This is the second part of the 5W’s and the H of Worship (Who, What, When, Where, and Why – and How we worship). This week we had our own Wayne Park contribute this idea of What we worship. Thanks Wayne!
Walter Brueggemann suggests the following about the Psalms (The Message of the Psalms):
Psalms of Orientation -
“Human life consists in satisfied seasons of well-being that evoke gratitude for the constancy of blessing”.
Psalms of Dis-orientation -
“Human life consists in anguished seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering, and death. These evoke rage, resentment, self-pity, and hatred”.
Psalms of Re-orientation -
“Human life consists in turns of surprise when we are overwhelmed with the new gifts of God, when joy breaks through the despair…a fresh intrusion that makes all things new” (19).
Worshipping sometimes comes so naturally, sometimes it goes against what we are feeling. Sometimes it is so counter-intuitive that we wonder if we’ve forgotten how or lost the touch. Life does that to you. Which is why I think these three themes embody the spirit of worship. Yes, it is something we do in seasons of joy but it also becomes a continuous act even in the midst of Dis-orientation and Re-orientation. In one sense, our “seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering, and death” are acts of worship themselves, for in our suffering we are entering into the solidarity of the suffering Christ. This is worship. But also in our Re-orientating, when we “enter the sanctuary of God” (Ps 73:17) – in effect come back to our senses, snap to – we find the element of surprise – God is good after all.
