Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

Frank wrote in his last post that “worship changes everything”.  He is right of course.  Worship is that centre of our Christian existence which defines our relationship with the world and with God its creator.  It changes everything and is everything. 

At the door of my small study in Houston I have a picture of the ancient standing stones at Callanish ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callanish_stone_circle ) on the island of Lewis.  These stones have been standing for as long as 5000 years - a pretty impressive number by any standards.  However, what makes this picture so arresting for those of us who have lived in Houston Texas, is the picture that is mounted alongside this ancient place of worship.  Placed alongside is the Houston downtown skyline shot from a position that presents the outline of these buildings of modern commerce in disturbingly similar outline to the ancient stones.  Placed together the images ask questions of those who don’t just walk quickly past to get to the PC or to grab a book.  Questions like, “is this all about worship?”  The Houston skyline, after all, boasts a building whose apex is modeled on a Mayan temple.   

There are sometimes when a piece of art shows you something that without the prompting would have been invisible.  Those two pictures side by side tell the story that we as human beings have the need for worship - we just worship different things today (at least in downtown Houston).  Just like those men and women on a remote Scottish island thousands of years ago we reach for something greater than ourselves to believe in.  And today it is the power of commerce and industry.  The architects who brought these building to life tell us that it will not be the church spire that saves us - it will be economic benefit.  I have to say that given the state of the world today perhaps it would be better if we started building tall steeples again and made those our places of worship.

Where I live in the Netherlands the architectural landscape is different. Certainly places like Amsterdam and Rotterdam have their city scapes which mirror parts of New York or Houston.  Outside these cities though the flat landscape is punctuated by windmills and church spires.  It is a peaceful sign of continuity in a country that can look at times like a Vermeer painting.  And, yet, the churches are empty, showing that the faith that shaped the country has moved on. 

The bible has a lot to say about worship.  yet perhaps not in the sense you might expect.  As Frank pointed out a lot of the metaphors speak of worship being a natural outpouring of life and living.  Part, in fact, of the reality of life as much as making a living, or a marriage, or a family.  When I thought through taking a new job recently it was my wife that pointed me towards Psalm 128 as a guide to those who try to balance worship, life, job, and family.

Blessed are all who fear the LORD,
       who walk in his ways.
 2 You will eat the fruit of your labor;
       blessings and prosperity will be yours.
 3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
       within your house;
       your sons will be like olive shoots
       around your table.
 4 Thus is the man blessed
       who fears the LORD.
 5 May the LORD bless you from Zion
       all the days of your life;
       may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem,
 6 and may you live to see your children’s children.
       Peace be upon Israel.

Worship is also about getting things in the right perspective.  As far as the psalmist is concerned when we fear the Lord and walk in his ways (the life of worship) we see our relationship to work and family take their proper place and have too their proper reward. 

Early this year I changed job and went to work for a company based here in Europe.  In fact, I will be living with Karen and the girls in The Netherlands while Jack, our oldest, goes to college in the US.  It is only a minute ago it seems I held Jack in the moments after his birth.  Now he is getting close to eighteen.  I am getting old.

Changing jobs seemed like a good idea but when I was thinking about moving I wasn’t thinking that the world would be dealing with the largest economic contraction since the great depression.  Well, here we are.  New job, new country, new world order.  But same old faith, thankfully. 

It’s easy to see what is happening around us as a calamity thrust upon us by bankers.  That’s the story line that seems to have gained most traction.  In the UK Sir Fred Goodwin is being vilified in the press for walking away from a bank, the centuries old Royal Bank of Scotland of which he was CEO, with a $1 million per year pension for life.  Hard to justify that given the circumstances.  Look a bit deeper though and the trail of shame leads from banks to governments.  The UK government’s lack of adequate regulation of financial markets and the US governments aggressive push to create home owners who basically could not afford to own a home has saddled us all with the fallout of the bad debts as defaults mount. 

Stopping there would be certainly be good for our collective conscious.  Blaming big business or big government is convenient but alas I think there is one other group at the heart of this fiasco and that is us.  The metaphor I offer you is a something I thought for a long term was uniquely American and, indeed, a pretty good thing, “Public Storage”.   http://www.publicstorage.com/Corporateinformation/CorpAbout.aspx  The first time I saw a Public Storage location I asked what people stored there.  As the person explained to me what people would use the storage unit for I could only wonder that America was a country of such abundance that its citizens needed space to store the stuff they basically didn’t need but still had.  Awesome!  This first sighting was 20 years ago and over the years I have used the presence of Public Storage as a proxy of growing prosperity.  A few years ago I started noticing them around London, and then recently I noticed one in my home town in Glasgow.  The definition of having a lot is that you need special spaces to store the stuff you don’t really need and so “having a lot” had come to Glasgow.  Having a lot has also come to The Netherlands as Public Storage even has a few locations here too. 

With some apologies to Public Storage as a company - I am sure they provide a fine service -  in the current economic climate doesn’t this seem to have transformed from a metaphor of prosperity to a metaphor for something else much darker?  Somewhere along the line we stepped over the line of enough and wandered into the country of excess.  Like the prodigal the son we took the inheritance early and spent it on stuff we didn’t need.  We thought we were living and alive but we wake up one day and we realise we are in the pig trough.  (Luke 15:13 ff)

This is a pretty gloomy post but perhaps we should remember how the story of the prodigal ends.  The wayward son comes to his senses and while he is still far off his father runs to greet him, welcoming him back into the family home.  (Luke 15:20 ff) Many of us over these next couple of years will be happy to turn back towards a father and a family that doesn’t really care how much we have and in fact has riches itself beyond our comprehension.

I am coming to the end of my time in London which is provoking a lot of different thoughts.  I have lived in the USA since 1991 and indeed have become a US citizen but still there is a remnant of Britishness and Scottishness that does not go away.  All those childhood memories form an indelible imprint on your personality and they don’t just leave you, they stick.  It has been good to be reminded of them again. (more…)