Back in the days leading up to the release of the movie, The Da Vinci Code, Time magazine had a cover story on the mysterious group Opus Dei, which plays a prominent role in The Da Vinci Code story.  Why I remember the article is because of Time’s basic description of Opus Dei.  Telling of the vision of its founder, a Spanish priest named Josemaria Escriva, Time described Opus Dei as, “a movement of pious laypeople who would, by prayerful contemplation and the dedication of their labor to Christ, extend the holiness of church on Sunday into their everyday work life,” (Time magazine, The Ways of Opus Dei, April 24, 2006, underline mine).  What struck me about that statement is that “extending the holiness of church on Sunday into their everyday work life” would be such a unique idea.  It is, perhaps, more unique an idea in Escriva’s Roman Catholic Church, because of their theology about clergy and laypeople—the article going on to say “Opus [Dei] threatened the era’s Catholic clericalism, which privileged priests, monks and nuns over the laity.”  In other words, the temptation in such a structure of “privileged priests” and the like over the people in the congregation is to see the work of the Church, the work of God being consigned to priests, monks and nuns and not the laity.  Life becomes, then, a separation of the sacred and the secular.  The sacred is what takes place in church on Sunday morning.  The secular is what takes place in all the rest of life.  And never the two shall meet.

The extreme image that comes to my mind of what such a juxtaposition of the sacred and secular looks like is from the movie The Godfather.  If you’ve seen the movie, you might recall the scene near the end where Michael Corleone has taken over the leadership of the Corleone family.  He has become the “Godfather” of the family.  At the same time, he is participating in his nephew’s baptism standing as the Godfather for his nephew.  The scene shifts back and forth, from the sacred scene of the baptism and Michael responding in the affirmative to such questions of faith as, “Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior,” and “Do you renounce evil in the world,” to the secular scenes where Michael’s henchman are carrying out executions of their enemies.  Total incongruity between what is happening in the sacred scene of baptism and the secular scene of ruthless executions.

To be sure, that is an extreme image.  But, the temptation is very real for us to do something like that in our own lives.  Feeding that temptation is that attitude that our worship takes place only on Sunday morning.  “Church” takes place here.  “Life” goes on out there.  The work of God is done here.  My work goes on out there.  The “holiness of church” happens here.  It ends when we go out there.  However, that is not the teaching of Scripture.  The vast majority of Scripture speaks of God’s desired involvement in all aspects of our lives, of God’s desire that the words and actions of the various elements of our worship on Sunday morning would be validated by our response to God in our words and actions the rest of the week.

Take our Scripture readings this morning, for example.  In Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about the response of two sons to a father’s request to work in his vineyard.  What parent can’t identify with the scene?  One child says, “no,” but then, later, goes out and works.  Another child says, “yes,” but then doesn’t follow through and work in the vineyard.  Who does the will of the father?  The first child, of course.

The sum of this parable could be stated in the truism in life, “Actions speak louder than words.”  This parable echoes the words of the prophets who spoke harshly against the lip service of ritualistic worship made meaningless by the worshiper’s failure to live it out when away from the Temple.  Remember the word of the Lord spoken through the prophet Amos?  In the fifth chapter of Amos, God sees the people of Israel living shamefully while, at the same time, they go to the Temple and go through the motions of worship.  And God says through Amos, “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies…But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:21, 24)  Be very careful of failing to respond to God in our worship by separating out the sacred commitment of worship from the secular activities of our lives.

Of course, this “privileging clergy” over the laity is what the reformers fought against.  One tenet of our Reformed faith is the “priesthood of all believers.”  Rather than upholding a “clericalism, which privileged priests, monks and nuns,” the reformers sought to “extend the holiness of church on Sunday into [the people’s] everyday work life.”  The great reformer, John Calvin, the father of Presbyterianism, in his commentary on this very parable from Matthew writes this, “[In this parable] we learn that faith does not consist merely in a person giving subscription to true doctrine, but also includes something greater and deeper: the hearer is to deny himself and commit his whole life to God.”

Worship is much more than showing up on Sunday morning.  Worship is much more than giving voice and “Amen” to our faith through the various elements of worship—our confession, our prayers, our music, our hearing God’s word proclaimed.  A very important element of worship—THE MOST IMPORTANT element of worship, if we consider the weight of Scripture—is responding to God with changed hearts and lives that dramatically alter our work, our play, our whole lives…and…AND dramatically alters the whole lives of those people whose paths cross with ours throughout the week.  Worship should be transforming to our whole lives!  Recall the quote from William Barclay two weeks ago regarding what constitutes “real worship.”  “Real worship is not the offering of elaborate prayers to God; it is not the offering to God of a liturgy, however noble, and a ritual, however magnificent.  Real worship is the offering of everyday life to God.” (William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, p.169, emphasis his)  What does your whole life, your everyday life say about the sincerity and integrity of your worship?

One might rightly wonder what a worshipful response throughout the week looks like.  In our passage from 1 Thessalonians, the apostle Paul gives us a glimpse to the kind of actions we are to take in our response to God.  They come in a series of imperative commands toward the close of his letter.  That is to say, put an exclamation point after each one.  “Help the weak!  Be patient with everyone!  Do not pay back wrong for wrong!  Be kind to each other!  Be joyful always!  Pray continually!  Give thanks in all circumstances!”  You can be sure that Paul is not talking only about our attitude in worship on Sunday morning.  Paul is talking about our attitude in life…in response to God in our worship.  The “holiness of church on Sunday” gets extended into our everyday lives when we help the weak, are patient with everyone, when we do not pay back wrong for wrong, are kind to each other, joyful always, praying continually and giving thanks in all circumstances.  That’s what “response-able” worship looks like.            I’m especially intrigued by three of Paul’s imperative commands.  They’re all important, but three catch my eye at the moment—Help the weak, Do not pay back wrong for wrong, and Pray continually.

First, “Help the weak!”  The word for “help” there is not the word normally used.  Here, Paul uses a word used only twice in the New Testament—here and then by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.  It literally means “hold fast to,” “cling to.”  Jesus uses it in the context of our inability to serve two masters—whether material things or God (one might say “secular things” versus “the sacred)—because we will “cling to” one and hate the other.  In 1 Thessalonians, Paul uses the word to call us to a devoted life of helping the weak.  We cannot be distant or apathetic in our response.  We cannot simply put an offering in the basket to help the weak.  We are to be committed to, clinging to, coming alongside the weak that their lives may be better.  That is a worshipful response to God.

Then there is the command to not pay back wrong for wrong.  In the twelfth chapter of Romans, Paul put it this way: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil,” (Romans 12:12).  Either case—not paying back wrong for wrong, not repaying anyone evil for evil—rubs against our normal inclination to do exactly that.  Too easily we can recall moments of escalating wrongs.  Someone wronged us, so we feel justified in striking back with an even more hurtful wrong.  And they, in turn, feel justified in responding yet more hurtfully.  And on it goes with destructive results.  That is not the appropriate response for one who claims to be a follower of Christ.  If our words in worship about or relationship with God mean anything, they will be supported by our actions away from the holiness of church on Sunday.  Our comfort comes from the God we worship and not by exacting our revenge when wronged.  We put action to our words of “Yes, Lord,” on Sunday morning by not paying back wrong for wrong, evil for evil.

Finally, the third encouragement from Paul that catches my attention is to pray continually, or “without ceasing.”  That appears to be asking the impossible.  How can one “pray continually?”  Certainly, if we separate the sacred from the secular in our lives, it is impossible to pray continually.  But, when we acknowledge, as John Calvin encourages us to do, that the faithful response of a disciple is to commit his or her whole life to God, we begin to see prayer infused into every aspect of our life.  Such a response to God begins to reveal itself when every activity is conducted in a spirit of prayer acknowledging God’s presence in all we do.  I like the way Christian musician, Keith Green, puts it: “Make My Life a Prayer to You.”  Our whole life cannot be a prayer to God if we view worship only as our time in church on Sunday morning.

So, there are our elements of worship.  Perhaps you’ve come to see worship in a bigger way than when we first started this series.  Worship begins with our preparation—our giving thought to the time we will spend in the worship service with others on Sunday morning.  We think about the language of our worship, the words and rituals we will use to offer our worship to God.  We acknowledge we are called by God to worship—that God desires we offer our worship and praise.  We are cleansed for worship by offering our confessions to a merciful God.  Every Sunday we spend a moment in confessing our sin and receiving God’s forgiveness…because we need it!  Every Sunday we offer our worship to God in music and song.  It doesn’t seem like worship without that—and we are learning to celebrate the diversity of our music in worship as we recognize the diversity of those with whom we worship.  We celebrate the sacraments of baptism and communion in our worship as visible, memorable signs of God’s grace.  We present our offering in worship to support the ministry and mission of the church as an expression of gratitude to God for all He has done for us.  We present our prayers in worship—both of praise and petition—as an admission that we aren’t lord over our lives, but Christ is.  We hear God’s word proclaimed in worship, acknowledging its instruction is needed as encouragement and standard for our lives.  And we respond to God with worship that never ends—the “Yes, Lord” of our worship on Sunday morning being confirmed by our actions throughout the week—the holiness of church on Sunday morning being extended into our everyday lives.  So, let us worship God.  Even in a moment of silence, let us worship God as we reflect upon His word for us today and our response to God.