Matthew 23:13-15
"For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces!"
It looks as if the Pharisees sought converts (proselytes) and then tried to mold them to look like them and talk like them and dress like them and do everything like them. After evanglization, the process of discipleship was not teaching the things of God but teaching the things of them. They were worshiping worship--their own defined and branded form of religiosity, and if you didn't fit that mold you would not be considered as a true worshiper. But Jesus rips them up: "For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in."
Aren't we much the same way? We have our "Sunday School" answers to the things of life--the pat answers we know to be the correct reply--but while our lips pay homage our hearts can still be far away. When that happens, we're merely trying to fit a presupposed formula that somehow equals "worship". That is anthropocentric--man centered. It's doing what will make us feel better in our religiosity, but in fact really has nothing to do with God. We need theocentric worship--God centered.
It reminds me of Hannah (isn't that awful?). Our whole church is involved in these daily worship devotionals this summer, and we've been doing ours in the mornings. I tell Hannah when we begin, "Listen, and then tell me what you learn about God." For all three devotionals I have gotten the same replies. "God loves us and is not mean to us. Jesus died for us and His hands were all bloody." And so on. She starts each reply with "Because" even though I have not asked her a "Why?" question. Those are her Sunday School answers. She can always whip one of those out and know she's speaking correctly. The problem, however, is that those replies had nothing to do with our devotionals. She was simply stating her prepackaged, premolded, presupposed "right" answers. She's not quite 5, so I'll cut her some slack.
Listen, I, and probably we, tend to do that very thing in our lives. We know the right answers and actions and we use them as needed; however, we remain detached from a living relationship with the author of those answers and actions. As religious as we think we look, such worship is anthropocentric and not theocentric.
What's worse, when new Christians come around, we try to mold them into us! "Wear these kinds of cloths, say these kinds of things, sing these kinds of songs, attend these kinds of services, watch these kinds of shows, vote for these kinds of politicians, and never, ever curse the Southern Baptist Convention!" What? Is that what makes a true worshiper?
I pray God is tearing down our mold so that by the end of July we can see the way to becoming true worshipers.
