How many househusbands do we have here? Are there any househusbands? Not housewives … we don’t even say that word in these politically correct times! You know what I mean … how many of us men will admit that we get into the housework routine?
Come on, I know about some of you! You have a working wife, and at some point she said to you, "If I am going to work all day, I cannot also come home and cook and clean and do the laundry while you park in front of the TV set." Isn’t that right? You remember something like that?
Well, my brothers, I am with you. I too am a househusband. My Mondays are a whirlwind of raking the yard, washing the cars, dumping clothes into the washing machine, and racing the vacuum cleaner through the house. Get out of my way, it’s Monday, and here I come!
And every Monday my wife says the same thing. Every Monday she says, "You can’t possibly do the whole thing in one day. You cannot do everything and do a good job in one day."
Now, if you know me well, you know what that does to me. When anyone dares to suggest that I cannot do something, I don’t quit. I don’t slow down. I go into overdrive. I will, I absolutely will, get it done by nightfall, or die in the trying!
But there’s just one problem. My wife is right about something. She is right when she says that I will not do everything and at the same time do a good job. And she has proved her point. When I challenged her statement, she amply proved her point.
Picture a room in our house. I’ve dusted the furniture, I’ve vacuumed the carpet. It looks all right to me. But Margaret just walks in, swings the door closed, and points out what is behind the door. Behind the door, which I had not bothered to move ... behind the door, which in my haste I had not worked with ... behind the door, which, if the truth be known, I hadn’t counted on being discovered ... behind the door, dust bunnies. Behind the door, all over the woodwork, dust so thick you can hardly see the color of the wood. Behind the door, a spider web with eggs in it to breed more creepy-crawly things. Behind the door, so much dirt left from many frantic Mondays, that you could hardly even read the place where three months ago her finger had written, "Dust me"!
Behind the door the woodwork needs cleaning and polishing. When the door is open, the room may appear to be clean; but when the door is closed, you can see that something unpleasant is breeding there. When the door is open, the room may look presentable; but close the door, and behind closed doors, the harsh reality spoils the entire effect. Behind the door, the woodwork needs cleaning and polishing.
What an image for the meaning of Christian worship! Christian worship is polishing the woodwork of the church. Christian worship is going behind closed doors, where the living God can deal with two great issues:
First, the living God can deal with the dirt in our lives ... even though we are believers, there is dirt multiplying in us.
And second, when we worship, the living God can show us the beauty of holiness. He can show us what life might be like.
The Lord Jesus said, "Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret." Go shut the door; worship behind closed doors.
Let’s look at the whole passage together, in Matthew 6:5-15 -- "Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
I
The Father’s first reward for those who will go behind closed doors is to deal with the impurities of the heart. The Father’s first gift for those who will worship Him is to confront and heal the terrible vulnerability of the human heart.
The passage of Scripture I read a moment ago included, as you noticed, the Lord’s Prayer. But did you notice how much of the Lord’s Prayer is given to this issue? How much of the prayer focuses on the insidious breeding of sin within us? "Forgive us our trespasses ... lead us not into temptation ... [or the translation we read, ’Do not bring us to trial’, rescue us from the evil one."
All of that language is designed to say, "We have a problem." We have a problem and the name of that problem is sin. However middle-class and sophisticated we have become, however educated and worldly-wise we are, the one great fact about human nature, even among Christians, is that we sin. We sin. We do wrong things, we nourish wrong attitudes: we fail to do right things, we fail to change our ways. It is purely and simply, that thing called sin.
And it breeds. It grows. It multiplies. Like the spiders’ eggs behind my study door, left alone, sin will breed and multiply and take over. It will absolutely take over.
There is only one remedy; there is only one solution. And that is worship. Worship. For in worship we go behind closed doors to polish the woodwork: in worship we go behind closed doors, where in the secrecy of the heart and in the company of God’s people we lay open what we are and find cleansing.
I don’t know what your image is of church folks. Maybe you think that all church folks except yourself are very nearly perfect, that they have it all together, that they have no problems. Maybe you think that everybody here but you has come to display his righteousness and to congratulate himself on being good. That’s what some people think that Christians are ... the folks who’ve got it all down pat and who come to worship as a mutual admiration society.
A couple of weeks ago, when I expressed to someone some degree of frustration about a situation, she said, "Why, I just imagined that pastors never got upset or angry about these things. I just thought you’d be able to handle the problem with no hassle.”
Have I got news for you! If you think that either I or the deacons or the trustees or anybody else in this church has licked the sin problem, have I got news for you! You are not alone! If you struggle with your own shortcomings and feel weak and vulnerable, you are not alone!
No, we are not perfect. But we are forgiven. Did you catch that? Christians are not perfect; but they are forgiven. And when we come to worship the living God, in all His purity and majesty, He cleanses us and sees to it that sin does not breed deeper and deeper in us.
Worship is polishing the woodwork, even where it cannot be seen. Worship in this church will always include times of confession and testimony; it will always include the reading and the preaching of God’s word, so that we have to confront truth. And our worship must also always have in it an element of good news. The good news of hope and forgiveness. If you go away from here on any Sunday feeling nothing but burden and guilt and heaviness, then we have failed to worship, because worship is good news.
Worship is going behind closed doors, to pray to the Father who is in secret, and the Father’s first reward for those who will go behind closed doors is to deal with the impurities of the heart. The Father’s first gift for those who will worship Him is to confront and heal the terrible vulnerability of the human heart.
II
But worship is not just for Christians. Worship is not just for church members. Worship is for another and very important group of people. Worship is for seekers. Worship is for those who feel as though there has to be something better than what the world has to offer, and they come to church and to worship hoping to catch a glimpse of that.
Deep down inside, most of us, even the most cynical know that the values that are projected out there in the world are not enough. Even the most materialistic of us knows that money-grubbing doesn’t buy us happiness. Even the fun-grabbing, bed-hopping, drug-snorting, bottle-hitting generation knows that the bubble bursts after a while. Some of you are here, and you keep on coming to worship, hoping to find something better.
And so, in Christian worship we go behind these closed doors so that our God can present us an image of wholeness. Our God can dream with us a dream of completeness. Christian worship is not only designed to keep sin from breeding in the house where we church folks live; it is also designed to present to others who come here looking for something, a picture of wholeness. A sense of the possibilities. An image of what God can offer.
Christian worship is polishing the woodwork behind closed doors so that those who come here, not yet committed to Christ, not yet a part of the church, can see what God’s beauty is all about. That’s why we try to create an atmosphere of beauty in our worship. That’s why, with everything from music to the spoken word, from flowers to the way we move ... all of it is to present the beauty of holiness. All of it is designed to remind us that there is a world of order and not of chaos, there is a world of harmony and not of discord, there is a world of possibility and not of defeat. And if sometimes what we say seems illogical, if sometimes the words and the music seem too grand and the claims we make seem impossible to fulfill, we are simply trying to say that there is more to life than what meets the eye. There is more than what you see out there in the world.
It’s polishing the woodwork. Behind closed doors, polishing the woodwork and presenting a glorious dream toward which we can hope.
Today you may live in a single cramped room, with scarcely enough money to pay the rent. But in worship you learn to hope that in the Father’s house are many mansions, and He is gone there to prepare a place for you.
Today you may find it hard to keep food enough on the table to feed your family. But in worship you learn to hope that the Father has spread a banquet, a feast, at which all the nations of earth may gather.
Today you may feel discrimination and prejudice, you may have been called a name or looked at with suspicion, just because of your race or your language or your age. But in worship you learn to hope that whosoever will may come, for God has loved the world, the world, and gave His Son.
Worship is polishing the woodwork, it is shining a glorious image, for all who need a glimpse of what might be. It is not just for Christians, it is not just for church members. Worship is for seekers. Worship is for those who feel as though there has to be something better than what the world has to offer.
Conclusion
In 1993 we are going to work at deepening and broadening the worship of this church. We shall do all we can to open and close the doors in the right way and at the right time, so that we who need to be cleansed and we who need to see a better future can do so.
I will be asking our Diaconate and several other committees of the church to consider several things. Let me give you just a sample:
I will be asking them to think about having another weekly worship service, at a time other than Sunday morning, and in a style quite different from our usual style, so that we may serve a population we are not now reaching.
I have already asked that we plan to meet several times a year in small group prayer meetings in homes, so that we can do more face-to-face fellowship and can stay close to members who live at long distances from Piney Branch Road and Aspen Street.
I will be enlisting more of you to participate in worship leadership, on Sundays and on Wednesday nights. The old Takoma tradition that the ministerial staff should do it all ... that has to go!
I asked some while ago that we purchase or, better, create a new hymnal that will embrace a wider worship tradition. That work, I hope, is about to resume.
I will be looking for people whose artistic, dramatic, and other skills can help us make worship something to engage our eyes as well as our ears.
I will create a forum in which you can react to the sermons which are preached and can suggest topics on which sermons need to be preached.
Most of all, in 1993 we will study and think and pray together about worship, believing that our God is worthy of the very best we can bring Him ... our God is worthy to be praised. We will remember that our God’s gifts to those who will polish the woodwork, to those who will close the door and worship are:
First, to get rid of the dust bunnies and the spider webs, so that sin breeds and deepens no more.
And second, to offer to all who are looking for hope, a picture of life’s beauty and possibilities.
I hope that in 1993 your vacuum cleaner will be in overdrive and that you will have plenty of elbow grease to polish the woodwork!
