Psalm Meditation 628
Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
July 1, 2012

Psalm 50
1 The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
3 Our God comes and does not keep silence, before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around him.
4 He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
5 "Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!"
6 The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. (Selah)
7 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.
8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me.
9 I will not accept a bull from your house, or goats from your folds.
10 For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine.
12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High.
15 Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."
16 But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips?
17 For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.
18 You make friends with a thief when you see one, and you keep company with adulterers.
19 "You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your kin; you slander your own mother's child.
21 These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one just like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.
22 "Mark this, then, you who forget God, or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.
23 Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God."
(NRSV)

What does it mean to worship? Is it being there every time the doors are open and going through the motions, or is there something else? There are folks who are there for nearly every worship service offered by the congregation of which they are a part. Some of those folks are there out of a sense of obligation and some of them are there out of a sense of gratitude. There are folks who attend worship when it does not interfere with other plans. Some of those folks are there with the same motivations of obligation or gratitude. There are folks who attend worship when there is some compelling reason to attend. Some of them feel obligated and some are grateful. In each group the folks who attend out of gratitude are more likely to have actually worshipped by the time they go home.

Is the least faithful attender who is grateful a better worshipper than the one who is there for every service out of a sense of obligation? At least for that one service it is the case that gratitude is better than obligation. To participate regularly opens the possibility of a fleeting sense of gratitude, though being grateful brings a person to a deeper awareness of the relationship God offers to us and desires from us.

My personal prejudice is that it is good to be in worship nearly every week. I am not the one to whom any of us finally answers. God seems to be much more interested in how we treat others, especially those over whom we have some power, than whether we have a gold star on the weekly attendance chart in our favorite place of worship. Honest, faithful, fruitful relationships with God and others holds much more sway with God than a line of gold stars.

June 25, 2012