The Heart of Worship (isn't us)

Leave yourself at the door.

"You have turned my mourning into dancing. You have removed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, to this end: that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto You forever." Ps. 30:11-12

It is the goodness of God in all its facets that drives our worship and nothing else. We do not worship out of fear, either of His power or His wrath, His great strength or His great fury. We do not worship out of duty, following the formalities and commands of maxims and generations. And we do not worship a mercenary goodness, one we must continually purchase or be cut off. Other gods have demanded worship out of fear, duty, or bribery, but our God is not shallow like them. He is greater than they, and our worship is substanced with greater things, i.e., true love and joy coming in response to eternal, fundamental Goodness that comes without a price (Is. 55:1-3).

Gasp! Not about me?

This is a radical notion of worship, not only because it smashes the legalistic and pagan view of worship by fear or duty or bribery, but also because it smashes the sentimentalist view that worship is centered on us: our sincerity, our emotions, our needs. Such things do play a part, but only as fruit plays a part in a tree. They are not the center, just as we are not the center. Worship is not a subjective experience. It is our subjective response to our subjective experience of the objective reality that is God and His goodness towards us. Our emotional fervor, in any degree, is not the point of worship but rather a natural effect of the real point: the contemplation and comprehension (however slight) of God and His goodness. Without that objective center to fixate our subjective minds and hearts, worship becomes an empty, narcissistic affair, a chorus of clanging gongs and crashing cymbals.

Common sense. And physics.

It is objective reality that creates worship. It is truth that creates wonder and awe. I cannot stress this point enough. Our generation has bought the lie that wonder comes from ignorance, and thus objective, absolute truth must be doubted into oblivion. It is a tragic, evil thing because we are left twisting in the wind without waypoint or guide, and eventually our wonder will dissolve into confusion, frustration, and despair. Only fixed truth creates wonder. Only objective reality creates worship. It is the strong anchor point that allows a kite to fly. It is a strong, gripping root system that allows a tree to grow so tall and flourish so brightly. That is common sense, a common sense we abandon the instant we talk about the most important thing: God.

The road to modern "worship."

My generation has been deceived. We think we worship in the dark because it is dark, but that is a lie. We worship in the light because it is light. There may be blindness in both cases (for you may be blinded by an excess of light as well as an absence), but in the case of light we are blinded by something. In the dark we are blinded by nothing. That difference, so simple and obvious, makes all the difference in the world, both in worship itself and life in general. Is there really something there to which you respond? Or is it just you, alone in the dark, with no way of knowing what's really out there? Your answer will literally shape your world, either into a world of glorious light creating awe and worship, or a world of smothering dark creating doubt and fear, and breeding unbelief.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Deliberate (Isaiah's Doxology, Part III)

"He has clothed me...He has covered me...as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Is. 61:10-11

The source of Isaiah's joy is not just that God's deliverance is absolute and total but also that it is neither arbitrary nor random. This is the meaning behind the next set of metaphors. Isaiah says that God has completely covered His people in deliverance and justification just like "a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments" and "a bride adorns herself with her jewels." The Hebrew words here are very interesting. "Decks" does mean "to dress," but it has specific religious connotations. The word literally means "to meditate," and thus is often used to mean "to dress as a priest for a religious service." The image is of purpose and function: you do not dress this way for just any reason or any day. There is a specific reason: it's your wedding day, or it's your turn to fulfill the priestly office. This is why the word means "to meditate": you do not meditate on the air or nothingness or anything that you want. Rather, you become focused, amassing all of your concentration on one thing. There is a purpose and function to what you're doing. Likewise, there is a purpose and function to God's deliverance and justification.

It's a Jared.

A bride adorns herself with "jewels," which in Hebrew means "something prepared or prearranged." The idea is not just of jewels but jewelry, i.e., not separate gemstones placed anywhere in any which way, but rather arranged in a pattern that matches and sequences color and size and shape into a single item whose parts enhance the whole. It is rich with purpose. Finding a lone jewel on the ground somewhere suggest no purpose, but finding them prearranged into jewelry does. There is a purpose and function; the thing is meant for a specific reason. In fact, the Hebrew word for "jewels" literally means any prepared or prearranged thing---the armor and weapons of a soldier or the luggage and bags of a traveler. The idea is the same: the prearrangement is all part of a larger plan and purpose (whether to make the bride more beautiful, the soldier more dangerous, or the traveler more prepared). So too is the deliverance and justification of God's people.

"That was deliberate!"

God does not cloth His people in salvation and righteousness, does not envelope them and hide them in deliverance and justification, just because. Redemption is not random. The Messiah did not set captives free on a whim, abandoning them right after the rescue. It is all deliberate, with a two-fold reason given at the beginning of the chapter: (1) "that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified," and (2) "they shall build the wastes of old, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities" (vs. 3-4). Herein is the double-barreled purpose for those who belong to God: that God would be glorified in their redemption and that they would continue the work started by the Messiah. The first speaks to their identity and ultimate purpose. The second speaks to their activity and immediate purpose. Both are interconnected, one leading to the other.

The identity of one who belongs to God is one who has been swallowed up in deliverance and justification. Where once they were captives to sin, they now belong to God, and the transaction itself is glorious to God who wrought it. Now, our identity is the foundation of our activity. Who we are determines what we do. This is why identity is so vital to people (especially today when identity is a nebulous beast at best). Until we know who we are, our meaning is lost to us: we don't know why we're here or what we're meant to do. For most people, the best they can do is make a half-educated, half-guessed approximation and hope for the best. The identity of God's people, however, is not a guess on their part but a calling on His (Rom. 8:28-30). They are "called" the "trees" and "planting" of God, called to be absolutely God's---planted, watered, tended.

This identity is not something we make for ourselves. It is something we are made by God, and there is the ground for glorifying God: we are the work of His hands, not our own. Any strength we have, any good we do, any purpose we find all comes from the life we've been given by Him. That is our ultimate purpose, viz., to let all that we do be an act if worship to the one who made us His own. Worship is to be our life, because we are God's and God is ours.

What that life of worship looks like leads us to the activity of those who belong to God: praise is to be the permanent pulse of their existence. But there is more to praise than singing and music. It is not less than that, but it is more. The way they worship is to continue on the work of the Messiah, the work of redemption, the "ministry of reconciliation" begun by Him (II Cor. 5:18-19). It is what Jesus meant when He called His own "salt" and "light" (Matt. 5:13-16): they savor and preserve all things with goodness and beauty and truth, and bear bright witness to God's goodness and beauty and truth. Men will see their works and glorify their Father who is in heaven.

"It's simple, really."

This is the place of "good works" in the Christian Faith, and it is the solution to James' paradox (James 2:14-26). To say that "faith without works is dead" is to assume that activity springs from identity, and if your identity is one who belongs to God then your activity will necessarily be good works that glorify Him before men. If there is no activity, then there is no identity. If there are no works in any shape or form, then your faith is not real, i.e., it is "dead". Paul is saying the exact same thing when talks of the "fruits if the Spirit" (Gal. 5:16-25): if we belong to God, if we are now the people of the living God (II Cor. 6:16) wherein His Spirit dwells (I Cor. 6:19-20), then there will necessarily be certain results, certain quantifiable ways of worship. If there are none, then you do not belong to God. It is that simple, that practical.

Only star-gazers change the world.

Everybody seems to miss the practical side of our doctrines, which is not how it should be. Christianity is practical mysticism, i.e., its divine realities are meant to be practical realities. Its word is to be made flesh. To belong to God, to be wrapped up safe and snug inside of His deliverance and justification, is not to become some airy abstraction. On the contrary, it has purpose and function, identity and activity, just as a bride and groom prepare for their wedding day, or as a priest prepares for his duties. You would not see a groom in his glory, dressed in his finest and surrounded by his "best men," and accuse him of impractical abstractionism. You would not look upon the bride in her beauty, in shining white and sparkling jewels arranged in perfect accentuation, and dismiss her as a hopeless day-dreamer whose actions have no function. You would not (though some might dare) consider a priest, dressed in his robes and rushing towards the church with bible and books in hand and glasses tilted down his nose, and say that his garb and gestures served no purpose. There is a purpose, whether you like it or not.

It is the same with those who belong to God, who have been buried deep into salvation and righteousness. They have been bought with a price and decked out for a purpose so that they might glorify God in their body and in their spirit, which our God's.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Into Thy Calm (a fragmentary liturgy)

 
[folio begins]

...seek the Lord while He may be found.

Call upon Him while He is near.

Let the wicked forsake his ways,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts.

Let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him,

And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

And do not return there but water the earth

Making it bring forth and sprout,

Giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth:

It shall not return to me empty-handed,

But it shall accomplish that which I purpose

And shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out in joy

And be lead forth in peace.

The mountains and the hills before you

Shall break forth into singing,

And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands...

[folio breaks off]

 

[manuscript begins]

...so if I had one chance to tell you something, then I would tell you that it is all true. Everything. Everything that God has purposed. It is all true, all real, all happening and going to happen. Even the wildest, craziest promise is going to happen. You will go through the dark night and walk into the sun of a far, green country. You will walk into it with joy, led forth with peace, and all the mountains and hills and trees will break forth into singing, and everything sad will be made untrue, and everything wicked will be unmade, and we shall all be remade and are being remade in every moment and every inch of our lives. You who are the children of God: right where you are, wherever you are sitting are standing, you are caught up into the whirlwind of God's will, a wind blowing in one unstoppable direction, towards an end that will be the beginning of all your deepest desires and the resurrection of all good things in a splendor so thick and sweet that your soul will drown in light inaccessible, joy indescribable, and peace passing beyond the smallness of your thoughts and dreams and...

[manuscript breaks off]

[manuscript begins]

...by now the thing must have passed together out of the region of sight as we understand it. For he says that the whole solid figure of these enamored and inter-inanimated circlings was suddenly revealed as the mere superficies of a far vaster pattern in four dimensions, and that figure was the boundary of yet others in other worlds: till suddenly---as the movement grew yet swifter, the interweaving yet more ecstatic, the relevance of all to all yet more intense, as dimension was added to dimension and that part of him which could reason and remember was dropped farther and farther behind that part of him which saw---even this, at the zenith of complexity, complexity itself was eaten up and faded, as a thin white cloud fades into the hard blue burning of the sky, and a simplicity beyond all comprehension, ancient and young as spring, illimitable, pellucid, drew him with cords of infinite desire into its own stillness. He went up into such a quietness, a privacy, and a freshness that at the very moment when he stood farthest from our ordinary mode of being he had the sense of stripping off encumbrances and awakening from trance and coming to himself. With a gesture of relaxation, he looked about him...

[manuscript breaks off]

Selah. Amen. Again...

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (c) 2013

The New Idolatry (A Philosophy of Potatoes, Part IV)

"They have not known nor understood...and none considers in his heart...[that] he feeds on ashes...." Is. 44:18-20

All things their Creator bless. All things signify and point back to their Origin. Their beauties suggest His Beauty. Their wonders speak to His Wonder. The summation of their good and incredible qualities serve as hints and clues to His Fountainhead of Incredible Goodness. Of course, this signification between creature and Creator has been damaged by the Fall, but it has not been utterly disconnected. The visible world still manifests His invisible attributes (Rom. 1:20). The heavens still declare the glory of God (Ps. 19:1-4), still sing their songs to Him, even if they're currently singing off key. One day, harmonization will be restored, and the music will be mended and made new. Until then, all the strained signification of creature and creation have the charm of an amateur orchestra: imperfect and thus finally dissatisfying, yet delightful in its own way and while it last. On this side of final redemption (Rom. 8:19-21), we must condescend a little to Sister Earth. She is trying the best that she can.

Now, idolatry is simply to confuse the creature for the Creator, the sign for the Origin. To put it another way, we believe that the buck stops "here" rather than "there". In ancient times, it was a matter of taking physical objects and making gods our of them (a contradictory process, as Is. 44:13-17 demonstrates). Today, however, idolatry has gotten more sophisticated. God has been dissolved and dismembered in the inherent polytheistic nature of postmodernism: every man and woman is his or her own god and can declare God to be anything they want. Rather than believing in special revelation (God's personal disclosure of Himself to us), we believe in special relativism (our personal disclosure of our self onto God). It is classic idolatry because of its circuitous nature: the individual makes the god, which technically makes them god, so they worship themselves when worshiping their own creation (effectively making them both the idolater and the idol!).

What makes this new idolatry unique to today, however, is that the centripetal force of idolatry has maximized (or rather, minimized) itself, collapsing into an absolute narcissism. In other words, we have cut out the middleman. Our ancestors worshiped themselves through carved chunks of wood and stone and metal. We, on the other hand, being far more efficient, dispense entirely with the chunks and get right to worshiping ourselves, recognizing ourselves alone as God. Of course, we don't call it "idolatry". We call it "standing for my rights," "self-realization," "expressing myself," etc. Regardless of what newspeak we use to justify it, it is still nothing more than idolatry brought to its logical conclusion: we are God, and we will have no other gods before us.

The new idolatry is the very pulse of our culture, of our generation. You do not need to find it in ivory towers or art house cinemas. Turn on the news and listen to the stories and pundits. Read the threads and metas of the whole of social media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. Watch any sitcom, drama, or commercial on TV. The message is the same: we shall have no other gods before us. We shall do as we please, marry whom we please, have sex with whom we please, kill the inconvenient unborn as we please, do church as we please, do government as we please, and create a "God" who will unquestionably endorse all that we please. The pagans of antiquity will be our judges in the last day, for though they worshiped idols, they worshiped out of ignorance, truly believing that those idols they made with their own hands represented things bigger and greater than themselves. But for us, there is nothing bigger or greater than ourselves. The ancients made idols, but we are our own idols. They worshiped Moloch; we are Moloch, the ravenous, diabolical hunger, the living mouth and bottomless stomach that consumes all for itself alone, even to the point of consuming itself alone.

Naturally, we will starve in the end, for God alone is Substance and Fullness. All else besides Him is shadows and dust without Him. To feed on His bread and taste His wine is to find the true sustenance of the soul. To reject His feast is to feed on ashes, and can anything truer be said of our culture and generation than that it has glut itself on Nothingness?

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Homily 47: For the Love of God (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"I have formed this people for Myself; they shall show forth my praise." Is. 43:21

The universe dances for the love of God, and by the love of God, for by the love of God were all things created, flying forth from the bounteous, rapturous joy of His Being like light from the sun, like sparks from the furnace, like foam from the sea. We were built from love and for love: from the love of God most glorious so that we may love God most glorious and all His glorious creatures. This is the true way of worship: not in words or song or dance but love, love that is not less than and yet is greater than all expression. True, our halting metaphors are ever-inadequate to pronounce our great purpose, yet we cannot help ourselves. We must sing, we must say, we must do, for the aching desire will not leave us be. Our bones burn until we prophesy the love of God to us, to all, to every one and thing.

Herein is love: not that we created ourselves, but that God created us, and recreated us. He is in the old things and the new things, and newer and newer things still, renewed in deeper and starker shades of glory and grace. There is no bottom to Him, and yet there is no bottom without Him. The dark is endless, the void deep where His love is not, where all things are not. Outside of His love is No-thing, and those who turn to its noths will feel the burn of endless exile, rejection by and of the summit of all light and desire. Who are we to neglect so great a salvation?  If we would be perfect as God is perfect, holy as He is holy, then we should abide by the summation of his commandments and law: love God, and necessarily love others (Matt. 22:37-40; Gal. 5:14).

But we are evil creatures indeed, for no one seeks after holiness, after righteousness, after God. No one seeks the way of worship, no not one. We have all of us turned astray, to our own way. Falling deeper and deeper into the abyss of our own isolation, our terrible loneliness, hard-won by our own spite and hell-born ignorance. God above, most brilliant and profoundest Being of the Deep Light, cleave our minds with Your truth, our selves with Your Selves. Strike us with Your love, your wild and reckless love; like a flash and crash of lightning against a dead tree, make your mark against our bark and spark the fire that burns towards Heaven once again. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Live Out Loud (practical Christianity as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your husbands.... Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with your wives with understanding, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel.... Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one for another. Love each other as brethren...."

I Pet. 3:1, 7, 8

So far, Peter has laid down and unpacked the precedent that we are those who are different and therefore we should be different. We should live differently in this world; not because we have to, but because it is who we are. The only question now is what exactly this different living looks like. Anticipating this, Peter gives three examples that help us flesh out what it means to live differently. (NOTE: The two uses of "Likewise" and the use of "Finally" show that these examples are all a part of the same flow of thought from chapter 2.)

The first example is the submission of wives to their husbands' role as familial head, a very unpopular notion in our egalitarian-to-a-fault and hyper-individualistic democracy. What is interesting, however, is that the same idea was unpopular to Peter's readers as well. Peter was writing to believers living in Rome, and there was no other place in the ancient world that epitomized the same over-bloated egalitarianism and individualism of modern America. Case in point: Rome was home to the cults of Artemis, Isis, and Dionysus, all of which encouraged a wild and raucous lifestyle for women (think "Girls Gone Wild," Ancient Rome edition). Thus, the believers that Peter was addressing lived in a culture that was absolutely saturated in sex and a desire to act-out in every immoral way imaginable. (Does that sound familiar?)

In order to counter this culture of degradation, in order to live differently, Peter commands the Christian women to "be in subjection" to their husbands. How, exactly? By their "chaste manner of living" coming from the fear of God, who is above all husbands (vs. 2). The idea is that the Christian wives let their husbands (who were most likely unbelievers in this case) know that they were different, that they feared God and God alone by living a chaste life, full of a "meek and quiet spirit" (vs. 4). Such a life would sharply contrast (and thus completely counter) the Godless culture surrounding them, and such a life would show that they were not like everyone else. They had been made different by God.

The second example is for husbands to understand and honor their wives. This is an interesting pair of admonitions for two reasons. First, to "honor" a wife was an outrageous idea at the time. It is well known that the ancient world (in spite of their sexual cults) viewed women as lesser beings than men (and even as the property of men sometimes) precisely because they were the "weaker sex". Peter, however, turns the whole thing on its head: you honor your wife because she is the "weaker vessel" (i.e., physically weaker). To the ancient Roman culture, that logic made no sense; but to those who are different, it makes perfect sense. This is where the "understanding" part comes in. Peter tells husbands to live with their wives "with understanding". This understanding was not just an understanding of their subjective personalities as human beings but also their objective reality as a believer, i.e., "being heirs together of the grace of life" (vs. 7). That was the "understanding" that they were to have, viz., although their wives are physically weaker, they are still the daughters of God and heirs of His salvation, and on that basis husbands were to honor them. That is how they lived differently.

The final example Peter gives is for all believers to love each other, a principle that he laid down before (2:17) and that was first stated by Christ when He explained to His disciples how the world would know that they were different (John 13:35). Their love for each other was not (and is never) based on mere sentiment or shallow toleration. Rather, it is a direct result of the love of Christ being shed abroad in our hearts by His death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 5:5-8). In short, we love each other for the same reason that husbands are to honor (and by extension, love) their wives: in Christ, we have all been made new, we have all been made different. And in that common difference, we love each other as heirs of the same salvation.

Perhaps now we will better understand a rather famous (and perhaps misunderstood) verse: "Always be ready to give an answer to every man that asks you for a reason for the hope that is within you" (I Pet. 3:15). A favorite verse of apologists (who are not entirely wrong for commandeering it), Peter actually has in mind something less specialized and more practical. We are to be ready to give an answer to "every man that asks" us about the hope within us. The question is: Why would they even ask? The answer should be obvious by now: they ask because they see that we are different. Our lives so sharply contrast with their own that they cannot help but ask what makes this contrast so. Herein we see that Christian living is not just a matter of holiness; it is also a matter of evangelism. Or to put it another way, holiness is evangelism. Christian living is not rule-keeping but a declaration, the main way that we "show forth the praises" of God. How we live is meant to be both our worship and our witnessing. Our life is the loudest voice that we have, and as those who are different we would do well to let it live out loud.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Homily 11: On Worship and Reality (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"O Come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. [...] For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods." Ps. 95:1, 3

Worship is a matter of reality, a matter of seeing things as they really are. Much of what passes for "worship" these days, however, is more about illusions than reality. We come asking that our "needs" be met, i.e., our tastes and wishes be satiated. That is not seeing things as they really are. It is not seeing things as they really are to demand that the king on his throne moves to your whims at your entrance. It is not seeing things as they are to demand of the roaring lion that he purrs at your pleasure. Likewise, it is not seeing things as they are to subject God to personal preference. God is as He is; He is as He has revealed Himself. No amount of subjectivism will ever change that.

This is not a question of being uncompassionate; this is a question of reality, i.e., what do you place at the center? Regardless of our good intentions, when once we place the "needs" of the people at the center of worship, we have made our "needs" the object of worship. Thus, worship transforms into self-worship, which is illusion and not reality. We must not forget that the one true need of the people is God. As Jesus told Martha that the needful thing was to sit at His feet and hear His words, so too the needful thing in worship is to sit at the feet of God and hear of the great works that He has done. There is no satisfaction, no "need" truly met, until God is the cornerstone of everything: our worship, our preaching, and our very lives.

-Jon Vowell (c)

False Dichtomies, Post-modern Hang-overs, and the Question of Worship (the musings of an orthodox rebel)

The following is a comment I left on a post over at my buddy Josh's blog. I suggest that you read his post as it presents a very interesting concept called the "Worship Tension Spectrum". My thoughts on that spectrum inform the following comment:

Every one of the concepts that you listed are all equally true. If that is the case, then we should take them all: our worship should be performed excellently and be participated in by the congregation, it should be attractive and disciplined, diverse and specific, spontaneous and traditional.

I think the problem here is that we create false dichotomies. Who says that excellence in performance necessitates specialists? Are not some of the greatest excellencies products of/for the people (e.g., Shakespeare wrote for the groundlings as well as the aristocracy, and Dickens was definitely a writer from and for the people)? I think we need to rethink what we mean by "excellence".

Who says that discipline is unattractive? If the object in your sights is of great value to you, does not that make every "effort" and "obedience" highly attractive (e.g., St. Francis called himself the "troubadour" of God, i.e., singing songs to His beloved in the shape of poverty and aestheticism)? I think we need to rethink what we mean by "obedience".

Who says that diversification and spontaneity necessarily negates doctrine and tradition? Who says that freedom necessarily negates rules? What freedom is there without rules? What adventure is there without some authority informing you on what is and is not right and wrong, dangerous and safe?

Just as you cannot play any game (even Calvinball) without settled and specific rules, so you cannot have true artistic spontaneity and freedom without (1) a clear grasp of the basics and (2) an adherence to some kind of tradition. We all draw from something, somewhere, even in our spontaneity. I think we need to rethink what we mean by "freedom".

I see all of this as the unfortunate hang-over of post-modernism: we set at odds things that were never meant to be at odds. We create unnecessary divorces. I think worship would be greatly improved if we would reevaluate the dichotomies and categories that we use to frame the debate.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

Homily 10: Signposts and Shadows (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken unto my voice, and Israel would have none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts, and they walked in their own counsels." Ps. 81:10-12

God will give you your heart's desire; and if you will not have Him, then you will have what is less than Him. If you will not have the vacation at the beach, then you will have the mud in the slums. There is nothing else. There is nothing higher than God. All else is a mere copy or shadow, a signpost meant to point to the Source. Woe unto you if you confuse the two! The instant that we take the shadow for the substance, divorcing the two, the shadow loses what life it had. It withers and dies like a flower plucked from the earth.

The things of this world are real, and their glory and beauty are real. However, their reality, glory, and beauty are all a product of and dependent on the Reality, Glory, and Beauty of God. They are sparks shed from His infinite flame, and what fire they have dies quickly. Thus, they can never satisfy, though many pitiful idols have been made out of their smoldering remains. They were never meant for worship; their purpose is to point to the true Object of worship. Like the moon reflects (and therefore implies) the sunlight, so too the things of existence reflect (and imply) the God who is there (Romans 1:19-20). They are to be enjoyed, but only because of what they reveal of God. Any other consideration (no matter how initially innocent) will lead us astray.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

Homily 8: On Worship and Faith as Products of Poverty (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"Let the people praise thee, O God. Let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our God, shall bless us." Ps. 67:5-6

This is not a matter of pettiness. God is not waiting for flattery before He offers help. Worship is not a matter of flattery; it is a matter of faith. Worship is (at bottom) the acknowledgment of and accounting for the presence, power, and promises of God in the immediate circumstances of your life. To have faith is to recognize God's place as the everlasting variable in the formula of existence, and worship is the same kind of recognition. This is why worship/faith produces blessings: not because they are the magic words that get God on your side; but because God's goodness is always available to His children, but only those who ask will receive (Matthew 7:7). I ask you: what can you receive from one whom you do not acknowledge? What gifts or grace can you accept from one whom you actively ignore? If you are walking along in your despondency, and a compassionate passerby offers you a gift, but you ignore him and subsequently his gift, then who is to blame? The question is never whether or not God is willing to be good to us. God is always willing. The real question is whether we want His help or not.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). Only the poor can receive, because they are completely aware of their need. Only the poor can believe, because they have no hope in themselves. The Christian life begins with an acknowledgment of our poverty and God's riches, and it continues along that same vein. Every household god or arm of flesh that we erect in place of God's bounty will be allowed to proceed so that it may collapse and reveal its impotence, reveal that there is no other rock except our God (Ps. 18:31). Only when we acknowledge our poverty outside of Him will we reach for the riches that He freely gives. Worship is faith. Faith is worship; and both are poverty. In both we acknowledge the utter weakness and crippling depravity of ourselves and the absolute strength and all-sufficient grace of God. May we believe so that we may receive what is always ours for the taking.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010