Musings on the Daily Lectionary

The Daily Lectionary readings are currently visiting the Book of Revelation. Coincidentally, I am teaching a course on Revelation at Boulevard Church. I'm probably like a lot of other mainline Christians who don't very often read from this book (more of a letter actually). Like a lot of folks, I've probably let others define Revelation for me as a book of strange predictions about the future. But it really isn't, and our neglect of this work has more or less ceded it to the lunatic fringe.

Now Revelation does take some real effort to appreciate, but when you realize the dire situation of the churches to which it is sent, and when you spend some time with it, there is much there that isn't at all what you might expect. One of the things you notice when you read it all the way through - also the focus of today's reading - is how central worship is. We are repeatedly show scenes of heavenly worship, although that worship may not look exactly like what many of us are familiar with on Sundays. This worship is radically focused on God, offering up glory and praise over and over.

One of the most common complaints I hear about worship as a pastor is, "It just didn't feed me." Such complaints may indeed point to problems in a congregation's worship, but they also seem to envision worship as a place one goes to get something, rather than something one offers to God.

I've wondered this many times over the years. What would help us in congregations to see our worship directed more to God and less to those in the pews? How might we better understand ourselves to be serving God in our worship services?

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