Just Worship

My heart beats out of beat because its beating has everything to do with what I’ve grown accustomed to.
The music, the melodies, the choruses, the rhythm.
The stained glass windows to match the great entrances.
The beautiful feel of the church atmosphere.
The nod, the wave, the casual smile, the formal handshake.
The one hour on Sunday because Mondays belong to work, school and everything else and Saturdays are way too close to Sundays.
As if our worship ran on electricity. Keep it off during the week because your ’Worship Bill’ might just come in too high.
As if our worship was wholly based on singing songs and raising hands when hands and limbs are the price paid by worshippers in other countries because they refuse to renounce their God……our God.
As if our worship needed the John Maddens to lead us in a play-by-play, or the Simons to brand us as American Idols or the John Mayers to remind us that the world is waiting or the Jay-Zs to proclaim that Jesus can’t save or the Larry Kings and the 60 Minutes to inform us of what’s happening in our world.
When what’s going on in our world should be more than just information for our ears, or conversations at lunch breaks, or Facebook statuses and blogging materials.
As if our worship needed great big neon signs to attract the masses or catchy phrases to get our attention.
As if our worship needed an amazing return on investment to convince us of it’s worth.
As if our worship needed stages, microphones, lights and American Idols to make it authentic.
Teach us worship, Lord, teach us worship.

Open our eyes God, to feel the pain of the black and blue that camouflage the bodies of little boys and girls around this planet who can’t fight for themselves but hope for the church to fight for them.
Open our eyes God, to understand the thoughts or expressions on a child’s face when they realize that Mom and Dad has just made an exchange. Their little bodies for change in the form of revenue, their little souls for pleasure in the form of sin we know now as trafficking.
Open our eyes God, to imagine the daily activities of prostitutes and drug addicts that seem too filthy to be part of our story, but the Rahabs and the thief on the cross never filthy enough to have been excluded from His story.

Open our eyes God, to respond to the pain of the unborn child made in Your image. The beauty in a mother’s womb that screams, “I exist!”. When the world concludes it is just a blob, they say, “Feed me.” , the world says, “Feed us…it’s just a fetus.”.
Open our eyes God, to protect the purity of our youth in a world that proclaims that a virgin has no status. How mistaken, when the real version of the virgin birth is the One who gives them status. His breath that awakens their apparatus with the purpose of creating a like virgin of them with a virgin.
Open our eyes God, to breathe in the greatness of You who makes dead things come alive, live things look fly, fly things fly high into skies where their cries become laughter. Because in our stadiums the rafters are filled with fatherless sons we call bastards and motherless daughters we call future disasters.
May we drown in justice, may we be resuscitated with hearts transformed, with hearts that mute the music’s noise because they long for a worship that responds to the angelic callings of the orphan and the widow.
A worship that feeds, a worship that quenches thirst.
A worship that isn’t irritated by visiting hours or prison doors.
A worship whose sense of smell can stomach the stench of urine and unbrushed teeth.
Whose sense of sight can bear an urban crown of thorns, lice-filled hair and bloody nails.
Whose sense of touch and embrace can loosen the grip of domestic violence.
Whose sense of hearing and concern can fill the void shaped by the held back ‘I love you’s’ that turn dreams into nightmares and nightmares into realities.
A worship whose purpose is to shine outside the dry walls of the church where the world waits and a God watches.

The question, the challenge. WILL you worship?