Aromatherapy

The power of the nose! Some say we can differentiate between 10,000 odors -- so distinct are the sensory capacities to isolate specific odors. If perfumers are any indicator, the industry for smell-production is astronomical. It is interesting to note that most of the early perfumers were doing their best to mask odors due to limited soap and water resources. Nonetheless, smell is in…even in theological circles. There is strong encouragement that our sensory experiences have gone lacking and that worship should incorporate more of our capacities to attach meaning and memory to the smell of our worship.

Yes, there are those wonderful odorous memories, perhaps far removed from the ancient sacrifices and incense burning…but they are a part of the memory of worship…that electric light bulb burning smell from too many lights on the sanctuary Christmas decorations and the wiring starting to overheat. Then there is the smell of the burning carpet when the candle wax dripped too fast under the air-conditioning duct. There is of course the smell of that dear older lady who offers sweet smelling hugs to everyone who comes within her arms reach. And there is that smell of the new Sunday School quarterlies that makes you sneeze sometimes. Then there is the smell of the Easter lilies that causes the preacher’s eyes to water and the smell of the baptistery when it heats up with warmed baptismal water. There is the smell of the grape juice at the Lord’s Supper and the smell of the hymnbooks (when they are new). There is the smell of the choir robe that has been worn too many times between dry cleanings. There is the smell of hair burning when someone gets too close to someone else during the candlelight service. Yes, the smells of worship and the church continue to remind us of wonderful and memorable times of worship.

And then there is the smell of welcome, and the smell of praise, and the smell of laughter and love and hope. There is the smell that is the sweet fragrance of mercy and grace and good news. There is the smell of time standing still in the awareness of the holy presence of God. There is the smell of a dream and a revelation, a truth and a promise. There is the smell of God with us and the smell of testimony and witness and life abundant. These smells are there too in this gathering we call church. And indeed such smells are healing and life-giving and glorious.

An Educated Faithful?

Paul’s admonished Timothy to “study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Tim. 2:15. It seems that there is a growing call for religious people to come out of their state of ignorance regarding the scriptures and the major religious traditions of the world and to aspire to a greater understanding of holy texts and its content.

A Boston University religious studies professor cites a quiz of his students regarding simple facts from general religious knowledge. He asked students to list the four Gospels, to name Roman Catholicism’s seven sacraments, and the Ten Commandments. He also asked them to name the holy book of Islam. Over the past two years fewer than 17% of his students could pass the quiz. He cites a Hindu student who could not name one Hindu scripture, a Baptist student that did not recognize “Blessed are the poor in spirit” as a bible quotation, and a Catholic student unfamiliar with the golden rule.

While many suggest there is a serious lack of cultural literacy in terms of knowledge, religious illiteracy is perhaps even greater and possibly more dangerous. When we make assumptions about religion from ignorance, we generate the possibilities of grave misunderstanding, serious misuse of religious texts, and ultimately a disaster in terms of application. If most American adults, as recent polls indicate cannot name even one of the four Gospels, we have a serious information gap to overcome. If we expect those who share in our culture to understand the meaning of much of the Bible and in fact they don’t, then vast aspects of communication are meaningless or grossly subject to misrepresentation. Religious ignorance plays havoc with public policy, ethics, law, and is linked to all types of general knowledge from literature, history, sociology, and science.

Interestingly, more and more thinkers of our time are suggesting we do a better job of teaching religion in public life. Attempts to be religiously neutral in public education have been misapplications of law against state mandated religious practices. Religion is a key element of our shared experience in every generation. To discount or neglect its study is to create gross ignorance that tragically affects our capacities for relationship on many levels. Religious literacy is well-advised for an educated people.
The capacities of our culture to derive meaning and to share experiences of faith through religious study will likely be documented, but to ignore religion is to ignore our minds necessity for responding to the human condition with the perspective of the divine that so addresses the needs of our time.

For Christians, perhaps we should remind ourselves that Christian devotion should include our minds engagement and our willingness to study and learn and teach. We should not forget the reminders of Jesus to instruct others in all the things he taught us. We have a new opportunity to relate biblical knowledge in a positive and influential way. Let’s encourage the possibilities, for the sake of world that needs to know who Jesus is.

Worship

Whether or not we ever understand the reason for worship, the human spirit craves the gift of Otherness and the capacity to find in transcendent relationship the center for life and understanding of our purpose. For myself, I find that best fulfilled in the Christian tradition of faith and practice in relationship to God. The context for my worship lies in a commitment to the enterprise of knowing God, not in universal capacities to humanize the divine, but in the awareness of divine initiative toward me. That initiative has been transforming, life-changing, and indeed personal. God has entered into my history with His story. In doing so, He has helped me to define and understand my story.

Worship is response. It is the response to truth revealed. It is the response to love made intimate in the personality of Christ. It is response to the experience of grace and forgiveness. It is a respect and an attitude. Worship is a confessing heart, open to God, seeking and centered upon Christ’s way. Worship reflects our aims and intentions. It defines our obedience and our struggles with sin. Worship takes form and shape first in the heart and mind of the believer. Public or private, our worship focus requires the spirit of truth in relating honestly and openly to God. Worship is sharing as well. Worship is sharing witness to trust and giving testimony to God’s actions and mighty works.

The church takes up the practice of worship as central to its form and substance. The worshipping church is the center-point for the Christian community’s definition of itself in modern times. At the same time, worship can be mistakenly preempted by a failure of the gathered community to engage in that aspect of personal as well as corporate participation in acknowledging and seeking God’s way.

Modern discussions regarding worship too often become wordplays upon gadgetry and modalities of participatory style. The “new thing” sought by God is the heart of faith, acting in trust and obedience toward the Almighty. Worship, as referenced in Romans 12:1-2, is a “presentation” of ourselves as “living sacrifices” unto God. The physical patterns of modalities attached to that proposition pale in significance to the key matters of conviction and trust.

In similar fashion, worship practices that carry marks of tradition associated with a wide variety of denominational and historical and geographic and cultural significance must knowingly acknowledge the basis for such “developments” in context and embrace them to the degree that they allow for communication to a people in need of a cultural translation of the gospel that faithfully calls for faith in ways that do not diminish or destroy the character and nature of divine revelation and the basis for taking such a message of good news to the world. As each of us experience and exercise our faith toward God –let us always remember that He is forever worthy of worship.

Donkeys and Crosses

Easter week is too often filled with a delirious mix of confusing imagery. These days we see Easter bunnies, Easter egg trees, and green plastic “basket” grass as the symbols of the season more frequently than we reflect on the cross and the open tomb.

It is hard for Sunday School teachers to crack open eggs and attempt to relate a connection to the empty tomb. Everyone wants something to be in their egg. Especially some form of something sweet. The trouble we have with Holy Week is the abandonment of the story of Christ’s passion in the first place. Easter Sunday gets all the hype to the neglect of the events that led up to it.

For some reason, I think it would do us well to get back to some of the other images of that week to remind ourselves where we probably fit in the most. When Jesus rode into town on that little donkey, it wasn’t the kind of entry many were supposing would come. Why isn’t Jesus mounted on a white horse?…that would seem to be far more appropriate in our minds. We want the symbol of battle, or power, or authority. Yet Jesus came on a donkey. I have a friend with one of those humble beasts. That donkey has two front legs that look knobby kneed and planted firmly side by side, with its rear legs planted slightly apart as if just waiting for the load it would so ably carry. I think of Jesus riding that donkey…Jesus, who would have his arms stretched wide to receive the nails in his hands and then his knees bent and turned to nail his feet together on a cross….there bearing such a load – the sins of the world. Donkeys may understand more about bearing such a load than we would ever begin to consider.

Crosses are not the subject of pleasantries…but the cross is the symbol of discipleship for those who will follow Jesus. It is a symbol of sacrifice and of hope and of forgiveness and of promise. And like many of those early disciples, when the cross came into view it was more a reason to run than to remain. Perhaps running away from the cross is still the pattern. Perhaps the idea of sacrifice is just a little too uncomfortable. But getting to the Resurrection we would do well not to bypass the humble reminders of service and humiliation, of sacrifice and dying. For in dying for us, Jesus made known the love of God in ways more powerful than any king or ruler’s army. Jesus died to save us. He laid down his life for us. And in the power of God’s glory, he took up that life again…to proclaim good news for all who will receive it and follow Him.