Our Invitation to Worship

I conducted a wedding a while back for some friends.  I arrive one hour before the wedding.  The wedding party beats me by about twenty minutes and the bride is no longer speaking to her mother.  It’s a long story and I don’t think I really know all of it, but what I do know is that when I walked through the door I have one of the saddest conversations of my life.   

The mother of the bride meets me and says, “May I talk to you in private?” 

I take her by the hand and sit her down.  I look at her intently and ask, “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t go through with this, Barrett.  I can’t be here.  I’m not upset with my daughter or at anyone else.  I’m upset with me.  Here I stand at my only daughter’s wedding and I’m with a man I met a month ago.  Her father hates me and I don’t look good in this dress.  I’m uncomfortable. I’m out of place.  I just want to go home.” And with tears in her eyes she cries, “I don’t want to walk down the aisle as if I deserve to be honored.” 

And honestly, I get it.  I know what’s it’s like to feel like you don’t belong. To feel as if your presence is unmerited or as if everyone around you knows what kind of person you are.  It’s terrifying.  This mother was completely and utterly broken.  She couldn’t be at the party, because she didn’t feel she belonged.

I imagine this is how the Israelites felt when singing Psalm 24.  They'd sing it as they walked up the Temple mount on their way to worship.  And in one of the opening lines they sing, “Who shall ascend this hill of the LORD?  Who shall stand in his holy place?”  In other words, I imagine the Israelites feel quite guilty, for they are about to parade down the aisle of the Temple as if they deserve to be there.  Yet everyone knows they don’t.  When you think of Psalm 24 this way, it makes worship kind of awkward.

And come to think of it, these rhetorical questions make worship awkward for me too.  Who am I to deserve to go before our God?  What have I done to receive such an honor?  Who am I to stand before congregations as God’s spokesperson?  If I’m truthful I’d admit that I don’t belong.  My sins, shortcomings, and inadequacies are too many and too great to merit a real worshipful experience.  

And to make matters worse, Psalm 24, in the very next line reminds me who makes the final cut to enter the temple.  It says, “Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.  They can enter the presence of God.” 

Well that puts me out.  I can’t name a day where I had truly clean hands or a pure heart. 

And I don’t think you can either.  

Yet here we sit.  We’re in the sanctuary and it’s awkward. We’re worshipping God, but we fail the litmus test.  We aren’t righteous.  We aren’t pure.  We’re sinners.  We’re marching down the aisle, but we haven’t been good enough people.  Good enough parents.  Good enough Christians.  This makes worship awkward.

This week in the news a Southern Baptist pastor was charged for a sexual misconduct crime.  He had hidden cameras stashed around particular women’s homes.  It’s terrible when you think about it.  But the truth is his outward expressions of sin are no worse than our delusional manifestations of our own piety or righteousness.  Maybe he’s the lucky one for everyone now knows he doesn’t deserve to worship God.  He doesn't deserve to walk down the aisle or be celebrated anymore for pastoring.  He’s lucky because he’s free from having to carry the burden of pretending to be pious or righteous.  He can now be the dark, wounded soul he’s always been—the unkempt and uncouth guy who doesn’t deserve to worship God in the temple. 

We’re the unlucky ones because we have to go on living as if life is a fairy tale knowing we too are all sinful, broken people living in a dark world hoping to find a light to illuminate our path.  We read Psalm 24 as if it’s a celebration; but in reality, it just a reminder of how unkempt and uncouth our worship really is.  We’re in this holy space, we’re sitting before God, yet it’s awkward; for we don’t belong here. 

Yet there’s good news. 

The good news is we’re not reading a Psalm that demands our lives to be perfect and our worship to be pure.  Psalm 24 isn’t sung by awesome, holy people.  The Israelites are just as flawed, just as human as we are.  They don’t all have clean hands or a pure heart.  Yet they get invited to worship anyway.

Psalm 24:6 says, “But such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.” 

That’s the answer.  God wants people who seek after him.

God’s not looking for us to be pious or proud – to weigh our lives based on the moments of righteousness against the moments of unrighteousness.  God’s looking for us to be on a journey; to seek after him -- to worship knowing we are broken, sinful people who need God’s light to illuminate our dark world.

This is the good news.  This is our invitation to worship (as well as for the mother of the bride, the former pastor and everyone else in the world).