Thought for Today
Genesis 4:3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering,
Micah 6:6 "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? . . . 8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Matthew 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
Mark 11:17 He was teaching and saying, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers."
Why do we even have churches? Why do we set aside an hour or more each week on a single day to worship God? Many Christians have heard some variation of “I don’t need to go to church to worship God; I can worship God (insert alternative here) just as well as you do in church!” My golfing friends claim to be close to God on the golf course. They even often invoke God’s name. My fishing friends make the claim about the lake or the sea, also often invoking God’s name. Why do we even have churches?
Many congregations are currently being encouraged by their denominations to evaluate whether there is some better use for their resources than to maintain a brick-and-mortar place of worship. Some are even deciding to sell their property and use the funds for other purposes like feeding the hungry.
We know that for many centuries our ancestors-in-the-faith practiced a sacrificial system of worship and that sacrifices were offered at various locales. The Bible doesn’t tell us where Cain and Abel offered their sacrifices to God. One doesn’t have to read beyond the Torah in our Christian Bible or in a Jewish Bible to encounter a complex sacrificial system, various things to be offered in atonement for different transgressions. We know that before Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, sacrifices were offered at other places. Both Shechem and Bethel were places where sacrifices were offered. Part of the conflict between Jews and Samaritans involved the legitimacy of worshiping God through sacrifices at Shechem verses Jerusalem. Reading in Kings and Chronicles, we encounter hundreds of references to “high places.” Places where sacrifices were offered. Why do we even have churches?
I cannot offer a detailed counter to a complex question in the few words I share each day. However, a large part of the answer to “why” is to refute the implication in the question itself that worship is limited in either time or space. Once again, as I so often do, I find myself drawn to the prophet Micah. By his time, Jewish worship was mostly centralized in the Temple and an elaborate system of sacrificial offerings of atonement was firmly fixed. Micah and other prophets railed against this idea. “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Each time we celebrate the Eucharist in our congregation, my closing prayer includes these words, “With thanksgiving, we offer our very selves to you to be a living and holy sacrifice dedicated to your service.”
My golfing and fishing friends are correct . . . as far as their assertion goes. All of us can and should worship God as we go about our daily lives. We worship God in living lives of doing justice, loving kindness and walking through life humbly with God. True worship is not limited to a single hour on a single day.
But, there is also an indispensable element of worship in our gathering together in what is known as ‘corporate’ worship. Surrounded by a family-of-faith, supported by the strength of that family, we lift our voices and our lives to our Creator God. We work together to promote justice and to share with each other and with God’s Creation that loving kindness. We are reminded of the humility of our being servants to God. And, when we stumble, that family-of-faith lifts us up, dusts us off, and sets us back on the path of righteousness. That is why we have and ‘do’ church.
Stay safe, find your family-of-faith, trust God,
Pastor Ray