Worship Defined?

Don: Worship is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, it is defined as the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity. Synonyms include reverence, veneration, adoration, glorification, and exaltation. As a verb, worship is to show reverence and adoration for a deity; to honor with religious rights. Synonyms include honor, adore, praise, pray to, glorify, exalt, extol, give thanks, and more. Worship is both an act and an attitude, a practice and a mindset.

The first story in the Bible, after the fall of Man, is a story about worship. It contains some pointers to the definition of worship:

Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.” Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” So the Lord said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him.

Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. (Genesis 4:1-16)

There are some puzzling and untold background details to this story. For instance, why did Cain and Abel initiate their worship? Did God tell them to do it, or was it their own idea? What did God tell them about worship? Why did Cain bring an offering from agriculture while Abel brought one from animal husbandry? Had God instructed the in the proper liturgy and practice of worship? We don’t know. Perhaps the reason such matters were not included in the story is that they would detract from its main message.

Probably, the act of worship was initiated by Cain and Abe—by Man. They are worshiping the same God, but in different ways. Cain’s worship is to present the fruit of his own labor in the fields. The language used—working the ground, tilling the ground—is reminiscent of the fall of Man, when God cursed the ground:

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)

The sheep that Abel offered, however, were the natural fruit of the Creation. Thus, true worship centers on God and what he does; false worship centers on us and what we do. When we practice false worship, we are likely to discover that God shows no regard for it.

It is not that God preferred Abel over Cain. In fact, God extended his grace to Cain at the end of the story. But the point of the story is that the key element of true worship is that it be centered on God and his creative works, as personified by the lamb, which was not conceived by Man and was not the result of Man’s work. It was conceived and created by God.

Even though God disregards false worship, he does not disregard the false worshiper. In fact, he placed his gracious, protective arm around the false worshiper and murderer, Cain. Grace undermines our assumptions of cause and effect. Cain did not get what he deserved—he got God’s grace instead.

Worship can stir emotion so strong as to become destructive. Murder is seldom a result of disputes about worship, but destruction of reputation, of credibility, of personal relationships often ensues from our attempts to justify our opinions about worship. When we place our personal efforts, beliefs, and feelings at the center of our worship, we risk the sin of becoming a destructive force to our fellow worshipers.

When God asked Cain: “Where is your brother?”, he was really asking all of us. And his resounding answer to Cain’s question—“Yes. When it comes to worship, you are your brother’s keeper”—addresses us all. In the story, worship is an individual act; but also in the story, we have a responsibility for one another in worship. Too often, the metaphorical blood of our brother cries out from the ground where we have slain his viewpoint about worship, where we have killed his ideas about worship, and where we have murdered his hopes and desires for worship.

Had more background regarding God’s instructions for worship been supplied in the story, then it would have been a story of simple disobedience: Cain just did not worship the way he was told to. The omission of any such background helps us see the innate qualities—the God-centric nature—of true worship.

In summary, worship is both active and attitudinal. It is both individual and corporate. It is of no regard to God if it is centered on ourselves. In a corporate setting, worship can become emotionally charged, but that does not negate our responsibility for one another in worship. The metaphorical shedding of blood is often the destructive action that ensues when we put ourselves at the center of worship, and when, in the emotion of corporate worship, we forget our responsibility to one another.

David: It seems to me there is one thing missing from both the dictionary definitions of worship and from the story of Cain and Abel: It is desire. Surely, true worship must be based upon a fundamental desire to worship, to give thanks, to glorify, etc. That is another part of the background to the story that is not mentioned. Did they (whether they were told to or not) actually want to worship? Motive must, it seems to me, be crucial to true worship.

Donald: In corporate worship, we tend to measure success by the saturation of pews. But emerging patterns of worship might simply be moving worshipers around, to different worship venues; so just counting the numbers of places filled in the pews is not necessarily a reliable indicator of the strength of corporate worship. Still, it feels odd to go to church one day and find it emptier than usual. People are getting married in barns instead of in churches. They are now preferring to worship in auditoriums. It’s still legitimate worship, but it is different. At the individual level, we have to assess our worship partly on the basis of why we are there: Is it because we are drawn to it, or because we are led to it?

David: Perhaps a study of people who don’t change their patterns of worship vs. those who do might shed some light. I would hypothesize that motivation will be seen as a key differentiating factor, and that in corporate worship people tend to abnegate their individual responsibility and self-motivation in worship and gladly hand it all over to the corporation instead. It makes life easier. But if things change at the corporate level—a less dynamic pastor is appointed, for example—then motivation fails, worship declines, and the corporation is blamed. If worship is to mean anything, it has to come from inside the individual.

Donald: There are six of us gathered here today. Shouldn’t we expect more?

Chris: We should de-emphasize corporate/congregational worship and emphasize it instead as a personal responsibility. Cain and Abel each had their own personal way of worship. They did not worship together. Though one of them offered worship that was flawed and unacceptable to God, it was nevertheless personal. Many other instances of worship in the Old Testament were personal. People would build their own altars. Abraham, Moses, and other greats all worshiped as individuals. Our human tendency is to look for other individuals like ourselves, who are therefore likely to share our views and forms of worship, to worship together with. But it remains a personal act between one’s self and God.

David: In retrospect, after reading the whole story, we know that Cain is a bad guy. So we assume that he was insincere in his worship. Yet he worshiped nonetheless! Perhaps what God rejected was not so much Cain’s offering but rather his lack of good faith, his lack of sincerity, in making it. It gets back to motive.

Anonymous: Yes, the difference between Cain and Abel seems to lay in their hearts rather than in the mechanics of their worship. I feel a difference in my own worship as between formal worship in church and informal worship that occurs, for example, when something in daily life, something wonderful, brings me tears of joy.

Jay: That worship is personal between us and God implies that other people may not judge it. It affects all who worship but perhaps especially to Sabbath-keepers such as the Seventh Day Adventists. The story of Cain and Abel indeed says we can worship as individuals, but it also warns that we might get it wrong. The essential element, the one that was present in Abel but lacking in Cain, was thankfulness for what God has done for us, rather than thankfulness for what we ourselves have done for God. Even so, I find it hard to believe that God benefits from our proper worship of him. It seems to me that the primary benefit is to Man. I don’t know what the benefit is (a stronger relationship with God, deeper understanding of God, an opportunity to commune with God, perhaps) but whatever it is, it is the end result of worship. Seen in that light, perhaps worship takes on different meaning and form?

Anonymous: I think the benefit is mutual, especially when the worship is the informal kind that occurs when one feels that God has done something truly wonderful for you. The end result for me is stronger faith, and for God it is glorification.

Jay: The many instances of personal worship in the Old Testament (people building their own altars, etc.) occurred after God did something for the worshiper, who then wanted to give thanks. In Christianity, corporate worship centers on thankfulness for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to atone for our sins.

Donald: Worship also implies allegiance and showing honor. The Commandments do not tell us to worship God, but to remember him. There seems to be a huge difference between personal and corporate (which can mean as few as two people) worship. In corporate worship we focus on the form of worship rather than on sharing with others our allegiance to God—why we, as individuals, worship him.

Don: But to return to Cain and Abel, we see just two forms of worship: One centered on God and his works of creation (the latter symbolized by the lamb), the other on Man and his works of husbandry (symbolized by “fruits of the soil”). Corporate worship almost always comes down to “What am I doing in worship? How am I participating? What is it that is required of me as a participant in corporate worship?” Once two or more of us worship together, we start to question what we are supposed to do and how we are supposed to fit in.

David: Abel did nothing except let nature take its course. In the presence of grass and absence of wolves, his lambs would beget lambs regardless of anything he did. Abel was clearly a Daoist, a person who Does Nothing! Doing Nothing may be said, in my view, to be the Daoist form of worship. Worship is simply appreciation for, and acceptance of, God’s creation, God’s Way, God’s Dao.

Chris: I’ve sometimes felt worship to be personal and moving even in a congregational setting, though not usually when a pastor is preaching. It happens when, as happened last week, someone in the congregation stands up, attests to what God has done for them, and gives thanks for it. It moves, it stirs, it lights something inside of one. And this is because they were willing to share their personal experience of God, with me and others in the congregation. So congregational worship can have individual worship value.

Don: As Donald’s said, individual worship is not subject to measurement, and as anonymous said, it is a natural release of thanksgiving. But corporate worship almost begs to be measured and critiqued for form. There are numerous admonitions in scripture old and new to worship together, so it must bring some benefit. It is therefore to be encouraged, sought after, strengthened, and so on. It seems, though, that we often tend to get it wrong.

Donald: Is it reasonable to expect that one can have a personal experience in a congregation of perhaps up to two thousand worshipers? Or is corporate praise and affirmation of allegiance the most that one can expect? The conversation at an intimate dinner for four is different from that at a banquet table for 20 people. It’s true that we do get to know many individuals, over time, in a large congregation, but still maybe less than half. The setting and size of a congregation seem to have a huge influence. And is “praise” synonymous with “worship” or just one form of it?

David: Perhaps if we were to call “corporate” worship “organized” worship, we would avoid some of the issues that arise (at least in my mind) from the scriptural injunctions to worship in groups. We can worship individually in a group setting if no leader is appointed, no rules established. And if we do it that way, then group size doesn’t matter: A banquet table of 20 is really just ten groups of two people having intimate, personal, conversations. It sounds like a recipe for anarchy, but is it? Isn’t it what Jesus meant when he talked about “two or three…” gathered in his name? (He didn’t add “…one of whom shall be appointed to lead the worship of me following a set procedure you will all have pre-agreed upon.”) We would then have individual and group worship taking place simultaneously. It just wouldn’t be organized. (As a postscript, I would add that this is the essence of Quaker meetings:

“Unprogrammed” Friends meetings follow the tradition of gathering in silence, without the services of a designated pastor or minister. Many thoughtful expressions have been written about Friends “meeting for worship.” http://www.quakerinfo.org/quakerism/worship )

Donald: The Jewish practices are very disciplined and prescriptive, and have been for millennia. Perhaps that says something for organized worship over spontaneous worship.

David: I recently came across a description of a Jewish worship practice that shows just how carefully they have prescribed things: It is more devout to worship lying down than sitting, because the head of the worshiper is fully abased. Sitters are at a stage two level of worship, whereas the supine are at stage four.

Jay: It seems to me there must be a timeless, culture-free, principle of worship common to all the forms we have discussed.

Donald: When traveling abroad it is very reassuring to find congregations that worship in the same way one does at home, even if the language is different.

Don: Next week we will consider Jesus’ statement in John 4 that God is a spirit and that those who worship him should do so in spirit and in truth.

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