Extravagant Worship

On Sunday we talked about worship and ever since I have been thinking about the unnamed woman who had encounter with Jesus (Luke 7: 36-50). We’re not told much by Luke about this woman, and yet what we are told is enough to understand that this woman was a prostitute.  

Imagine, this woman waking up on this particular morning to the realization that she is alone and once again abandoned by the former night’s guest. Empty, alone, rejected and miserable.  

And perhaps, on this morning, outside her window she hears the sounds of voices, people begging for healing and deliverance and other voices shouting words of anger and hatred. 

I can imagine her going over to her window to hear what the commotion is all about. She hears the crowd quite as a man in his thirties speaks compassionately to an older woman, who was ready to bury her only son.

“Don’t cry” Jesus said as he reached out and touched the coffin

“Young man, I say to you, get up!” and the dead man sat up and began to talk.

From her room where she watched the crowd gather this woman realized that this man Jesus, was no ordinary man. Unable to leave her window she continued to grasp every word and clung to every phrase which Jesus spoke to the crowd that gathered around him.

He spoke like no one she had ever heard before. He spoke with authority, as if he were speaking directly to her. And as Jesus continued to instruct those gathered around, the woman hears for the fist time the tremendous truth of the gospel message. 

She understands for the first time that there is a God that loves her, that will never leave her, never forsake her. She believes what she hears, that there is a God that can fill her emptiness and make her clean.

And there in her tiny little hovel, in the darkness of her room she comes face to face with the light of redemption.

Tears begin to flow. She knows that she needs to be in his presence, if only for a moment,

 so she rushes to the street only to find the crowd dispersing and that Jesus had left.

In anguish and heart wrenching sorrow she cries out for the One who has changed her life. Desperately she runs to nearby alleys searching for the man of redemption.

‘No! Not again, has he left me too? I can not lose him, He is my only hope!’  She cries to herself.

And then someone says to her “if you are looking for the Rabbi he has gone to the home of Simon the Pharisee”

Quickly running to the place where Jesus had gone to eat, this woman finds Jesus reclining at the table. She falls at the feet of the Saviour and begins to weep. With tears flowing from her sobbing heart, she washed the Lord’s tired feet with her tears and wiped away the soil with her hair. Then she pours a valuable perfume upon His feet from her alabaster jar, which she carried with her. 

Can you imagine the depth of this woman’s tears being enough to clean the dusty feet of Jesus? Imagine the gratitude that moved her to boldly display her devotion and adoration. Imagine the courage it took to approach Jesus in the manner she did, but it didn’t matter, for her love for Jesus knew no bounds.

Luke tells us in this passage that the common courtesies of the day were not shown to Jesus by his host. The feet washing, being greeted by a kiss and anointing of oil/perfume upon the head. 

In verse 44 we read ….

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Jesus makes it very clear that it is not what the woman did that saved her, it was her FAITH.  

The extravagant act of love and worship came as a result of the forgiveness and love she received from God.  Her obedient act of faith then led her to respond in worship.

Jesus commends the faith that led to her extraordinary demonstration of love.  “Your faith” he says, “has saved you; go in peace”.

I long to worship Jesus as this woman with the alabaster jar of perfume did!  Excessively, abundantly, lavishly, …extravagantly.  Without fear of judgment or ridicule.

So what is worship?

True worship is when one’s spirit adores and connects with the spirit of God.  When the very core of one’s being is found in loving God.

True worship is not about songs being sung, although music is a wonderful expression of worship, it is not itself the essence of it.

True worship is a lifestyle and it happens when we put God first in our lives.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your mind and with all your strength…. Mark 12:30. This verse, I believe, captures the essence of what worship really means.  WE can do all the right things, but if we are not doing this first, then we are not truly worshiping. 

Let’s worship God, extravagantly!

The Crissy Doll... the rest of the story ;)

On Sunday we began a new sermon series entitled “WWJND: What Would Jesus Not Do”, and I shared a story with you about a cherished doll.  I did not however, finish the story.  So here goes:

When I was young I had a doll that I loved.  It was a Crissy doll.  She had hair that grew out of the top of her head by pushing a button on her back.  Now that I write this it sounds rather creepy, but I loved her.  I took her everywhere.  She only had one outfit, an orange dress that clashed with her auburn hair but that didn’t matter. She was beautiful.  I would spend hours changing her hair style - long then short, short then long and back again, making her outfits and just plain loving her.

My uncle came to visit from India, and he saw how I loved playing with Crissy.  He thought that his daughter (my cousin Salina) would love her too.  He was packing up to leave for the airport when he said he wanted to stop by a store and pick one up, but there wasn’t time. 

So a dreaded thing happened.  

He asked me if he could take my Crissy doll to India to give to Salina, assuring me that my mom would buy me another one.  I was six or seven at the time and I clung onto Crissy like she was a life preserver.  I didn’t have the nerve to say “no” but I did not want to let her go.

My mom, trying to be hospitable to her older brother encouraged me to release Crissy into the hands of my uncle.  I did.  I was heartbroken. I don’t think my mother or my uncle ever understood how much I loved Crissy. “It was just a doll, after all”. 

I released her out of love and respect for my elders.  As it happens, we didn’t have the extra money to spend on the luxury of replacing a doll. That was the last time I saw Crissy until years later when we went to visit our family in India.  I found Crissy on the floor of a dark closet.  Her hair had been chopped off, her eyes were gouged out, her beautiful face was covered in ink marks, her orange dress torn, barely covering up that she was missing an arm and a leg. It was like a scene from a horror movie!  I couldn’t speak. I was so upset with my cousin for not appreciating the love that was wrapped up in this doll.

Life goes on, as it does. “It was just a doll, after all”, I would say to myself. But as you have already figured out I never forgot about that doll.  The sacrifice I made (and for the sacrifice to be ignored) was enough to leave an indelible mark.

Flash forward many, many years to the era of the internet and eBay.  Brian, having heard my sad tale (more than once) found my beloved Crissy online and purchased her for me.  She wasn’t new, for Pete’s sake she was a 40 year old doll, but she was perfect, just as I remembered her before she left my arms. Silly isn’t it for me as a grown woman, with two children of her own, to find peace in this amazing gesture. It was restoration.

Since Easter, I have been thinking a lot about the unconditional love of God and God’s desire to be with us, and how God, more than anything else, wants restoration with us.  

Sometimes it is hard for us to receive undeserved love, so we try to earn it. But try as we might, we can’t.  We don’t need to. God’s love doesn’t work that way. What God has done for us by sending Jesus to die on the cross, the ultimate sacrifice, God did for love.  For you and for me. Instead of trying to understand it, or deserve it, or pay for it, God just wants us to receive it and say, “Thank you.” When we do that, God's love begins to change us.

Poolside "Ping"

(Posted on Thursday, May 2, 2019)

Ping

Ping

Ping

“Ping”, the sound of alerts on my cell phone that notify me that I have an email, or maybe someone has liked my status on Facebook or Instagram, or it could be a notification that the Jays got a run.  Oh the sweet, heart jarring, “ping” that keeps me connected... all the time.

But we know that that’s not always good.  

Sometimes it’s okay to turn off the alerts.  To even put away the smartphone.  To actually share dinner with a loved one without looking down at at our laps every 10 minutes.  Why do we do that??  I love technology like the next guy but sometimes I wonder about how this amazing technology is affecting our lives. 

I am actually writing this poolside of a lovely resort and I am amazed how every single person sitting around the pool have had their phones out.... sure some are reading books (real ones) but it is, as I look around, that they, like me, are stirred to reality from their fictional world by the sound of an alert.

We don’t talk about rest much in the church, do we?  But given how we are all running at a pretty quick clip through our day, maybe we need to talk about this more often!

There is an old song that has been stirring in my heart this week, maybe you remember it.  The words are:

“Be still and know that I am God”

These simple and powerful words are taken from Psalm 46:10, in the Old Testament.  In this psalm,  the psalmist begins by stating that God is our refuge and our strength.  The psalmist goes on to say that no matter what goes on around us, God is in charge, even in the midst of fearful chaos.  And then in verse 10, God says, “Be still and know that I am God”.   BE STILL.   The Hebrew definition of these two simple words are;  to stop striving, to let go, surrender.  “Be still”.

 What a great reminder that we can let go and rest in God to provide help, strength and safety.

There’s no doubt that the act of being still and resting becomes more of a challenge in our hectic world. The world asks us to be busy. God asks us to be still so we can rest and replenish.  It’s hard.  But what we know is that we are better when we are rested.  We also know that when we are still - when we are rested - it is then that we are fully able to receive God’s love, peace and guidance.

Take some time to today, if only a moment, to trust God and be still.  Take some time today to rest.  And as soon as I press send, that is exactly what I am going to do.

I look forward to worshipping with you on Sunday!