Our Joys and Sorrows

The story goes that an IRS agent calls a local priest. The conversation goes like this: "Father O’Malley, is John Brown a member of your congregation?" asks the agent. "Yes, he is," O’Malley replies. The agent continues, "Did he give your church $20,000?" Father O’Malley thinks a moment and says, "No, but he will."

There is what we claim to have done and we’ve actually done. There is what we’ve done and why we’ve done it. Mr. Brown’s church may get his money, but will God have the worship of his heart?

Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord expressed his disgust with worship disconnected from daily life. Indeed, he went so far as to say, in essence, "If you won’t bring your whole life before me as a sacrifice, the sacrifices you do bring mean nothing." God doesn’t count Sunday offerings the same way we do.

We talk about leaving our cares and worries at the sanctuary door so we can focus on worship. Where are such ideas born? If the injustice and loneliness in the world don’t both affect and disgust us, indeed, disrupt us in our daily affairs, we are blind to what God sees. If we don’t bring both what blesses and breaks our hearts before God, whatever we are doing on Sundays, it’s not worship.

"Wash and make yourselves clean. Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow" (Isaiah 1:16-17).

Life-transforming worship is about far more than good technique on Sunday. It’s about a way of life that seeks the ways of God in the ways of life, then brings both our joys and sorrows before God.