Emergence

I use to think that worship was something you did on Sunday morning. Now I realize that worship is not just an emotional directive, but a progressive conscious act. What I mean is that worship is giving value, worth to something you deem as great — to regard with ardent or adoring esteem or devotion. And here is the kicker, everybody worships. The issue is what exactly are you worshiping? Or put another way, what are the idols in your life?

In religious contexts, worship is directed towards a deity, but we make the mistake of privatizing the idea of worship in some kind of  ‘holy’ context. What happens when we value something to such great heights that it consumes us, empowers our thoughts, and guides our actions?

Have you ever wanted something so bad that you felt that having it would fulfill you as a person. I recall times when I needed a particular gadget. I would spend my time researching it; I would go to electronic stores to handle it; and even if I would convince myself that I didn’t need it, there would be this nagging feeling for a while; consuming my every thought. For those moments, that gadget (which I didn’t own yet) would be the most important thing in my life. I wasn’t completely happy until I owned it, then of course something else would take it’s place after I did own it.

Of course desiring and buying products is not the problem, but when they become the thing that gives you identity, where you must have them to be content, then they have dominion over you. My point is that if you remove the religious context, this form of addiction is still a kind of worship.

The irony in many ways is that when you gaze in awe at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship.

“Those who worship money, become eventually, human calculating machines. Those who worship sex become obsessed with their own attractiveness or prowess. Those who worship power become more and more ruthless.”
– N.T. Wright

The paradox of Jesus’ teaching is that losing the things that consume us redirects our path. So, serving people for the sake of serving people, makes one relationally rich. Giving your money away makes one richer in a different more important sense; losing oneself is the way to find oneself. If we remove the idols from empowering us, we are redirected to the one who truly deserves worship.

As N.T. Wright says, when we gaze upon the one who created us, we become more of what we were meant to be, we become truly human.