A conversation

pelican says:
was looking at your blog last night. what do you mean by the 'full bodiedness' of worship God requires, and what does it have to do with incense?

Azza says:
morning. which post are you talking about? I can't remember that...

pelican says:
you'd gone to a high anglican church - it was an old one

pelican says:
i was thinking tho that these rituals of 'worship' are meaningless anyway if you're heart isn't right. And if God's Word isn't being taught properly

Azza says:
ah I've found it. ummm

pelican says:
oh sorry, yes, good morning! If God's word isn't being taught properly (as is the case in many high anglican churches here) then how can your heart be right and how then can you truly worship..ie your life as an act of worship like Paul talks about in Rom 12

Azza says:
hmmmm. i would say that if the people are being exhorted to faithfulness then there's a good chance that their lives will follow

pelican says:
yeah i agree, but the 'if' is important I think. just from my experience most of these rituals are exactly that because there is no exhortation to faithfulness. sometimes they are even lucky to get a bible reading.

Azza says:
what I meant by 'full-bodied-ness' was that worship and teaching doesn't just concern the intellect. The whole person should be instructed and taught what it means to follow God. Therefore, it is not a bad thing to have 'instructive' signs and symbols that the person does with their body.

Azza says:
A ritual whose meaning is not met in and by the lives of those who do it is empty and hypocritical, yes. And doesn't please God - especially when the people think that God is pleased by the ritual itself, regardless of what else happens in their lives. But that criticism applies to all sorts of christians, us as well

Azza says:
incidentally, sometimes us Reformed Christians fall into the trap (I think) or treating the preaching as a ritual that, if done 'right', will please God. Some have a tendency to think that way about the entire worship service. So, we have a big emphasis on what is allowed and what isn't.

Azza says:
But it's really the lives of the people that God cares about, and the way that these are bought and presented to Him in worship, and there refined by the mutual fellowship/exhortation etc.

pelican says:
yes i agree with that too...but then you should also ask how these signs and symbols 'instruct'. But yes it does apply to us too, and anything we do can be a ritual then if it stands in place of how we should be living. Yeah I don't like the title 'worship' service, if our whole lives are meant to be worshipful.

Azza says:
Yes. What I like about having my body do things in worship (like the sign of the cross, like genuflecting, like standing in respect) is that when I leave the service, I am very reminded that it is all of my body and life that I have just comitted to serving God with - not just my head. Somehow, I find it much more powerful than merely sitting still and hearing something.

Azza says:
And that, I think, is why God gave so many 'bodily' ways of doing worship in scripture - ceratinly in the old covenant, with the very visual and sensory temple, tabenacle, clothing and sacrifice, but also under the new, with baptism and especially Lord's Supper as the chief action of fellowship and worship.

Azza says:
Unformatunately, though, we've turned Lord's Supper into quite a bare and barren ritual (in the bad sense), not at all like the meal it was instituted as. So even in that, we have lost the full-bodied sense of worship that (in fact) we should be very familiar with.

pelican says:
mmmmm interesting. i find it seriously distracting when these things happen because i don't need to do them outside church to remind me, so why do them now? it can make religion rather mystical-ish, and not always that understandable to non christians.

Azza says:
ha :)

Azza says:
I think our services are rather 'mystical' in their own way - all the significance is held in our heads, as we come to the right 'understanding' of things. To me, this is very disconnected from the concrete world of things and matter and experience, where I actually *do* things.

pelican says:
mmmm. i really have to go to uni, i'm going to be late. but we should finish this at another time. the OT worship is interesting, will have to think about it. yeah that's true about disconnection...but i think ultimately we have to think about what we're doing and its relation to others as well. i think also we need to think about what we actually 'do' in the concrete world, and how this relates to what we 'do' in church services. anyway i better go... talk later love ya xxx