it ends with a unique recipe for the fragrant ingredients a perfumer is to blend the incense. Because the fragrant oil used to anoint Aaron and the priests, and the incense burned in the traveling temple was unique, the smell would become associated in the hearts and minds of the Hebrews with being present at God’s place and giving their sacrifices and offerings. The smoke of the burning incense also became a metaphor for the prayers of God’s people wafting up to heaven.

Incense once again became part of worship in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions in Christianity, though I have head it argued that it was primarily a practical way for the priest to overcome the powerful pungency of body odor emanating from the poor, unbathed masses packing into the church on Sunday. It was never a formally prescribed practice of the early followers of Jesus. In the New Testament, the only references to incense point to either the practice in the Hebrew ritual or else to John’s visions of heaven in Revelation.

The use of incense in Hebrew worship was, however, linked to an important metaphor understood by early believers. In his second letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth, Paul writes:

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.
2 Cor 2:14-16 (NIV)

Once again, I find that the physical bricks-and-mortar (or in this case oil-and-incense) of the Hebrew system matures through Jesus and shifts into a flesh-and-blood understanding of what God is doing. In the former, people came to a central location where the fragrance of the priests and the burning incense reminded them of God’s presence. In the latter, every follower of Jesus becomes part of a “royal priesthood” taking the fragrance of Jesus with us wherever we go and among any and all people with whom we interact in our circles of relationship and community.

I have spent twenty-five years in a career in which I travel and regularly visit our clients in their places of business around the country. I am always praying that I will be the fragrance of Christ while I am there conducting training sessions, making executive presentations, and coaching or mentoring individuals.. What’s fascinating to me is that I have on several occasions had someone literally ask me if I’m a Christian. When I confess that I am, the response is typically, “I knew it. I could just tell.” Equally fascinating to me is that in almost every long-term engagement with a client there is an individual or two who react to my presence with intense animosity. In those instances, I get to practice returning curses with blessings and showing (often unreciprocated) kindness.

In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but think of the message I gave yesterday among my local gathering of Jesus’ followers. Today’s chapter so beautifully illustrates a point I was making. I observe that many are stuck in the old paradigm of a religious institution founded on the notion of bringing God’s Kingdom to earth. People gather to do the regularly scheduled religious bit, then forget about it until my next scheduled appearance on Sunday, or Christmas, or Easter.

Jesus changed all that in practice. He started with getting the Kingdom of God into the individual, transforming the human being into the Temple in whom God’s Spirit dwells. It is the individual who takes God’s Kingdom wherever they go and impacts people in every relationship and circles of influence. I don’t burn incense at the temple, I am the temple from which God’s fragrance seeps out in my love, kindness, gentleness, patience, faithfulness and self-control. Some are attracted. Some are repelled. That’s something I don’t control, though how I respond to it is.

Monday. Another week. Holiday coming up. I have appointments, a little travel, and a weekend full of friends. Hope I’m fragrant in all the good ways.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.