Re-Ordering Worship [Part2]: What it means to be human
An invitation to ‘worship’ is far more than just an invitation to sing: it is an invitation to restore our identity as children of God, an invitation to restore the very essence of our humanity through our acceptance of God as King.
Although singing existed from the dawn of creation (Job 38:4–7), the morning stars (v4) or sons of God (v7 — angelic beings) sang and shouted with joy. Yet, the people of God in the biblical narrative didn’t sing — or at least, there is no record of a song — until they had been rescued from Egypt in Exodus 15 and gone through the red sea. Depending on how you deal with various passages, this comes after something like 2000 years of biblical history.
Singing is a gift to humanity, but it seems like that in the biblical narrative, people could live, and follow God, and sometimes make a pretty good job of it, without singing a single note.
The story of Israel’s rescue from Egypt that gave rise to this liberation song is the story of release from the rule of an abusive, de-humanizing King Pharaoh into the rule of a liberating, re-humanizing King Yahweh.
Why do I call King Pharaoh de-humanizing? Because in the creation story humans were created for intimacy with Yahweh (Gen 3:8), to engage in meaningful work/service (Gen 2:15), and to extend the life of the garden — being fruitful and multiplying (Gen 2:28). Pharaoh had abused the Israelites, made their work toilsome and killed their sons (Exodus 1:16). His actions effectively destroyed what it meant for them to be human.
Interestingly, his de-humanizing actions were born out of his fears and insecurities (Exodus 1:13–14). He had acted on those fears and insecurities by exercising control and domination, oppressing people, and robbing them of their dignity. This is the path of many self-made kings in our world. So as Israel moved out of the rule of King Pharaoh into the rule of King Yahweh it was not just a geographical escape from Egypt, but a true liberation of their very beings, because they were having their human-ness restored.
Over the last couple of years, I have been examining again how what we sing and proclaim in our gatherings relates to issues of justice. In one sense we want the words of our songs to be true to the reality of our everyday lives. But I wonder whether it goes deeper than that, because if we understand that an invitation to ‘worship’ is an invitation to restore our humanity, these two concepts — worship and justice — actually becomes pretty much the same thing. To worship is to bring God’s justice to the world. When we call the world to worship God as King, we call the world to give itself to the restoration of people back to their true humanity, where intimacy with God is experienced, where work is meaningful, where their royal identity is restored, and where fruitful multiplication (extending the kingdom) becomes a reality. Maybe this is why Jesus chose a place of ‘worship’ (John 4:16) to proclaim freedom for the oppressed and release for the prisoner (John 4:18).
But for me, there is another important issue here in addition to how ‘worship’ and ‘justice come so close together. Such an understanding of the invitation to ‘worship’ being an invitation to restore human-ness also helps clear the way for a greater diversity in expressions of our gathered ‘worship’.
One of the areas that I have found unhelpful, possibly even damaging, is the way some parts of our modern worship culture have developed to the place where it is assumed that to ‘worship’ properly means ever increasing levels of exuberance. All of this has its place. I understand that. However, expressions of our human-ness also include crying, questioning, grieving lamenting. And if an invitation to ‘worship’ is an invitation to re-establishing our true humanity, then our gathered ‘worship’ should be brave enough to allow a wider expression of humanness than just celebration.
Surely one of the most releasing things for our congregations is to know that their tears in our gatherings are not to be despised as a sign of weak worship, or their hushed silent grief is not a sign that they are failing to ‘step into the victory’. Rather both are just as much a a sign of their humanity, a necessary expression of their ‘worship’ as the dancing on the dance floor.
In fact I have to say that in some cases the insistence that worship = dancing, shouting and jumping has actually at times exhausted me. And I think it has exhausted me, not just because I am now part of the over 50’s club, but because it doesn’t reflect what it means to be human and express my true human-ness. In fact I think it can even be damaging to present this myopic view of worship to our congregations, abusive rather than liberating.
So here’s the thing. It’s quite inspiring, isn’t it, for those of us who call ourselves ‘worship leaders’ to know this? To know that when we stand up at the start of our Sunday gatherings and say ‘let’s stand and sing’ we are in many ways not only inviting our congregations to proclaim God as King, but to embrace their own journey of re-humanisation. How inspiring to then have the breathtaking joy of seeing people’s true humanity being restored before our very eyes.
