Worship, Love, Cosmic Significance, and Identity

 

I wonder how many of us understand the meaning of the word “worship”? Yes, worship certainly includes the element of praise but, to be more accurate, the meaning of worship means giving one its worth. In the case when we worship God, we are giving God His worth in the form of praise, admiration, acceptance and so on from our very inner being. This is perhaps perfectly expressed in this verse on a scene in heaven, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Rev 4.11).

By the same token, everyone worships, howbeit it is not always towards God but with disastrous consequences. This is the observation of David Foster Wallace who is known as one of the most important writers of his generation. He said “… There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship [...] is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.”

Similarly, everyone seeks to have cosmic significance knowing that we would soon be forgotten as soon as we die. It is said that every American yearns to write a book. Why, you may ask? Simply, that this would leave a mark in the sands of time even when one is gone. This thought rekindles the memory of my PhD supervisor who shared with me how he relished looking at his first published book being shelved among other books as he walked up and down the aisle in the library. This is precisely one of the theses of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death, by Ernest Backer. In his book, he argues that “the fear of death and meaninglessness and a self-deluding denial of mortality”, leads many to build their identities on “immortality systems”. He refers to such “immortality systems” that seem to provide enduring meaning, such as one’s nation, race, the truth of science and so on.

So, you may ask why does everyone worship something, though most in an inordinate way? Why does everyone desire to have cosmic significance and therefore seek to build an identity on something permanent? In fact, one can say that the desire for worship albeit in an inordinate form and the identity that desires cosmic significance are two sides of the same coin for everyone, the former being an outward manifestation stemming from the inward adherence of the latter. These two aspects can perhaps be traced to the fact that we are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26) and this leads to two things. Firstly, we retain the knowledge of God though suppressed and distorted by sin leading to inordinate love or idolatry, always wanting to be approved and secondly, God has put eternity in our hearts (Eccl 3:11,14). In other words, we have a capacity for eternal things (Eccl 3:14) of cosmic significance. The many things that people love and worship such as money, health, career, family, building an identity erroneously on them, are good things by themselves. It became inordinate or disordered love, as one preacher puts it, “when we make a good thing into an ultimate thing.” Put simply, we love the things of God, rather than God Himself. We therefore create an identity on the things of God rather than on God himself. As one 19^th century Danish author puts it, “the essence of sin is building an identity without God”, leading to the breaking of the commandments.

So, you may ask, what is the above rambling all about? We come now to application. Perhaps we can divide the world population into three Groups of people. The Irreligious, the Religious and the Christians. Perhaps we can subsume the Irreligious into the Religious based on the fact everyone worships something. If so, the question we need to ask ourselves is which group do we belong to? Do we belong to the Religious group or are we the Children of God? The challenge is that your heart may be morally restrained, you may come to church every Sunday, partake the Lord’s supper, keep the 10 commandments outwardly?  but your heart is not spiritually transformed. In fact, you are secretly building an identity based on your wealth, your vocation, your abilities, your family, and it is difficult for those around you to detect and tell you. But when a storm descends on your life, your “Christian” profession will implode! We see this happening in many professing Christians over the years, even for men in the ministry who left the ministry and even their families at the same time when they faced certain storms in their lives. So, the crucial question is what motivates you to wake up in the morning? Is it the love for God’s kingdom? Are you transformed by the Grace of God; are you consumed by the love of God as you meditate on His love in the abandonment of His beloved Son at Calvary for you so that you will never be abandoned even when “all the suns and Nebulae” have passed away? Are you still trying to be a Christian? When you can be a child of God by faith? Or is your knowledge of God being only in concepts? and your life is purely motivated by duty instead of love for Christ? You are what you worship. When you inwardly worship a lie, you will become a liar and there will be no end to your sorrow.

“Because you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.”

St. Augustine, Confessions

Amen.