Amos 5:21-24, Matthew 9:13

Tim Lucas considers what true worship looks like.

Tim Lucas

At the heart of the Israelite faith was the making of a sacrifice in worship to God. This was not a simple case of killing an animal, placing it on an altar and setting fire to it, but there were conditions of how to carry out these sacrifices - correct and incorrect ways to conduct them, as written down in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. A large aspect of them included burning meat, blood and fat, which creates a very pungent smell, the kind of smell we would call disgusting. But God says that when this smell reaches Him, it will be sweet smelling.

Yet in Amos 5 God also calls these sacrifices disgusting, not because He had changed His mind on His favourite smells, but because the people had come to rely on the sacrifices so much that they had actually missed the heart of God. They had neglected those in their society who needed the most care, thinking that meeting together in the temple was better than lifting people out of oppression and pain. At the end of Amos we read that God calls for rivers of justice and never-ending streams of righteousness to flow. Hosea put it another way: that acknowledging God is better than burnt offerings.

Jesus gives us the best way of how to acknowledge God, and we acknowledge God in being like Jesus. In the life of Jesus we find that God is to be found in the most broken and hurting people, in those who are social outcasts and marginalised in society; that God dwells in the slums and ghettos. In other words, if you want to acknowledge God, it is in loving that which seems most unlovable. When the whole picture of sacrificial conditions and God's attitude towards the sacrifices and lives of His people is taken into account, we find a good litmus test: if it seems nice and pleasant to us, there is a danger that we will miss God, but if it has a potent stench, there we will find and acknowledge God.

True worship is meant to cost us something. It is not easy to love unlovable people; it is not easy to spend our lives for people who will never say thank you; it is not easy to stand up for oppressed people in a society that sees things another way; it is not easy to come out of the warm comfort of our church buildings into the very heart of a broken, difficult and underprivileged community. I suppose it wasn't easy to stand there in front of the altar with blood, fat and meat burning together though, pretending it was a sweet smell; and I have a strong suspicion that it wasn't easy to hang around with social outcasts, only to get punched, whipped, mocked, beaten, made to carry a lump of wood, nailed to it, laughed at and killed. Worship is not meant to be easy, it is meant to be real, raw, human and pure. That is what we are meant to bring before God, and that is where we will find Him.

Sometimes we have to question the things we call worship, and whether they are bringing us closer or further away from God. My church recently received a sermon from a guest speaker, a vicar in the local community, who put it so well. She said, "We have spent so long in churches listening to great speakers and singing our favourite songs in the modern style that we have missed the cry of those among us who are desperate for mercy."

True worship is giving our lives for the poor, broken, weak, outcast, marginalised, lost, hurting and dying people around us. It will have a potent stench, it will not be nice and pleasant for us; but there we will find God and there we will acknowledge Him.