Thinking Theologically about Worship 6
God’s NO and God’s YES: Worship as Encounter.
READ:
Colossians 1:15-23
DISCUSS:
1. Read together the first sentence from the ‘reflect’ section. Have you heard that before? What do think?
2. Have you ever had one of those experiences of transcendence that make you think ‘there must be bigger than me’ in nature or other places? How did those experiences shed light on who God is or isn’t for you?
3. Do you agree or disagree with Barth’s understanding of ‘God’s NO.’ (in the reflect section.) How do see this work out in the world?
4. Read Colossians 1:15-23. How is Jesus God’s YES?
5. Have you experience an ‘encounter with the risen Christ’ in worship?
6. How does the idea of ‘worship as encounter’ change your preparation as worship leaders and also your worship experience?
REFLECT:
“The mountains are my cathedral. I don’t need to worship in some building with a bunch of hypocrites to find God. God is all around me. All I need to do is go out and experience Him.”
All of us have heard this kind of statement before and we might even have thought or said something like this at times. And there is truth to the statement….God is all around us. God is everywhere. And we experience something beyond ourselves when we experience the beauty of nature in all its glory. Yet for Christians, there is an important distinction to be made, and this needs to be proclaimed by worship leaders and preachers each week at worship: the true God cannot be known by nature or any other human experience alone. We can experience God’s power, God’s creativity, God’s glory in part through nature and other experiences, but we cannot know God’s character, God’s nature, God’s deep passion and intense love.
Karl Barth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth), the famous German theologian, explains this well. He starts with the understanding that ‘God is wholly other’, which means that God is totally beyond the realm of human understanding and completely inaccessible by any innate human capability. God cannot be known by us in any way. So, when we experience those moments of transcendence in nature and other places, we are not experiencing God but only the faintest echo of the reality of God. We can’t know God through those experiences; we only know that God exists, that God is creative, and that God is powerful.
Barth describes this as the ‘NO’ and ‘YES’ of God. When we as worshippers try to approach God we firstly hear God’s ‘NO’ before we can hear His ‘YES’. God’s ‘NO’ states that humans cannot know God and experience His Grace by their own innate power, emotions, or experience. Without God’s Spirit breaking through we cannot encounter God. This is a hard statement for many churchgoers who attend services primarily to feel better about themselves, explore their own spirituality, or even to ‘connect’ with God. This is also a hard statement for worship traditions that emphasize emotional responses in their worship. God’s ‘NO’ reveals that we are unrighteous, unworthy, and unable to do anything to please God by our own power. It states that there is no way to manipulate God or even connect with God on the basis of our own humanity and no special way to ‘access’ God. This saves worshippers from works righteousness and the endless pursuit of being more open to the spirit, being a better worshipper, being more holy, righteous, sensitive to the Spirit, etc…
Only when we hear this and begin to understand God’s NO can we receive God’s ‘YES’. As Colossians 1:19 states: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Jesus is one who reconciles us to God. We cannot do it by our own power or works. God breaks through to our reality so that we can know God through the living Jesus. Jesus is God’s YES.
So we can only know God through Jesus, but we also can only experience God through an encounter with Jesus Christ. God’s NO is that we cannot know Him or please Him by any of our strivings. Yet God’s YES is that through Jesus Christ God comes to US. So in Jesus Christ we can encounter God in a new way through worship. The word encounter literally means to ‘meet someone unexpectedly or to meet someone in conflict’. Usually, ever Sunday, we and our congregation come to our church services for many different reasons…. We may come out of obligation, to meet with friends, or because we want to to hear something that will impact our lives. Yet regardless of our reasons, God through Jesus Christ encounters us in worship.
Barth describes that this most often happens through proclamation of the Word in song, prayer, reading, and preaching. Barth writes this: “Jesus breaks into our reality through the proclamation of scripture, spoken, sung, or read. So through proclamation “the new robe of righteousness is thrown over (our words, songs, etc..) and even in its earthly character it becomes a new event, the event of God’s own speaking in earthly events, the event of the authoritative vicariate of Jesus Christ.”
Through proclamation we hear Jesus actually speaking to us and we encounter Jesus as our contemporary. This brings scripture alive and gives our worship a new meaning and power that it didn’t have before. Though the proclamation of worship in song, reading, preaching, praying, meditation, etc…we come into the presence of the living Christ and receive His love, grace, and guidance, not based on our merit or ability but through God’s grace alone. Only through God’s “YES” is there any possibility of responding to God in worship and only in the encounter can there be dialogue with God.
So, as we lead worship as musicians and leaders, we can trust that something far greater is happening as we proclaim God’s goodness and mercy through Jesus Christ. God is encountering His people through the living Christ. So it is our task to provide a ‘sacred space’ for this encounter to happen and to proclaim God’s NO and YES clearly, week after week, so our people can be surprised by Grace as Christ encounters them where they are.
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Acts 3:11-20, Romans 1:18-32, Galatians 1:6-10, 1 John 2:18-3:1
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Church Dogmatics, Vol. 1: Word of God by Karl Barth (I hesitate to put this down because it is such hard reading….as every seminarian knows. Yet….if you keep in mind his theological method (that I just very briefly skimmed) it should help you understand Him.)
God’s NO and God’s YES: Worship as Encounter.
READ:
Colossians 1:15-23
DISCUSS:
1. Read together the first sentence from the ‘reflect’ section. Have you heard that before? What do think?
2. Have you ever had one of those experiences of transcendence that make you think ‘there must be bigger than me’ in nature or other places? How did those experiences shed light on who God is or isn’t for you?
3. Do you agree or disagree with Barth’s understanding of ‘God’s NO.’ (in the reflect section.) How do see this work out in the world?
4. Read Colossians 1:15-23. How is Jesus God’s YES?
5. Have you experience an ‘encounter with the risen Christ’ in worship?
6. How does the idea of ‘worship as encounter’ change your preparation as worship leaders and also your worship experience?
REFLECT:
“The mountains are my cathedral. I don’t need to worship in some building with a bunch of hypocrites to find God. God is all around me. All I need to do is go out and experience Him.”
All of us have heard this kind of statement before and we might even have thought or said something like this at times. And there is truth to the statement….God is all around us. God is everywhere. And we experience something beyond ourselves when we experience the beauty of nature in all its glory. Yet for Christians, there is an important distinction to be made, and this needs to be proclaimed by worship leaders and preachers each week at worship: the true God cannot be known by nature or any other human experience alone. We can experience God’s power, God’s creativity, God’s glory in part through nature and other experiences, but we cannot know God’s character, God’s nature, God’s deep passion and intense love.
Karl Barth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth), the famous German theologian, explains this well. He starts with the understanding that ‘God is wholly other’, which means that God is totally beyond the realm of human understanding and completely inaccessible by any innate human capability. God cannot be known by us in any way. So, when we experience those moments of transcendence in nature and other places, we are not experiencing God but only the faintest echo of the reality of God. We can’t know God through those experiences; we only know that God exists, that God is creative, and that God is powerful.
Barth describes this as the ‘NO’ and ‘YES’ of God. When we as worshippers try to approach God we firstly hear God’s ‘NO’ before we can hear His ‘YES’. God’s ‘NO’ states that humans cannot know God and experience His Grace by their own innate power, emotions, or experience. Without God’s Spirit breaking through we cannot encounter God. This is a hard statement for many churchgoers who attend services primarily to feel better about themselves, explore their own spirituality, or even to ‘connect’ with God. This is also a hard statement for worship traditions that emphasize emotional responses in their worship. God’s ‘NO’ reveals that we are unrighteous, unworthy, and unable to do anything to please God by our own power. It states that there is no way to manipulate God or even connect with God on the basis of our own humanity and no special way to ‘access’ God. This saves worshippers from works righteousness and the endless pursuit of being more open to the spirit, being a better worshipper, being more holy, righteous, sensitive to the Spirit, etc…
Only when we hear this and begin to understand God’s NO can we receive God’s ‘YES’. As Colossians 1:19 states: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Jesus is one who reconciles us to God. We cannot do it by our own power or works. God breaks through to our reality so that we can know God through the living Jesus. Jesus is God’s YES.
So we can only know God through Jesus, but we also can only experience God through an encounter with Jesus Christ. God’s NO is that we cannot know Him or please Him by any of our strivings. Yet God’s YES is that through Jesus Christ God comes to US. So in Jesus Christ we can encounter God in a new way through worship. The word encounter literally means to ‘meet someone unexpectedly or to meet someone in conflict’. Usually, ever Sunday, we and our congregation come to our church services for many different reasons…. We may come out of obligation, to meet with friends, or because we want to to hear something that will impact our lives. Yet regardless of our reasons, God through Jesus Christ encounters us in worship.
Barth describes that this most often happens through proclamation of the Word in song, prayer, reading, and preaching. Barth writes this: “Jesus breaks into our reality through the proclamation of scripture, spoken, sung, or read. So through proclamation “the new robe of righteousness is thrown over (our words, songs, etc..) and even in its earthly character it becomes a new event, the event of God’s own speaking in earthly events, the event of the authoritative vicariate of Jesus Christ.”
Through proclamation we hear Jesus actually speaking to us and we encounter Jesus as our contemporary. This brings scripture alive and gives our worship a new meaning and power that it didn’t have before. Though the proclamation of worship in song, reading, preaching, praying, meditation, etc…we come into the presence of the living Christ and receive His love, grace, and guidance, not based on our merit or ability but through God’s grace alone. Only through God’s “YES” is there any possibility of responding to God in worship and only in the encounter can there be dialogue with God.
So, as we lead worship as musicians and leaders, we can trust that something far greater is happening as we proclaim God’s goodness and mercy through Jesus Christ. God is encountering His people through the living Christ. So it is our task to provide a ‘sacred space’ for this encounter to happen and to proclaim God’s NO and YES clearly, week after week, so our people can be surprised by Grace as Christ encounters them where they are.
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Acts 3:11-20, Romans 1:18-32, Galatians 1:6-10, 1 John 2:18-3:1
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Church Dogmatics, Vol. 1: Word of God by Karl Barth (I hesitate to put this down because it is such hard reading….as every seminarian knows. Yet….if you keep in mind his theological method (that I just very briefly skimmed) it should help you understand Him.)
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