"The Dangerous Act of Worship"

As part of my goal to read more books I have been trying to work through the large stash of books I have acquired but not read over the years.  I just finished a book called "The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice" by Mark Labberton.  In it he talks about how the church, by in large is asleep, that we are failing to respond to the call of the Gospel on us and failing to live out our full potential.  In particular he names the fact that we tend to seek worship services that are comforting rather than disturbing.  He advocates that worship should in fact be something that awakens us to the need to do God's work in the world.

On the one hand I certainly have been guilty of what he has said.  Like most people I want to be liked and so like most people I respond to positive affirmations and shy away from negative ones.  I know that no one wants to hear that they are not giving enough, not doing enough or failing to love their neighbor as much as they should.  Instead we want to hear that we have already done more than enough, that we are well on our way to earning a gold star.  Preaching sermons that challenge us or worship services that raise questions about how much, or maybe how little we are doing runs counter to these tendencies.  At the same time, my reaction is to wonder how often we need "wake-up calls" do we really need to be reminded each week of the work we have to do in the world?  In fact if we emphasized it every week wouldn't we dilute the effect and desensitize ourselves to such a message?

The more I think about this though the more I think that being reminded regularly, even weekly about the need to be doing God's work in the world is exactly why we encourage worship on regular basis.  We need to constantly have this put before us or it gets lost amidst everything else we are doing.  We might have occasional moments of awakening, but generally we become lax if we are not constantly spiritually prodded towards action.  It may be hard to accomplish on a weekly basis, but I think we need to try and make sure our worship does push us out into the week, out into the work we need to do.  Spiritual rest is important.  Sabbath is necessary, but so to is a constant call to action, a constant reminder that justice is what our work is about, loving the least, the last the lost, that is all of us, and bring God's good news into the world.  It is a regular action that needs us, something we must constantly place before us, otherwise we lose sight of it in the midst of all the less-pressing but more present distractions in our lives.