The disease I wish to consider with you today we shall call the virus of serviceless worship. When God first stepped out heaven and came and visited with Man in the Garden of Eden, He chose the cool of the day when the work and the endeavors and activities of the day were over. Man, therefore, in his thinking separated association with deity and worship of God from the ideas of service and labor.
Perhaps it was because God did so much for man and man in turn could do so little for God. Perhaps it was because worship holds drama and is replete with ecstacies, whereas service is prosaic and unromantic, frequently menial, and not infrequently even distasteful. In any event, man in very early history separated in his thinking the idea of worship to God and service to man. I do not know the exact time of the first attack of the virus. I do know it was certainly early in the history of the race, for at the gate of the Garden of Eden, Cain did not connect in his mind the idea of worshiping God with the idea of responsibility for his brother.
God relates worship to service. Man relates worship to songs and prayers and incantations and offerings, but is inclined to divorce it from service. This is the deadly effect of the virus. It is the common course of the disease.
Not long ago I was in the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, and purchased a Japanese newspaper printed in English for the benefit of the English-speaking population. I turned to the editorial page and noted an article under the title "The Domain of the New Gods." I had observed many temples to many old and historic gods, and the idea of new gods in Japan intrigued me. From the pen and observation of the editor, I read the following:
"It is true that the great religions like Buddhism and Christianity ... in Japan are not close enough to the mass of the people. . . . The needs of the people are not purely religious in nature; their trouble may be medical or financial."
Perhaps this Japanese editor is a better diagnostician than even he realizes. Perhaps he put his finger on a Christian disease without knowing it—the disease of separating worship from service; and thus perhaps we have taken religion too far away from the needs of the mass.
It is interesting to contemplate just exactly how finite and mortal man attempts to worship God. Some worship God by taking off their hats and offering their prayer. Others put on their hats and offer their prayer. Others stand, while some in equal piety kneel down, and still others in equal sincerity and conviction prostrate themselves on the ground. Some feel that God is worshiped by facing the rising sun, while others in cloistered walls count beads, thinking that this is the true way of worship. Some in church feel that the appropriate manner to approach deity is to kneel toward the front of the church, toward the altar, while others are equally certain that God is not to be found in that manner—that such procedure is truly displeasing to divinity, and that the proper manner is to turn around and kneel the other way. To some, worship is the mental acceptance of specific doctrines, dogmas, and creeds. Others feel His presence best in the far reaches of song.
Perhaps all of these are forms of worship, if the humble heart is open to the echo of the still small voice; however, none of these is of necessity worship, unless the heart is reaching out for God. It is to be remembered that in all of these activities we define as worship no one can minister to God, but rather that all tend to minister to the worshiper; nor is there any service we can render to God; we cannot feed Him, clothe Him, nor supply His needs. Our worship, therefore, changes us more than it gives any benefit to God. God does, however, give us a higher, better way of serving Him, and He illustrated it for us in the life of His Son. It is by caring for the needs of our fellow men, by ministering to the necessities of those about us. God Himself spent His earthly life in service.
The highest compliment that can be paid is imitation. Perhaps the highest form of worship, therefore, is emulation of the deeds and acts and character of God, for God so loved the world that He gave His Son in service. He, therefore, worships his God best who serves his fellow men.
It is a symptom of the virus to relate worship only to songs and offerings, to incantations, to adorations, to mental assent to complex theological propositions with deep and undiscerned shades of meaning in Latin and Greek and Hebrew and Sanskrit, all of which perhaps are proper and probably helpful, only if rightly related to service to our fellow men. Divorced from service, they are but the beclouding smoke of forgotten burnt offerings.
Religion is a great Christmas package; the reason for this is that God gave it to us in the birth of His only begotten Son. Our doctrines are the strings that tie up the package and hold this together in orderly fashion. Our songs, our formularies, our rituals, are the beautiful ribbons that adorn the package and make it so attractive and so comely. Our offerings perhaps are meant to pay the postage, but the content of the package is service.
Those infected by the virus mistake the package for the content. They are prone to find religious satisfaction in the strings, the wrappings, the ribbons, and even in bearing a share of the postage, forgetting that all of them are the trimmings that cover up the content—service to our fellow men.
During World War II it was my privilege to be associated with the work in one of our medical institutions. Our boys and girls entered the service of the country and went to war, but the masses of population from which we ordinarily draw our workers were swept into factories and industries, and the hospital, unable to pay competitive wages, was short of help. The good women of the community responded to the needs of the hospital; the canteen corps and the Red Cross helped us every day in serving the trays to the sick. The Ladies Aid Society of the Methodist Church, the Baptist women, the ladies of the Catholic Charity Society made dressings and bandages that were life-savers to the hospital and to its clientele; and the ladies in our own church—yes, they met in regular meetings to offer prayer for the boys in the service, and their Dorcas Society engaged in the project of crocheting doilies to sell at a sale. This is not meant as a criticism of our good ladies. They were but suffering from a disease common to all mankind. It is so easy and so glamorous to serve needs far away and so human to overlook them right at hand. The difficulty was they were experiencing a little attack of the virus of serviceless worship.
If there is one lesson to learn from the total story of the life of Christ on earth, it is the unimportance of formality, of strings and ribbons, and the great importance of the content of the package—the worship of God by service to the needs of our fellow men.
The virus has struck again in our age. We are prone to assign our responsibilities for the welfare of others to the Red Cross and to the social service division of the Health and Welfare Department of the Government. Our donations and our tax payments have purchased for us the healing ointment that delivers us from a sense of personal responsibility for others. We vote stock by proxy; we engage a minister to preach and pray for us, and we worship by proxy; we buy a few subscriptions to the Signs of the Times and thus we do our share to warn the world of Christ's coming by proxy. We give to the Community Chest and to the Red Cross, ever mindful that all of these philanthropies are deductible in our income tax. And thus we serve the needs of our fellow men by proxy, and experience the benumbing virulence of the disease. But God cannot be worshiped by proxy.
A Spanish philosopher, a man of letters by the name of Unamuno, died in 1936. In one of his books he wrote the story of an ancient Roman aqueduct at Segovia, which probably dated from the time of Trajan. For 1800 years this aqueduct had carried the cool waters of the Rio Frio down from the high hills to quench the thirst of the city and the valley below. Some sixty generations drank of its bounty. Then came a new and modern generation, which said, "This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it should be preserved for our children's children. We will relieve it of its century old labors." Thus this new generation laid a new modern pipeline. They would give the old and venerated aqueduct a reverent rest. Lo and behold, the aqueduct began to fall apart. Built originally of rough-hewn granite blocks without lime or cement, the sediment of the centuries had formed a natural mortar, which, now dry, was exposed to the sun and crumbled and fell apart. What centuries of service could not destroy, brief years of idleness caused to disintegrate.
Herein is a lesson for us. We are saved by grace that immediately manifests itself in loving service. We are not saved alone by pious prayers and holy contemplations, by mental acceptance, by philanthropic generosities. This work will someday close. The hand of God that alone can reach out and pluck the lightning and roll back the thunder will unroll the heavens as a scroll, and through that open portal Christ will come again to earth. There will be a great division of mankind, and some will sing in ecstacy of joy. Others, all abashed, who thought they worshiped God in complex creed and pious songs and prayers, will fail to understand until God speaks and makes it plain. The great division of that day is not so much on fine philosophy and creed nor hidden meaning found in oblique texts, but rather on the motivations of the year. These finer motivations, faint auroras of the character of God, were implemented in loving unrequited service to our fellow men. This is true worship!
Three people once were seeking God, to see His
face, Yet did not have His address, nor the place Where He abode—that they might know His grace.
So one man went to church, and kneeling there With pious manner, and with head made bare, He sang an hymn, and offered up his prayer.
He took the Holy Book, and from its word With 'tentive ear the voice of God he heard, His heart was watered, and his soul was stirred.
The solemn chant, the litany, the sight
Of stained-glass windows, sifting holy light,
Brought to his heart a comfort and delight.
And there in quiet prayer, and all alone,
He laid his burden down, and there made known
His heart's desire, and thus he reached the throne,
For God was there.
Another climbed a mountain. By a tree That pointed up to heaven, he could see In flower, and stream, and grass—Divinity!
The footprints of his God, he these could trace, And in the lake's reflection see His face; The carols of the birds proclaimed His grace,
For God was also there.
The other, all bewildered and alone,
Did not know where to look to find God's throne,
But passing by an open door he heard a groan.
He entered, and beside a sufferer's bed Smoothed out a pillow as a prayer was said, And thus, a hungry soul, with manna fed. He sought some word of comfort to impart By skill and kindness, bid some pain depart. He worshiped God, by comforting the heart.
When he at last reluctant turned to go Effulgence made the room to strangely glow— He saw the Great Physician, bending low,
For God was truly there.
And God from heaven, looked down upon the
three, The one in church, the one beside the tree, The one beside the bed, and He could see
They all were seeking Him, but oft were blind To ways to worship God. Oft we may find The truest worship, service to mankind,
For God is always there.
