Dancing Down Penn Avenue

This was also posted at the Daily Devotions portion of my church website.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about worship. I wrote about bees dancing in their hives. I wrote about soldiers worshipping in fighting holes in the sand floors of Iraq. Worship has been on my mind because it is always on my heart. I make every effort to use every waking moment of every day as an opportunity to worship. It makes no difference if I am writing a devotion, singing along with a CD, reading poetry to my sons, or praying—I believe that worship is not only something we offer, but it is an attitude in which we approach each moment. As one songwriter says, “I’m free because I’m living hallelujah.” (Sarah Kelly)

I’d like to contrast two pictures for you today. The first is in an advertisement I pulled out of the Church mailbox just a few minutes ago. The advertisement is a large newsletter type publication from The McKnight Group. The McKnight Group specializes in ‘design, architecture, and construction.’ They bill themselves as ‘church health specialists.’ I know very little about them save for what I have read in this publication. The newsletter I received focuses on a certain church that partnered with McKnight to construct a new building to meet the growing needs of a congregation that had an average attendance of around 700 people.

There are several pictures of the new facilities. There is a ‘new Gathering Place,’ and the worship team ‘appreciates their spacious, adaptable platform.’ There is also a picture of the ‘Great Hall’ which is like a giant foyer with a reception desk that looks like something out of an airport. A picture of the auditorium is captioned, “Services are enhanced with a state of the art sound and light booth.” All this is wonderful.

Don’t get me wrong. I think technology is cool and useful in the advancement of the Kingdom. I just think sometimes entirely too much time and money are spent on such edifices, such monuments to human ingenuity and ‘vision.’ Don’t get me wrong. I think humans do some cool stuff; however, I think it is merely a sign of our love of all things shiny and new. We construct big, shiny, technologically advanced buildings in the Name of God. And we enjoy them immensely. “The Most High does not live in houses made by men.”

I contrast this with a short excerpt from An American Childhood by Annie Dillard who found herself caught up in the moment one afternoon when she was a child:

I was running down the Penn Avenue sidewalk, revving up for an act of faith. I was conscious and self-conscious. I knew well that people could not fly—as well as anyone knows it—but I also knew the kicker: that, as the books put it, with faith all things are possible.

Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Dad after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough, my strong unexpressed joy would dwindle and dissipate inside me, over many hours, like a fire subsiding, and I would at last calm down. Just this once I wanted to let it rip. Flying rather famously required the extra energy of belief, and this, too, I had in superabundance.

…

I ran the sidewalk at full tilt. I waved my arms every higher and fast; blood balled in my fingertips. I knew I was foolish. I knew I was too old really to believe in this as a child would, out of ignorance; instead I was experimenting as a scientist would, testing both the thing itself and the limits of my own courage in trying it miserably self-conscious in full view of the whole world. You can’t test courage cautiously, so I ran hard and wave my arms hard, happy.

Up ahead I saw a business-suited pedestrian. He was coming stiffly toward me down the walk. Who could ever forget this first test, this stranger, this thin young man appalled? I banished the temptation to straighten up and walk right. He flattened himself against a brick wall as I passed flailing—although I had left him plenty of room. He had refused to meet my exultant eye. He look away, evidently embarrassed. How surprisingly easy it was to ignore him! What I was letting rip, in fact, was my willingness to look foolish, in his eyes and my own. Having chosen this foolishness, I was a free being. How could the world ever stop me, how could I betray myself, it I was not afraid?

…

I crossed Homewood and ran up the block. The joy multiplied as I ran—I ran never actually quite leaving the ground—and multiplied still as I felt my stride begin to fumble and my knees begin to quiver and stall. The joy multiplied even as I slowed bumping to a walk. I was all but splitting, all but shooting sparks. Blood coursed free inside my lungs and bones, a light-shot stream like air. I couldn’t feel the pavement at all.

I was too aware to do this, and had done it anyway. What could touch me now? For what were the people on Penn Avenue to me, or what was I to myself, really, but a witness to any boldness I could muster, or any cowardice if it came to that, any giving up on heaven for the sake of dignity on earth? I had not seen a great deal accomplished in the name of dignity, ever. (107-109)

I think we build big, impressive shiny buildings because we are embarrassed. We think that our God is too dignified to worship in small, brick, badly lighted buildings without all the technological advances of the 00’s. Or that He is too dignified to be laid in a manger or take on human flesh. Or maybe we are too dignified. Maybe we don’t like worshipping in small, badly lighted, old places. Perhaps…perhaps, we need to lighten up a little.

“David said to Michal, “It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel--I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.”