Worship as stewards

Romans 11: 33- 12: 2; John 4: 19-26

Many of us are moved and inspired by the world we live in; God has written many messages in creation, from the mountains and rivers, to the tiniest insects, to teach us about Him and His character. The space and beauty – and sometimes simply the change of scene from the general busy-ness of our lives, can be restoring and healing to us, perhaps helping us hear and experience God in a vivid way. That was why David, in Psalm 19 wrote “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the works of His hands”.

This is the third week of the series about being Stewards of God’s good creation. We’re going to talk about what worship has to do with being a good steward of creation – and I want us here to think about what that word “worship” means.

At its root, our English word, “worship”, is a shortened form of “worth-ship” – to honour something, or someone, that we consider worthy of honour. We honour by giving of ourselves in some way; our time, our energy, our possessions, our affections and our choices in life. Sometimes these honouring actions are done directly to the one we are worshipping; at other times perhaps less direct. There is a sense in which we can worship God directly, face to face, and also a sense we can worship Him by making choices of obedience in our lives that value God, and the things that He values. More of that later.

In the Old Testament, we have a number of words various translated as worship, praise and serve. That are quite physical Hebrew words, meaning to lift the hands, throw out the hands, shout triumphantly, strum strings, spin around and dance (something God also does around us incidentally) – and also to kneel – even to be silent. Not the kind of silence that is simply the absence of sound, but the kind where the presence and awareness of God is so tangible that making human sounds would somehow disrupt that holy moment. And of course, a few hundred references to singing to God – the Hebrew word “Halal” is the song, “Jah” meaning part of the word Yahweh, forms the phrase Hallelujah.

In the New Testament though, two key Greek words emerge. In the Romans verse we heard earlier, because of the depths and riches, and wisdom and knowledge of God, Paul calls us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, and calls this our spiritual worship. In the Greek, our logical service. The word for service or worship here is latreuo. It carries a sense of an ongoing service; a latris in Greek is a hired servant – and this is consistent with Paul saying that this is about our whole lives being offered to God. This is the kind of worship enacted with lifestyle choices, perhaps many such choices we’ve been thinking about in the last two weeks.

In the Gospel passage Jesus is talking privately with a Samaritan woman. So many amazing things that we can’t go into today – but it culminates in Jesus revealing Himself as a prophet, and the woman responds by asking about worship. And He tells her. The word here for worship is proskuneo. It means to bow, to kneel and… to kiss. Or putting it together: to kiss the feet. How often, or to what level, can we say that our worship to God, in whatever form it takes, is an act of kissing the feet of the Lord?

So let’s talk about feet. That’s something we don’t often talk about in church. You may remember, powerfully, that Hugh and others from this church washed the feet of climate-change protesters in London a few months back, as a sign of friendship, support and service. When the disciples meet the risen Jesus in the last verses of Matthew 28, they take hold of his feet, and worship him – proskuneo.

I don’t really like my feet being touched… I play squash and run… and the feet of racquet-sport players are fairly renowned for being a bit of a mess of injuries and general abrasions. There’s a vulnerability and something of an intimacy about being at someone’s feet; being that close; it’s one of the most startling pictures of humility that we might see. Other stories spring to mind – the woman who is forgiven much who cries on Jesus’ feet and dries the tears with her hair; Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.

And let’s talk about kissing  (A sentence you don’t often hear at morning church…) The sense meant here is not romantic, but the Greek word may be derived from an idea of a dog kissing the hand of its master, which sounds strange, but bear with me. When Jessie, my Labrador sits beside me, nuzzling my hand, her eyes are full of love and trust, and hope that I might provide some food for her, which I probably will at some point. Sometimes, just sometimes, the eyes are full of repentance too; just last week, I was distracted from the kitchen by the need to deal with one of my spaniels, who was busily arranging the contents of a pigeon into an artistic work on our patio. While I dealt with that messy issue, my faithful Labrador grasped the window of opportunity and ate the chicken and vegetable pie that I had just cooked for the kids. But as she sat looking at me adoringly, and a little bit sheepishly that evening, I realised that in a sense, the relationship between me and my Labrador, is fleetingly like the friendship between God and us. I provide for her and love her, despite her imperfections, and she is loving, affectionate and trusting of me.

These sorts of pictures are tenuous and incomplete, but in a playful way, proskuneo captures something of that meeting – trust, humility, love, forgiveness, as we “kiss the feet of mercy”. Do we have moments with God, in church or outside, sung, or spoken, or silent, where that is what our worship of Him is like?

While proskuneo describes a particular act of devotion, it is not isolated or irrelevant from the rest of life. After all, you can’t just go around kissing everybody’s feet, can you? There is a sense of value and commitment. It would be strange if one minute I were to kiss the feet of Jesus, and then later that day, do or say something He doesn’t agree with, or neglect and damage something that is really special to Him.

So we have these two aspects of worship. Latreuo and proskenuo. The surrender of our whole lives in obedience and offering, and our expressions of intimate devotion, which Jesus called worshipping in spirit and truth. They are connected and they are both essential – but they are not quite equal, nor interchangeable. If I were to only worship with latreuo, it would be like perhaps like buying my wife Faye lots of presents, doing lots of jobs, supporting her favourite charities and so on – but never being fully present in face to face, eye to eye words of love and affection. If on the other hand I were to only worship with proskuneo only, then perhaps all of the direct words of love and affection would seem somewhat hollow, if I did not follow them through with other quality choices, valuing the things Faye values.

So we need to learn both. But if I had to choose one of the two to practise, it would be proskuneo; to spend that time talking to, singing to, praying to God, focussing myself onto Him in devotion. The reason: it’s in those moments of intimacy at His feet, that I find God changes me, and changes my heart so that I feel more of what He feels, and more sensitively care about what He values. And when I rise from that moment and continue with the rest of life, I am more ready and passionate for latreuo – worshipping with the important lifestyle choices – than I was before. Perhaps that is why in the Gospel passage, Jesus says it is worshippers – proskuneo – that the Father is looking for.

So in closing. The lifestyle choices that we have been talking about, as stewards of creation, are an act of worship; they are valuing what God has made – creation itself glorifies God and teaches us about Him, and He cares for all His people, including the poorest, who will suffer the consequences of climate change more swiftly and more severely than we will, as we have learned.

But I also want to encourage you to spend some quality time with God when you can, perhaps out and about among nature, perhaps as we sing to Him or have break bread together here, or perhaps in a private quiet space, and draw near to kiss the feet of Jesus. To bring Him our love, our devotion, and allow Him to shape our hearts to feel more of what He feels, and see the world more through His eyes. And in those times, may He fill us anew with the Holy Spirit, with love and with power, to live life in all its fullness, honouring God and loving all that He loves.