In today’s Gospel text Jesus teaches us the difference between vain worship and true worship. But before we talk about what it means for worship to be either “vain” or “true,” we should probably talk about worship itself. What is worship? There will be a multitude of answers to that question depending on whom you ask (including the members right here in our own congregation). One answer might be that worship is what we’re all doing here today. But that response begs the question, Is worship something we do? Another word used for worship is the word “service.” And so, we say things like, “The service starts at 10:00 a.m.” or “Our church offers two services on Sunday mornings, one at 9:00 a.m. and one at 11:00 a.m.” But if service is a synonym for worship, then we need to ask, Who’s doing the serving? Is worship about our serving God or Him serving us? Is it a combination of both? And if it is both, which one comes first? Our service to God in the hope that He’ll then serve us, or His service to us, to which we then respond with our service to Him?
According to the Lutheran reformers, who allowed the Scriptures to speak for themselves, the highest form of worship is the reception of God’s gifts by faith. In order receive a gift, however, it must first be given. Since God is the Giver of all good gifts, the action begins with Him. He gives, we receive. What He gives is His Son, Jesus Christ, who was delivered up to the cross for our sins and raised from the dead for our justification. That giving began at your Baptism. When God put His Name upon you with the application of water, He gave you Jesus and all the blessings which He acquired for you through His service to the Father on your behalf. Though that service was finished on the cross some 2,000 years ago, the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation that Jesus won for you are now being delivered to you by the Holy Spirit through His service in the Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. And so, the primary actor in worship (or the divine service) is God. Without His service of giving, there would be no service on our part, at least not the kind of service with which God would be pleased. As the Scripture says, “Apart from faith it is impossible to please God.” Unless we are first of all on the receiving end of His gifts to us in Jesus, we cannot be on the giving end of any service to Him.
That was the problem with the religious leaders in Jesus’ day. Forgetting about being on the receiving end of God’s gifts to them, they turned worship into a service which they performed for God. Instead of seeing the sacrifices, washings, and feasts which God had instituted as gifts - the means by which He gave them His forgiveness, holiness, acceptance, and peace - they viewed these things as a service which they performed for God, even inventing some of their own rituals, which they observed with even more devotion than those which God had mandated. Instead of teaching the commandments of God (which God gave not only to show them that they were sinners in need of a Savior, but also to show them how to live as His children), they taught their own commandments and traditions. And St. Paul remarks that, as a former Pharisee himself, all this was done to achieve a righteousness of their own derived from the Law. And that’s what happens when worship becomes our service to God instead of His service to us. We turn it into something we do to earn God’s gifts rather than simply receiving them for the gifts that they are.
So now we can talk about vain worship vs. true worship. True worship is that worship which first receives God’s gifts in Jesus by faith and then responds to those gifts with thanks and praise, obedience to God’s commandments, and service towards others. It doesn’t serve God to try to get His gifts; it serves God because it already has His gifts. Vain worship, on the other hand, is that kind of worship which appeals to our human reason. It’s a worship that seeks to do things for God in order to get something from Him. It acts first, hoping that God will shower His blessings and favor upon the worshipper because of what he has done. This kind of worship is really self-centered worship. Though such a worshipper might insist that he does what he does because he loves God or because he loves his neighbor, ultimately his hope is that God will be gracious to him and reward him (or at least not punish him) because of his good service.
And this kind of attitude, where one is ultimately concerned about oneself rather than either God or one’s fellow man, is illustrated here in today’s Gospel text. The Pharisees cared more about their man-made laws and traditions than they did either for people or for God’s Word. Where God’s commandments were to be obeyed for the sake of the neighbor, the Pharisees’ commandments were to be obeyed for the sake of their own sanctification. Whereas with God love is the goal of His commandments, with the Pharisees, as Paul explains, it was the achievement of their own righteousness. And so the Pharisees thought they were acting all holy and pious by dedicating their money to the Lord, when in reality the Lord didn’t need it; their parents, however, did. If they had been less concerned about their holiness and more concerned about their father and mother, they would have gladly given the money to their parents instead of God. But in their tradition, it made them more holy to devote their money to God rather than use it to help their parents. In holding to this tradition, however, Jesus points out that they were being disobedient to the 4th commandment, and to disobey God’s commandments is to earn His wrath and displeasure no matter how holy you might look.
Now, it’s not that man-made traditions and rituals are necessarily bad. We use a lot of those kinds of things in our own liturgy here in the Lutheran Church. Things like bowing before the altar, crossing ourselves, or using paraments, candles, and crucifixes are nowhere commanded in the Scriptures. But the Lutheran reformers inform us that none of these things are really part of what is true worship. They can be aids to true worship, in that they instruct about Christ and His Word. When man-made traditions help us in this way, teaching us about Jesus and pointing us to what He’s done for us, they are good and useful. People go too far when they say things like, “Oh, your service is too catholic!” or “Christ isn’t on the cross anymore! Why do you have a crucifix up there?” or “What’s all this kneeling and crossing yourselves about?” We don’t have to apologize that we use such instructional devices, when we know that true worship is about receiving God’s gifts to us through His Word and Sacraments and our responding to Him with our service of thanks, praise, and works of love towards one another.
It’s when we turn any of these things into works we do in order to try to earn God’s gifts and favor that we are then practicing vain worship. If we are crossing ourselves, kneeling, or bowing because we think it makes us more acceptable to God or makes us look more holy and righteous, then we are worshipping God in vain. Even when we do the things that God commands, such as obeying the 10 commandments, hearing the Word, confessing our sins, praying, or even going to communion - if we do such things in the hopes that God will be pleased with us and declare us righteous because we do them, then here too we are worshipping God in vain. Such worship is vain, because it does away with Christ. Instead of trusting in His service for us, we trust in our own service to gain God’s favor. But when we trust in our service, we take away from Christ’s service. Such worship is unacceptable to God, and therefore it is in vain (or, done for nothing).
True worship, however, always begins with God’s giving to us, not our giving to Him. We must confess that in our sinfulness, we have nothing to give God. Everything about us and our service is contaminated with sin. So, nothing we do could ever be acceptable to God, unless we have first been cleansed of our sin. While the Pharisees were so concerned about the washing of hands, cups, and pots, they had forgotten about the washing that they themselves needed, the washing that God required - the washing of the water and the Word, the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, the washing of Baptism. There God cleanses you with the blood of Jesus, cleansing your guilty conscience, cleansing you of all unrighteousness, so that now you can worship God in spirit and in truth, receiving from the Spirit the gifts of the Spirit according to the Word of truth. Now, cleansed of your sin, you can come into God’s presence without being afraid that you’ll be on the receiving end of His judgment. Instead of bringing you into His presence to punish you, God brings you into His presence to deliver His grace, mercy, and peace to you in Jesus. Here as we gather in His Name you are receiving the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Here you are hearing of your Savior crucified for you, and you are eating and drinking of His body and blood at His Table. In response to these gifts, you confess Him to be your Lord, you sing His praises in the hymns, you give Him thanks in your prayers, and you give Him your offerings (which He uses, by the way, not for Himself, but for others). But the worship of God doesn’t stop here. Here is where it begins. Not just on Sundays, but throughout the rest of the week the Lord is still giving you not only the spiritual gifts of His cross and His resurrection as you live out your Baptism from day to day, but also as He provides your temporal earthly needs as well. And as the Lord continues to serve you, so your service towards Him will continue as you live in service towards your neighbor. That’s the way God’s gifts have their way in our lives: The more we are on the receiving end of His gifts to us, the more we will give to others.
God doesn’t want us to worry about hoarding His gifts for ourselves. Just as we don’t have to work for them, so we have no lack with regard to them. We have all that we need in Jesus Christ. Those who think worship is about trying to give something to God in order to get something from Him don’t yet realize He’s given them everything in Jesus. They don’t realize that God doesn’t need their service. God doesn’t need your good works (the cattle on a thousand hills belong to Him), and you don’t need your good works (you’ve been given Christ’s good works). The ones who need your good works are your neighbors, beginning with your own brothers and sisters in Christ. To receive the gifts of God in Christ by faith and to live in love towards one another is true worship. With such worship God is pleased, not because it’s a work of yours, but because it’s His work in you. It’s Jesus having His way in your life. And when that happens you’ll honor God not only with your lips, but also with your body and all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Amen.