"Worship is a Gift-But to Whom?" by Rev. Dr. D. H. Clark

 October 19, 2025

May we pray—

God, You are holy…holy, holy, holy. Heaven and earth are full of Your glory. May our worship be only for You. Give me words that Your voice may be heard today. Amen.

Human beings, Homo sapiens, if you will, are a species who worship. Our most ancient relics such as stone formations and hieroglyphs confirm this fact. Thus, one can infer that to worship is in our very DNA. Jesus made reference to this truth in his Sermon on the Mount when he essentially said, “You are gonna worship something. Will it be God or Mammon?” Therefore, it is a curious phenomenon that something so innate can be so misunderstood by so many.

Continuing in this historical vein, it is helpful to break down the origins of the words we use to name and describe what we, today, experience as The Worship of God, for us, more specifically, The Christian Worship of God. The word worship itself derives from the Anglo-Saxon compound term, Weorth—We-orth (meaning “worth”) and scipe—Ship (meaning “state of being,” as in citizenship), in other words, “ascribing worth to someone or something.” Synonyms for “worship” in other languages reveal a clearer meaning. The Greek words proskunein and  latreia speak of one’s body actually falling down in homage. Similarly, the  Korean jurhada connotes a physical prostration of the body. In the Korean Hymnal Christmas section one sings, “Updurida jurhada, Updurida jurhada, Updurida jurhada, Guse de nate.” (“Fall down before him, Christ the newborn king.”) Likewise, we often sing at communion, “When I fall on my knees…” Together these ancient terms help us to understand better the sense of awe and humility with which we come together for the sole purpose of glorifying God. Genesis 28—"Surely God is in this place. This is none other than the house of God, and these are the gates of heaven.” This quote from Jacob and so many others from Genesis one through Revelation 22 make it clear that God is the focus of our worship. God was present in the beginning and chose to give us life. God is with us. God is holy and is the only holy one. The first commandment begins: “I am the Holy One, your God, you shall have no other gods…” The Shema Israel spoken at virtually all gatherings in synagogues and temples translates, “Hear, O Israel, our God is One God,” the text of our closing hymn today.

So, we come together because God is the Holy One, the One that we worship, the only One that we worship. Our printed order of service begins with the words “The Worship of God” That, my friends, and that alone, is why we are here. So many good things can and usually do happen to us when we come together. These are gifts from God to us, and they are among our richest blessings—fellowship, renewal, exercising our spirit, being inspired and empowered to go out and do God’s work, to say to God, “Here am I,” to be the one whom God sends.

I submit to you my own feeling that, had Isaiah not gone to the Temple, he would likely have continued wallowing in his grief and cowering in his fear, an understandable response to the turbulence of his times. Does this sound vaguely familiar to you? Might you not sometimes feel like making that same retreat yourself, given our own chaotic times? But wallowing in grief and cowering in fear changes nothing.

Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, in his profound book, The Gift of Worship, (Thank you, Welton for helping me craft my sermon title.) makes a bold and provocative statement at the beginning of Chapter two: “The worship of God is the most important activity of the people of God…Worship can exist apart from the church, but a church cannot exist apart from worship.” Isaiah certainly found this to be true, and when he was sent out, look at what he accomplished.

I think we can safely say that our loving, guiding, abiding God takes delight, as do we, in the gifts and fruits that come to us as a result of our worship. However, I remind you (and will probably remind you again) that we are here to worship and bring our gifts to God, not because we come seeking gifts.

How often have you heard an invitation that goes, “Come to church to receive a blessing!”

This invites one to come with a totally self-centered goal in mind. I want to say this day that one cannot truly and authentically worship God without changing this attitude, without refocusing and diminishing our self-serving motives and giving ourselves wholly (with a “WH”) over to the Holy (with an “H). So how do we do this?

In the way of a confession, I’d like to share some of my personal journey of having been involved in church music and ministry for over 64 years, in parallel with my other calling to the medical profession.  It was late in this journey before I began to understand what true worship is. This was in part because, like some of us, the worship services we experienced seemed to be about making the congregant feel good again and getting showers, showers of blessing. My calling came in the form of a passion for church music. This may be part of how God calls us so that we will actually take notice, but it remains a self-serving motive. Very late, I learned, mostly from Welton, the meaning and focus of authentic worship.  I confess my sin. All of us imperfect humans, with our own egos, have to work to keep from losing what true worship should be.

When we first called Dr. Gaddy to Northminster in 1991, I was eager to read the newly published The Gift of Worship to reveal his thoughts on worship, as I was involved in the early days of developing our own style of worship service. The book was and is transformational.

 I quote from its foreword, written by Dr. Martin Marty, internationally respected theologian from the University of Chicago:

The Gift of Worship is a “balanced work: biblical, thought through indeed, nuanced, and provocative, as worship should be”

In reading and re-reading this book and through Welton’s sermons on worship in subsequent years, numbering at least 6, I gained a new understanding of what we, as leaders in worship, are doing and are supposed to be doing.

Søren Kierkegaard, a brilliant 19^th c. existential philosopher and theologian, whose analyses of the church and its works were revolutionary, gave a classic analogy to help us understand what I am attempting to talk about today. One goes to the theater, a movie, an opera, or a concert for one main reason: to be entertained. In a theater, the actors and singers interpret the art of the writer and composer and reflect the skills of the director and designers of the set, lights, and costume. The prompter and musical director help the actors remember lines and to follow the music. On an ideal day, we leave having been entertained if not challenged to think. When that happens, it was well worth the price of the ticket and of our time.

Likewise, worship is theater—in my mind, theater in its most profound and transformational sense. However, the scenario I just presented is turned upside down in Kirkegaard’s analogy. In authentic worship, you, the congregation, the folk who gather together, all of you, Sunday regulars and first-timers alike, you are the actors. You interpret the awe of God’s presence, just as Isaiah did. You are the cast that works to touch all the senses and together make a grand and beautiful Gift to God. The worship leaders are the prompters—the ministers, the musicians, the readers, those who serve communion, the greeters, the teachers, the online A/V crew—all giving direction and weaving a coherent, appropriate gift for the audience. In our worship, the audience is God and God alone.

In a theatrical analogy, there should be applause. So, should we, the actors, applaud any element of worship? Seldom does one see that happening in theater, actors applauding themselves, unless written into the script. There is a peril when our response to an element of worship is to clap for the person offering the gift. Do we not recognize that theirs is a gift to God and God alone? Are we signaling that the offering we applauded has more value or quality than the one to which there was no applause? I submit that each and every one of our gifts, yours and mine, when offered to God in sincerity and humility, are equally worthy.

I know that sometimes we can be so moved that we want to do something physical, but remember that holy moments where we and others may be feeling closest to God may be broken by the noise of applause.

Applause is certainly appropriate when we are recognizing someone’s personal accomplishment, such as graduation or making Eagle Scout in the context of our Sunday meeting, but that is a part of our fellowship, the tie that binds, not our worship of God.

Another part of our service that should be addressed is the gathering. The scripture exhorts us to greet one another with a kiss…a hug or handshake or perhaps an air kiss? Greeting and renewing are vital elements of our fellowship and essential to the vitality of the church. Greetings are usually verbal and joyous activities. Then we begin to transition our focus toward God, as we enter the sanctuary and the preludes begin. These musical elements are an offering, a part of worship, offered to God, just as are the reading of the scriptures, prayers, solos, anthems, and sermons. It is also a time to meditate upon the serenity and holiness of this place and time. Greetings that often happen in the sanctuary during this time thus need to be discreet and quiet in respect for other worshippers and kept to a minimum so as not to distract from our purpose for gathering. Continuing to converse loudly is a distraction that is no more appropriate here than it would be during a prayer.

All of us understand that some noises are part of who we are, especially those from the children whose presence in worship we honor and welcome, but being mindful that worship has begun as the preludes are offered will move us into more worshipful minds and hearts focused on God as we draw our attention away from ourselves.

I pray that you take my comments about these two points in the spirit in which they are intended. By no means am I chiding anyone, because many of us grew up in traditions where noisy fellowshipping occurred right up until the call to worship or opening prayer.  Rather, my goal is to give food for thought and prayerful, loving, and open discussion so that we all come to a deeper appreciation of authentic worship, this most important time in our church life. I pray that questions and disagreements on these points will lead to open and honest discussion as we seek God’s guidance in a loving and prayerful manner.

To help make this a little clearer, we can look to William Temple, a theologian who lived in the early half of the 20^th century and who became Archbishop of Canterbury. He gave us one of the most accurate and concise description of the biblical model for Christian worship by naming six definitions. He states that “Worship is—

·         the submission of all of our nature to God (elimination of self-serving motives)

·         the quickening of the conscience by God’s holiness (bring to life our dulled moral compasses)

·         the nourishment of mind with God’s truth

·         the purifying of imagination by God’s beauty (think of Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians to think on things that are “true, noble, just, pure, lovely and of good report.”)

·         the opening of the heart to God’s love (there is a direct correlation between listening to God and the condition of our hearts)

·         the surrender of will to God’s purpose (turning our will to God’s will)—

·         all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable.

Are not these tenets the mission of the church? Are they not the pathway toward feeding the hungry, healing the sick, setting free the captive, and all the other components of our calling to vital ministry that Jesus outlined when he read from Isaiah in the Temple in Luke, chapter 4?  The church, which becomes sloppy and self-serving in its worship practices, risks and often experiences lost direction in its quest to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Forgetting these principles is to turn away from God.

In a 1993 sermon here, Dr. Gaddy pointed out that “all sin grows out of a lack of reverence, the absence of the worship of God.”

I am grateful to be a part of a church that understands this, one that pours vast amounts of resources in time, talent, careful planning, money, prayer, thoughtful study, and so much more into what we call “The Worship of God.” I am grateful for the brilliant guidance we have had from day one through our ministers and leaders as we developed a kind of worship that asks everyone to give of our very best to God. I give thanks for our very hard-working Worship Commission.  I am in awe of those who work tirelessly to bring Northminster’s worship to a wider congregation through our A/V ministry. We are all gifted by those whose artistic skills bring stunning visual beauty to God’s glory week after week. I am grateful for a church made up of so many people who willingly participate in this holy and life-giving gift.

A complete analysis of all the elements of worship requires more time than we have and is the subject of more in-depth book studies and workshops, which I hope we can offer in the near future.  Suffice it to say, each element must be prayerfully approached, in planning and execution, to honor and give glory to God.

My most vivid memories of Northminster worship serve to help me focus on what we must continue to do here:

·         witnessing an elderly Joyce Loften, a saint in her own right, shakily serving communion for the first time in her life, because she found herself in a fellowship of believers who value the gifts of everyone without regard to gender and a host of other things that are used to judge and disqualify,

·         seeing blended families come together, embracing each other in love and feasting together at God’s table, all on equal footing with each other and all rejoicing to be beloved children of God,

·         watching Russell Smallwood, a railroad engineer whose train ran late one Sunday, running up the aisle, just as Welton was concluding communion, for something he simply could not miss, and

·         experiencing and now missing deeply being served communion by the welcoming, loving, genuine, elegant, and beautiful Dibble Pate. When you looked into her eyes at that moment, you were seeing the face of God. She took your hand, looked you in the eyes, and called you by name. You knew at that moment you were loved beyond measure, and you were actually seeing God’s face.

May our Holy, Worship-Worthy God give us the grace, the will, the good sense, and the tools to continue Worshipping God in Spirit and Truth. May all this be so.

Pastoral Prayer

In the name of God, Creator and Grace Giver, Christ our brother, and the Holy Spirit, let us pray. Most merciful and holy God, Your grace and love, which have no end and no boundaries, have brought us here to confess, to receive your forgiveness, to learn, to sing, to pray, to receive your nourishment, and to answer your call to “Go and tell my people the good news.” In humbleness, we offer our thanksgiving and praise. We pray that our worship honors and glorifies You and You alone.

We confess our own worldliness and self-centeredness and ask your forgiveness, as we return our focus to You.

We pray for those who are in need of healing, those who are lonely, those who grieve, those who are oppressed, and all who live daily in fear. Make us Your instruments who work to bring about a just and lasting peace for all.

We pray for the church. Turn our hearts and minds to You and You alone throughout our journey.

We pray for the state of the world and its leaders. Bring more wisdom, less division; more reconciliation, less violence; more humanity, and an end to inhumanity.

God, set our minds on You, activate our consciences, and open us up to Your truth, beauty, and love. May we fully give our own will over to your divine purpose as we come together in adoration of Your holiness. Amen