For Such A Time Like This Series

ILL. It was another year of drought for Himba, a tribe from Namibia Africa. Kuneni, a young man, went out as he did every day, to look for something to eat. No deer or other game, no fruits, no mushrooms, only a scorching sun… That day he discovered a bee hive in an unusual place, in a tree stump. Inserting a tube he begging sucking sweet honey…Would this be enough for him? He didn’t thing of other members of his tribe, or his own parents almost starving… But some kids passing by…

That they he discovered a bee hive in an unusual place, in a tree stump. Inserting a tube he begging sucking sweet honey…Would this be enough for him? He didn’t thing of other members of his tribe, or his own parents… But some kids passing by… Sow him on his knees with that tube in his mouth: What are you doing here?

- Well, I worship our gods. Family gods I give them my soul, blowing through this wooden tube – said Kuneni.

- Can we worship too with you?

- Sure, but careful - only once a day, and I have to do it first. You just look from distance, then you come and blow. Do not suck…Gods needs some of your souls…

So Kuneni and the boys “worshiped” several days, coming in the morning. Soon the whole tribe heard about Kuneni worship, giving his soul to some gods deep underground. Wow, what a godly young man… And they admired him, looking up how he is ignoring his hungriness, going every day early to his place of worship…But the rest of the day Kuneni was not particularly religious, nor interested in helping the hungry dying people around him. The tribe chief came too one morning, to worship. He blew air trough the tube. then he accidentally sucked honey… Kuneni fate still unknown until this very day.

The story is well known in Africa, and the saying “honey–worship” is used in relation with fake spirituality or cheap religion. True-worship vs. honey-worship, kind of sweet but fake,selfish, a substitute not related with God, but satisfying just own emotions/ feelings.

True Worship is not only biblical, engaging the Word, but Worship is also rational, engaging the mind. We live in an age when the sensation is king: people embrace the notion that if we don’t FEEL something, is not authenticity in it.

So feeling is the touchstone of reality. A secular song states: “It can’t be wrong - if feels so right”! And if it the sensations are “right”, we will do it. If not, thank you very much, I’ll try again latter. The two ugly twins: mindlessness and meaninglessness…

It’s our responsibility to let people know that worship is not all about feeling, but is a question of using the mind as well.

It is unacceptable to say this: when I go to my church, I feel like taking my brain out and sticking it under the pew like a chew gum, because I won’t need it. I just feel it all…

But worship is a conscious activity. We cannot worship without thinking. We are not transcendental meditation people or “Hare Krishna”, with our legs crossed in a funny Yogga position that will make everybody have bizarre thoughts.

We are sitting as much comfortable as we can, with our Bibles opens and our minds concentrated… From eyes and ears, through our minds, to our hearts… this is the path.

Some of the practical implication of it. We say that we came here to worship. It’s true in the sense that we are today, this morning, at the apex of a seventh days long worship cycle. Because worshiping God is not something we are doing for an hour Saturday mornings, but it’s a lifestyle… What I am doing Monday, and Tue, and Wed… is worship as well.

Studying, going to work, driving through on 540, reading a book, eating, drinking… they are acts of worship. My life unfolds as a continuously worship.

But the problem arises when I worship to more than one God… When today I worship to God of heaven, but tomorrow I worship to some gods of this earth. Hollywood cheap entertainment-god, football-god, yummy-in-my-tummy-god… But the most dangerous one is a god called “I-know-what-I-am doing”…

ILL. Oscar Pistorius story - from "rags" to the palace, but not just one way ticket. He is again in "rags"...

Everything we are doing during the 6 days affects the worship in the 7th day… Most of time we are not doing anything wrong, only doing what the last of the 7 church is doing it. Laodicea. I know what I am doing – says Laodicea. Everything is just fine, I got it, no need to worry here Pastor. Relax, life is not only about church, and prayer meetings and reading the Bible… Don’t be so extreme, so narrow…