Reality Worship

Reality TV has taken a huge market share of the television industry because we hunger for something real.  While the attraction to fantasy will always be there as we sometimes need the amusement (the not thinking) element of some broadcasts to take our minds off our problems and to an alternate world where the improbable and even the impossible are common place, there exists an undertow seeking to find something real in a world where poser and liars and hypocrites abound.

I'm not suggesting that reality TV is really real.  Some of it is scripted and much of it lies on the cutting floor of editing.  I am saying that we hunger for real and reality TV has tapped into that hunger with the promise of being real.  And, should we discover that a program has been pulling the wool over our eyes, we will pull the rug out from under them by switching to another channel.

We desire in our lives, in our relationships, in our work and to some degree, in our television programming is some authenticity.  We want something genuine.  Something to believe in.  Something real.  We seek that because we are made in the image of God (cf. Gen 1:27).

God too wants authentic, genuine and real.  He is not impressed with our gestures of worship but with our genuine worship.  He does not desire the rituals of religion but rather the reality of relationship.  He does not desire that we attend church but that we be the authentic church.  Listen to the heart song of our Lord, calling out to his people:

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:21-24).

Being at church every time the doors are open pales to having your hands open to the poor.  Dropping money in a plate that is passed around on Sunday is not nearly as real as filling a plate with food at a homeless shelter.  Praying the Lord's Prayer to "forgive those who sin against us" is a good start but God in more interested in the grace of finishing by going to the one who has offended you and actually forgiving him.  Singing his praises falls flat unless we our sharing his glory.

God seeks something real in us.  Listen to the divinely inspired words of the apostle Paul: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God---this is your true and proper worship.  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is---his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Rom 12:1-2).

The transformation God desires in us cannot happen on Sundays by following a pattern of worship when we conform to the worldly pattern throughout the week.  Real isn't something we put on and take off - real is what we are 24/7.  Paul refers to authentic worship as "a living sacrifice" because a sacrifice never gets down off the altar,  the sacrifice stands forever.  A living sacrifice does not get on and off the altar either.  A living sacrifice exists on the altar of discipleship - following Jesus daily.  This is what God seeks.  Nothing less will do.  Jus' Say'n.