People can have many reasons for attending (or skipping) Sunday morning worship. Many of these reasons are understandable, others are pretty silly when you think about it. Perhaps we say to ourselves that we should read our Bibles more or that we should go to church, but why should we? Is it to become a better person? To be seen as a holier person? To do a good deed? To have a closer relationship with God? Because your parents are making you? Because you told your spouse you would go? Because you like (or don’t like) the music or sermons? Because you need grace and forgiveness in your life? Because you signed up to help with coffee hour? Because you get a discount at the preschool?
Probably yes on some or all accounts, depending on the week. And when Sunday brunch is calling your name, it’s easy to explain away the importance of a few words that we sing, speak, and hear with a group of people.
At a conference I attended, author and worship leader Zac Hicks suggested that God has a different reason for showing up. Hicks compared the church to a hospital in which God is there for nothing less than to perform open heart surgery. This seemed like a strange image to share with a bunch of worship leaders. Aren’t we supposed to make people feel warm and fuzzy about their faith and make them want to attend church? Just as I started thinking that this sounded a little too dramatic, he said, “We can’t get too epic about this … worship isn’t for getting a little better. It is God’s word sawing open our chest.”
We have our reasons for showing up, and God has his. He shows up to give us a new heart. To replace our heart of stone with a heart of flesh (Ez 36:26).
The Collect for Purity in the Book of Common Prayer says, “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open…” God knows our hearts. We are an open book, no matter how much we try to hide. The book of Hebrews talks about God’s word being “sharper than any double-edged sword,” and “piercing even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow,” and “judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Heb 4:12-13).” This is supposed to be good news about the power of God’s living word, but honestly all of this talk of piercing, dividing, and judging sounds terrifying.
No wonder we don’t feel like going to worship or reading our Bibles; who feels like going to surgery? We may give lots of little reasons for avoiding God’s word, but deep down it may be that we are afraid of looking at these hearts of stone and allowing God to do his messy work.
Just like good doctors, the pastors, worship leaders, and other church leaders want to make it as pleasant for everyone as possible, but let’s be honest, what is really going on in worship is painful, and the fact is, no one wants to be cut open. It’s a far cry from the comforts of brioche french toast and mimosas.
But when you need a new heart, you need a new heart. It is a matter of life and death. God’s word kills and makes alive. No one chooses to have a heart transplant unless the one they have is threatening their life.
Soon after the conference, I attended a church staff meeting where the staff comes together to coordinate events and (more importantly) pray for the needs of the church and prayer requests that people have shared. For over a year, we had been praying for a little girl who was on a waitlist for a heart transplant. That morning, we learned that she was finally receiving a heart! It was great news. The staff took turns praying and thanking God for this blessing in addition to the multitude of other prayers. Amid the joy and thanksgiving to God, for some reason my heart was hurting. Yes, this blessing would allow her to live, but I could only think of where the heart had come from. As the prayers were wrapping up, one of the pastors finally prayed exacting what my heart was aching over. He asked that God would comfort the family who had lost someone in order for this girl to receive a heart, probably someone young, since the heart was a good match for her.
His prayer for the donor was touching to me because I have experienced that side of the story. When I was in elementary school my best friend’s brother died at the age of 14. His organs were donated, and his mom got to meet some of the organ recipients. It was a comfort that her son could at least save someone else’s life, but to a mother who has lost her child, there is no consolation. No amount of “At leasts …” could make up for the one she lost.
The thing about receiving a new heart is that someone else has to provide that heart. Someone has to die.
For us that “someone” is God’s own son. Where a cold, dead, heart once was, Jesus’ own heart now beats so that we, recalling the prayerbook, “may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name.” Or as the apostle Paul wrote: “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20).”
No one wants to have surgery, but just like the little girl we prayed for, there is joy in receiving what we need in order to live. The surgery would involve cutting and pain and recovery, but then she would live. And she would forever be thankful to the one who gave her a new heart.
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