Sermons

Sun, Aug 23, 2020

True worship

Series:Sermons
Duration:13 mins 37 secs

This week, the CEO of Qantas announced a record financial loss for the airline…

and…

in the process… 

bemoaned the border closures between the states.

That complaint has been echoed by other leaders of the travel and tourism industries in recent days.

And, while those industries and their employees are suffering significantly…

it’s not as simple as they suggest.

Border closures have been important.

To be honest, it’s one of the reasons that I feel fairly confident coming here on a Sunday morning…

and going to the supermarket on my way home;

and why I’ll feel comfortable going to swim laps tomorrow morning…

in a way that I wouldn’t if I lived in Melbourne…

or even Sydney.

At the same time, I don’t necessarily trust industry leaders––

or business owners––

to do the right thing by us all.

As much as they claim to be concerned with health and safety…

I doubt that’s their first and primary concern.

In an article this week… 

the journalist Laura Tingle pointed out that the travel industries have yet to undergo a major rethink.

In many respects, their response needs to be similar to what happened around travel and security following 9/11.

Everything has to be rethought.

“The same has to happen now with health concerns. It’s not just ensuring passengers can be reasonably confident about getting on planes, but making sure airports are reconfigured for health safety as well as security, and on to everything that is involved in the introduction of new people into different environments at minimal risk”.

As yet, there is no detailed, comprehensive, technical plan…

involving health authorities…

governments…

airlines and airports…

that seeks to address all of the concerns.

And, until there is––

and until he makes a constructive contribution to it––

Alan Joyce from Qantas can bleat all he likes.

I, for one, won’t be rushing to hop back onto one of his planes.

 

In public life…

the gulf between rhetoric and reality can often be enormous.

It’s one of the issues that has eroded trust in politicians…

and the whole political process.

And that trust isn’t going to be restored until there’s a fundamental change in perception and attitude…

in values and priorities.

There needs to be a fundamental re-connect between rhetoric and reality…

between attitude and action.

 

But that’s also true religiously-speaking.

Paul makes a similar point in this morning’s reading from his letter to the Romans.

Assuming everything that he has said thus far in the letter––

about God’s mercy and grace…

about God’s impartiality and love…

about God’s faithfulness and compassion––

Paul exhorts them:

“I appeal to you, therefore…to present your bodies as a living sacrifice…to God”.

Our response to God is only fitting…

holy…

reasonable…

if it involves the whole of our beings––

which is what Paul means by “body” here.

That includes our logic, our reasoning, and our learning.

But it also includes our attitudes…

our values…

our priorities…

and our actions.

It means connecting the rhetoric and the reality of our lives…

and living what we profess.

And that, Paul suggests, is what constitutes our worship.

Worship, then, is not what we do on a Sunday morning.

It’s what we do throughout the whole week…

and, even more than that, it’s who we are…

and it’s how we live.

We are called to make our life our worship––

our response to God.

Thus, Paul continues his exhortation:

“Do not be conformed to this world”.

By that, he means don’t be constrained by the limitations of culture…

or tradition…

or ideology… 

or religion… 

or simply what is accepted as a ‘given’.

Rather, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds”.

Within his world and his culture…

the ‘mind’ was not understood in the same way as it is for us.

They didn’t think of the ‘mind’ as the seat of rational or logical thought.

Rather, for them, the ‘mind’ was the seat of the volition 

or the will.

So, when Paul exhorts them, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds”

he’s exhorting them to be open to having their motivations…

their values…

their priorities…

their behaviour and way of life…

transformed.

And, of course, he means adopting motivations…

values…

priorities…

behaviours…

and ways of life…

that are fully compatible with––

and that fully reflect––

the motivations, values, priorities, and behaviours of God…

as revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

We are, therefore, called at all times to a life of love and compassion…

of mercy and acceptance…

of inclusion and grace…

and of justice and peace.

These are not meant to be the things to which we aspire.

These are not just to be our ideals…

or our values…

or our attitudes…

or our intentions.

These are meant to characterise our actions and our very way of life––

both individually and collectively.

According to Paul, there can be no disconnect between rhetoric and reality.

As such, we are called–– 

at all times, and in all ways––

to reassess our beliefs…

our values…

our attitudes…

our motives…

our ideologies…

our allegiances…

our structures…

our actions…

our way of life––

by asking, ‘How do they manifest and reflect the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ?’

 

How does locking up vulnerable, hurting people––

in inhumane conditions…

depriving them of adequate health care and education…

knowing that it will leave long-lasting psychological scars––

gel with the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ?

 

How can allowing indigenous people to exist in grinding poverty and preventable disease…

to face disproportionate incarceration…

and to endure the dehumanisation of structural racism…

gel with the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ?

 

How can demonising young, unemployed people…

and demanding that they meet unattainable expectations…

in order to get a pitiable handout…

especially when there are not enough jobs in the first place…

gel with the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ?

 

How can racially profiling Middle-eastern Muslims…

implying that they are––

or might become––

potential terrorists…

and treating them as such…

gel with the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ?

 

How can actions that preferentially impact the poor and marginal…

while largely sparing the well-off and well-to-do…

gel with the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ?

 

How can societal attitudes that discriminate against women… 

the aged… 

the mentally ill…

or those of different ethnicities or sexualities…

gel with the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ?

 

Paul’s reply would seem to be that our response to God––

indeed, our worship––

is only complete when we…

as God’s people…

work to change these unfortunate realities…

through changing our attitudes and actions…

and our acquiescence.

Martin Luther King jr once claimed…

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a non-conforming minority”.

As followers of Christ…

that is our calling.

We are called to be creatively maladjusted non-conformists.

That––

and only that––

is our fitting response to God.

That is the true meaning of ‘worship’;

and that is what it truly means to worship.

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