WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH


TUESDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT   

Dan 3:25,34-43; Ps 25:4-6,7-9; Mt 18:21-35

Moving from Ritual to Practice

Because God is a Spirit, the Supreme Spirit, whom we cannot easily see or perceive to be with and within us, the tendency remains for us to formalize or ritualize our dealings with Him. However, the fact is not that we do not interact with God or relate to Him on a daily basis, but that we fail to recognize that God is within every aspect of our experience and never absent from all we perceive with our senses. Because we have not developed the needed personal communion with God through His word, we consider God very distant from us and only reachable through religious rituals and formalities. The ignorance of God’s closeness to us and his dwelling within us causes us to falter and commit sin very often. The entire Lenten observance of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving is geared toward developing our personal relationship with God. Fasting from all that distracts us from dwelling on the word of God, which is the vehicle of his presence within our awareness, is to promote prayer. The practice of prayer is simply the increase of our attention span towards God and his divine will for us. When our attention is on God and His word, we begin to feel the illumination of His word and His presence, which affords us more knowledge to choose and act for good. The knowledge of the good and our commitment to doing what is good is what almsgiving implies. It is the willingness to self-sacrifice ourselves for the other to accomplish God’s will.

The temptation to gradually ritualize their relationship with God was the problem the Israelites faced in the Old Testament. Their failure to carry the word of God along with them wherever they were resulted in their restricting their worship of God to the Temple in Jerusalem. But that is not the will of God for his people, as we heard our Lord reveal to the Samaritan woman. God is not interested in only localised worship in Jerusalem, but rather in those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. We must worship the Lord not only in the churches or temples, but also in spirit and in truth. This means every one of our thoughts, words, and actions must be an act of worship to God, who is always with us as the ground of our existence. The Temple-centred worship was the reason the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed in the first place. God sent the prophet Jeremiah to warn his people of such worship or religious practice of living mindlessly of God and then coming to the Temple to glory in empty rituals. Azariah’s confessions noted this sin. “Lord, now we are the least of all nations, now we are despised throughout the world, today, because of our sins. We have at this time no leader, no prophet, no prince, no holocaust, no sacrifice, no oblation, no incense, no place where we can offer you the first-fruits and win your favour.” God allowed the destruction of the place of sacrifice and oblation because his people failed to make themselves a sacrifice and self-oblations to God, the Maker of all things. Our self-sacrifices constitute the reality of the church ritual.

Our Lord’s reply to Peter’s question of how many times we are to forgive those who offend us illuminates this understanding. “Peter went up to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times? Jesus answered, ‘Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.” The Lord went ahead to give the parable of the unforgiving servant, who received the cancellation of his huge debt to his master, which he could never pay, but refused to cancel the debt of a fellow servant, which is nothing compared to what he owed the master. In essence, God sacrifices Himself for us. Thus, we know God to be the Sacrifice that takes away our sins. We cannot, therefore, relate well with God without being sacrifices unto Him. It is only when we become sacrifices unto God that He is able to flow through us as channels to others. So, what we give in almsgiving is not really ours, but what we received from God. We cannot receive in communal or Church worship and switch off, preventing the flow of divine gift through us to others. We must give out to others what we received from God in abundance. May we never hear God say to us: “You wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours when you appealed to me. Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?”

Let us pray: May your grace not forsake us, O Lord, we pray, but make us dedicated to your holy service and at all times obtain for us your help. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.  

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