something is missing in worship

When I was in seminary I read a book by Rudolph Otto who had made a study of the religious experience. He stated that there were two basic elements to the religious experience: there was a powerful experience of mystery and wonder; and there was a deep feeling of fear, apprehension and anxiousness. One of the early American preacher once said “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.”  Annie Dillard spoke of the silliness of humans playing at worship because it was such a mysterious and dangerous activity.

The places I go lack both of those aspects. The worship services I go to, even the ones where I am scheduled to preach at, lack both of these aspects. The whole direction of most of the worship services is informality.  There is a prelude music, which might set some ground work for mystery and wonder, but that is destroyed immediately by some one who gets up and makes announcements.   These announcements are usually printed in the bulletin so they should not have to be read or given at the first of the service. The feeling that most of these churches want to convey is one of friendship, family, comfort, and happiness.  The idea that one might come to encounter the holy and be scared to death like Isaiah is foreign to most of them. The worship services are not much different from the civic clubs that hold weekly meetings.

I mentioned that to one person and they responded in agreement about the announcements, the singing, but claimed that you did not hear the Word of God preached or the sacraments observed (thanks, Calvin).  My response is that most of the preaching sounds like civic club programs as well. Case in point:  two sermons in the June 26, 2015 Christian Century by a highly respected professor of preaching had as topics: one was “interruptions in your life” and the second was “failures in your life.”  You would have both but they both might be good for you.  Not much mystery or fear in those messages. 

The greatest sadness for me is that most of these churches are not even trying to encounter a living, mysterious, awesome, holy love that could frighten their comfortable, predictable little world.  The Kingdom of God is a vision of God that is in direct conflict with the kingdoms of this world.  Pope Francis is correct. His vision of the way towards being the Kingdom of God is in direct conflict with the kingdoms of this world. But he is staying faithful to the vision of the Kingdom. He is exciting.

It would be my observation that most of the Christian worship I experience is trying to enable us to be at home and comfortable in the kingdoms of this world.  There is no awesome, scary, wonderful alternative vision of the Kingdom of God being shared.