Confessions of an Argentinian Llama Herder

"While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly." Romans 5:6

I remember these words, "Christ died for the ungodly" scrawled in paint on the side of an old overgrown cement bridge or culvert beside the road near my home in rural Nova Scotia. The bridge was in the middle of nowhere and must have been made at some time to cross the small stream that still trickled out.

I am not sure of the intent of the graffiti artist who put it there. It seems to me that it was either a word of encouragement for those burdened by their ungodliness or one of judgement for those who ought to have been so burdened. Whatever the intent, while I was intrigued by the stark message (evidenced by the persistent memory these 35 years later), I never had any thought that it applied to me. After all, what was ungodly about me?

This makes me think and consider how we present the gospel - how we put it in context. St. Paul's intention in writing these words to the Roman church was the first aforementioned purpose - encouragement to those who understand what it means to be ungodly. Writing to Jews in Rome, he addresses hearts and minds that understand the existence of a holy law and of the implications of transgressing it. To one familiar with the concept and category of ungodliness, and therefore, personal acquaintance with it, the news that Christ died for these is indeed good.

But, alas, I was in the "those who ought to be so burdened" group. The message was lost on me because it simply didn't seem to be addressed to me. It caught my attention not because it piqued my spiritual interest, but because it was so incongruous - more likely to be read by local fauna than by any human beings. Perhaps it was encouragement to the godless deer and racoon of the vicinity.

What makes these words, and indeed all the book of Romans, so powerful is that they are addressed to speak into the intellectual and cultural concepts of their audience. Paul knows to whom he is writing and what makes them tick. He proclaims the gospel in a way that makes sense in the context.

This is not to say that the gospel changes depending on culture or circumstances. It does mean that we are challenged to present the gospel in a way that makes sense. Missionaries are trained, usually before they are deployed, in that language and culture of the group they are sent to reach. Similarly, we are challenged to understand the language of our culture if we would speak to it. Telling people that Christ died for the ungodly will not connect with someone with no concept of godliness.

To hear that Christ died for the ungodly was, for me, the equivalent of hearing that he died for the llama herders of Argentina (which he did). Interesting, but clearly not pertinent to me. And yes, I fully understand that one of my problems at the time was that I was unaware of my own ungodliness, and that the message was for me.

But someone needed to do the prior work of teaching me that I was an Argentinian llama herder. Happily, eventually someone did.

On apparent paralysis in worship

You might think that I am thinking about some sort of spiritual, or metaphysical paralysis the we might encounter in our worship of God, but no, it is the simple physical kind. This is what got me thinking:

"O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker." (from the Venite, or Psalm 95, Book of Common Prayer)

It struck me this morning that to fall down in worship is a foreign experience to us and that this, from the Psalms, is clearly an invitation to do just that: to fall down, to drop to the floor in adoration of God. And we are not taken to this extravagant behavior. Indeed, it might seem rather disturbing to us.

There is relatively little physical movement in many corporate worship services. We are accustomed, perhaps, to kneeling in prayer, but to fall down (it implies some level of spontaneity) in awe before God seems outside our physical worship vocabulary. We are apparently paralyzed in worship. We can sit and occasionally kneel. But there is none of this falling down before God business. It is simply not decent.

Some other faiths seems to have preserved this prostrate stance. Many have seen, in picture or in person, this stance in worship or prayer. Any liturgical practice of this is a sign or a picture of the awe that God's very real presence can and will produce in us, and in that sense it has got something right.

I am not sure that I am advocating that we do it, I just wonder why it is so foreign to us. Certainly the physical space in which we worship as Christians is not conducive us falling on our faces before God, so there is the practical constraint.

But I think another reason is that we are often too self-conscious (worried about ourselves and what others might think) to be truly abandoned in public worship. This is both bad and good. Bad because SELF-consciousness is exactly what worship isn't about. Charles Wesley describes this abandon in the hymn, Love Divine, all loves excelling, as being "lost in wonder, love and praise" (emphasis mine). Our attention is entirely Other-focused. Being self-conscious is just what we don't want in worship.

But that we are too self-conscious is good because, at least in corporate worship, behaviors or actions that distract other people from their focus on God, however edifying to the individual, is self-centered in another way. In the end it is uncharitable.

Were we all, suddenly overcome with the awe and majesty of God, to fall down before him that would be spontaneous, good and fitting.

And this is where it gets back to liturgical practice. Worship is not a spectator sport. It is participatory and makes the assumption that we are NOT paralyzed; that we might sit, kneel, stand or be on our faces (albeit this latter less commonly). This is why, in the Psalm it is an announced invitation:

"O come, let us (all of us together) worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker."

The individual, spontaneous response of prostrate worship is off-putting and perhaps counter-productive in corporate worship, as much as we might see it as desirable to be so moved in heart as to fall down in adoration. But it is better yet, in response to the liturgical invitation, with our wills and regardless of our being moved emotively, that we do exactly that, worship, fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker. Not because we feel like it, but because, quoting the Psalmist, "he is the Lord our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand." It is meet and right so to do.