February 6, 2022: Imagine: A Worshiping Church
Isaiah 6:1-8
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
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30 years ago this week, the number one album according to Billboard, was an album entitled “Nevermind.” This wasn’t big news, although in hindsight, it marked a seismic shift in the pop/rock industry. “Nevermind,” you see, was Nirvana’s first album on a major label. It bumped Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” from the number one spot and heralded the end of big-hair metal rock’s reign, making grunge alt-rock king for a season.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the top hit from this album, becoming like an anthem for Gen Xers like me as we were coming of age. Over the past couple of weeks as I’ve been quarantined with a mild case of COVID, I’ve found myself watching a lot of Netflix to pass the time. And settling in for another binge-watching session, I’d find myself humming the lyrics to “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” see if you can guess why:
I feel stupid and contagious.
Here we are now, entertain us.
The second of those two lines is an obvious commentary on the apathy of an entitled generation. “Here we are now, entertain us.”
Can you imagine a couple of bratty teenagers, showing up at your house, plopping down on your couch, demanding, “Here we are now, entertain us?” But this iconic line captured the zeitgeist—the spirit of the age.
But this demand for entertainment was not new with Generation X.
One of my favorite movie lines was from a Russell Crowe film entitled “Gladiator,” a historical drama depicting the doomed, violent life of a Roman Gladiator. In one scene, Crowe’s character, Maximus, is sent onto the Roman Colosseum floor with several other men to fight unto death, the ravenous crowds thrilled with every spear through an abdomen or throat slashed open. Maximus defeats all the other Gladiators and becomes the last man standing, his victims splayed and bleeding all around him. But he is not happy. No victory dance, no spiking the football in the endzone. Instead, Maximus angrily yells to the blood-thirsty crowd, “Are you not entertained?” Then he spits on the ground in disgusted protest against whole ordeal.
The desire for entertainment is as old as history itself. Do you ever wonder, if given the choice, would you have attended a gladiator event? To watch violent death for amusement? For entertainment? It’s easy to look back and judge the bloodthirsty crowd that enabled such horrific sport, but let’s face it, it was the best show in town for four centuries.
Fast forward a couple of millennia to today and some say that we are now living in the “golden age of entertainment.” Think about how entertainment has evolved over the course of your lifetime. Some of you grew up with nothing more than a radio, right? Some of you like me, remember a time when there were three television channels, and two of them were fuzzy. Then we took down the antenna and got cable. So many channels! Some of you remember driving to a Blockbuster to rent a VHS tape. Can you imagine the inconvenience? From cable to streaming: and not just one streaming service, there’s Roku and Hulu and Apple TV and YouTube TV and Disney Plus and Amazon Prime and HBO Max. Entertainment on demand!
For the first time in human history, entertainment is available to us 7 days a week, 24-hours per day. We are an entertainment-saturated generation. The grunge-rock anthem for angsty teens became the apathetic battle cry for a generation:
Here we are now, entertain us.
This is the culture in which we live and move and have our very being. It’s no surprise that we bring that demand for entertainment with us to church on Sundays. But not to be too hard on ourselves, we’re not the first ones expecting to be entertained in church.
In the mid-1800’s prolific philosopher and theologian, Søren Kierkegaard, observed the same trend in his generation. He compared Christian worship to a drama, but that we had the roles in the drama all wrong. He suggested that elitist church leaders ran worship as a “show” with God as the prompter, the worship leaders as the performers, and the people in the pews as the audience, coming to church to be entertained. That’s all wrong, he showed us. That in the “theater of worship” the worship leaders are the prompters, the people in the pews are the performers, and God is the audience of one.
Worship leaders aren’t here to amuse, but to give worshipers cues.
So imagine, if you will, a young Isaiah in the Temple like he had been a hundred, a thousand times before. He didn’t go to Temple for entertainment. Why was he there? Duty? Desire? We don’t know. What we do know is that this one time—one out of a hundred or a thousand—this one time something extraordinary happened. He saw the Lord, sitting high on a throne. Now to see God was a death sentence which is why he immediately cried out, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” But note what he described of God, “the hem of his robe filled the Temple.” Look at the hem of your sleeve or pants leg—now imagine that filling the entire sanctuary. What a visual!
Most of the description was reserved for the seraphim, those strange, flying, six-winged creatures. What a sight! Flying around saying, “Holy, holy, holy,” which was perhaps the best way the author could depict an ongoing chant or call and response, over and over and over again, “Holy, holy, holy.” One of the seraphs took a live coal and touched Isaiah’s lips, declaring his sins forgiven. And then the voice, “Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?” This wasn’t directed at Isaiah, it seems more like it was a conversation between God and the seraphim. But Isaiah overheard, and his immediate reply was, “Here am I! Send me!”
What an amazing encounter with the living God! This encounter changed Isaiah’s life, and his entire life’s trajectory.
That’s what legitimate worship does—it changes us.
Worship doesn’t just fill up an hour, it fills us with power.
Who doesn’t want more power?
But there’s a shift happening in the way we worship, and the role of church in society. Let’s first talk about the larger societal shift, and what that means for the church and how we worship.
Many people here today lived through the transition from the industrial age to the information age, which happened sometime around 1970. Since 1970 information has been king. Access to and control of information has been the defining characteristic of this era in human civilization. People went to school to get information. People watched the news to get information. People read the paper to get information. People went to church, in large part, to get information. The role of the “lofty” educated pastor was to be the keeper and disseminator of information, because the pastor had the degree, the books, the skills unavailable to people in the pews.
But the world is changing. No longer is the pastor or the professor physician or the pundit the only one with access to information. Anyone can get information. Anyone can share information. Information isn’t what it once was.
So what’s next? Some say that the information age is coming to a close and the “experience” age is upon us. The next evolution in human civilization will have us seeking experiences over and above information. Mark Zuckerberg bet the bank on this evolution from an information based “Facebook” to an experience based “Meta.” (That didn’t go too well for him this past week, partly because he has told investors that it could take him until 2031 to get it right.)
What does this mean for the church? Experience says “Don’t tell me about God, show me God!” I love what this means for the church. From people being passive spectators to active practitioners. From coming to church seeking information to coming to church to experience transcendence.
Worship doesn’t seek to inform, but to transform.
“Here am I, send me!” said Isaiah because he experienced something in the Temple that day that changed his life forever. He would spend the next 40 years of his life as a prophet. The Old Testament book that bears his name is the most consequential book in the entire Hebrew canon. 66 chapters—24 feet on a papyrus scroll. That what one experience—one encounter of the Most High God will do.
Here’s the deal, as we’re imagining the future of Chapel by the Sea together:
1. We’re never going to be the most entertaining—the “best show in town.” If you want entertainment, you’ve got so many options. You want comedy? Click. Get your comedy. Drama? Click. Get your drama. Awesome preaching? Click. Get your awesome preaching. Outstanding choral music? Click. Get your outstanding choral music. If we try to play the entertainment game, we’ll lose.
2. We’re never going to be the most informative—you can take seminary classes from the comfort of your living room. You can buy theology books and philosophy books and ethics and church history with one click on Amazon. And if you don’t want to read it? No problem? You can do audio books or video courses. You want information? Yes, I can give you some. But you have access to more information than you could ever absorb right there in the palm of your hand. If we try to play the information game, we’ll lose.
But if you want experience—if you want community—if you want transcendence—if you want to hear laughter beyond what a laugh track can offer—if you want to feel your music and not just hear it—if you want to be a part of making music instead of just listening to music—that’s what we’ve got going for us here at Chapel by the Sea. And that’s what we’re trying to build on as we transition from the Information Age to the Experience Age.
Worship is one of the most important things we do here at Chapel by the Sea. Other churches are built around small groups—others on missional engagement—we are a worshiping congregation. We understand that worship is more than entertainment—more than information. Worship is what we do, together, for an audience of One. And what an awesome experience it is, the coming together in one heart and one voice.
Chapel, we are well positioned to thrive in the “Experience Age,” and we’re only going to grow in this area as we “level up” over the next couple of years.
I close with a personal story.
The summer before my last year in seminary, I found myself in a spiritual desert. I was full to the brim with information by way of graduate level theological studies, and it left me parched and dry. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to finish my seminary degree. I was working at a Christian summer camp that traveled the Northwest, but I was wondering whether I would return to seminary after that summer or maybe go home with my tail between my legs, maybe try out that education degree I had.
But one weekend between camp sessions, my team and I got to go up to Mount Baker, Washington. It was the middle of July, it was hot outside, and the sun was shining brightly, but on the top of Mount Baker, there was still plenty of snow. We got up there and I snuck away from the team and found a quiet spot by myself overlooking a crystal-clear lake. I sat there and tried to pray, but prayer had become a chore. But as I sat there, my feet in the snow, the warmth of the sun beaming down on me, the brilliant colors of sky and lake and snow and greenery, the smell of crisp mountain air—somehow my senses were so overwhelmed that I found myself in a complete sense of awe. I sat there and wept, and for the first time in ages, I knew that there was a God.
As I gathered back with the team, words failed to describe the experience just like they do in this moment. What I experienced was indescribable. It still is. All I knew is that I was ready to recommit myself to vocational ministry, to finishing up my seminary degree, to serving God with the rest of my life. “Here am I, send me” my heart whispered not with words but with feeling.
That’s what experiencing God does. That’s what tasting transcendence does. It changes us, and we are never the same.
So if you want entertainment, let me recommend Netflix. If you want information, I would like to recommend Great Courses. But if you want to experience God, meet me here in this space, every Sunday at 10am.
Bring on the “Experience Age!” We’ll be ready for it.