When we drop in on I Samuel 15, we find the prophet Samuel dealing with Saul's disobedience. Saul has taken things into his own hands and calls his disobedience, obedience. Interesting how he and we can somehow do that. Saul says he did the job God told him to do; the problem is he did it his way rather than God's way. How many times have we done the same kind of thing? Samuel very bluntly informs Saul that God doesn't want sacrifices that are empty rituals just for show. God is more interested in our listening and obeying. A lavish kind of religious production doesn't overcome disobedience.
I am afraid that many times in the church today we are more interested in lavish production in our worship than we are in simple obedience to God's direction and commands. And, interestingly enough, it happens in all kinds of churches and with all kinds of worship styles. The high church, liturgical mind-set can become an empty, lavish spiritual production and yet, also the so-called free style, contemporary worship, with all kinds of free-spirited jumping, clapping, and carrying on before the Lord can be the same kind of empty, meaningless explosion of emotion - meaning little or nothing when it comes to obedience. Someone once said, "It is not how high you jump in your worship, it is how straight you walk when you come down."
If our encounters with God are not transformational in our lives, then I'm afraid the words of Samuel are appropriate for us today. "God is more interested in obedience than sacrifice." In our worship gatherings, God is present. But most of the time there is little life-change in the people who worship. In some ways the question is not whether God is present to us; the question would be how present are we are to God. St. Augustine once admitted to God, "All the time you were with me, but I was not with you." So in our worship, are we really people who are present to God in a transforming way? When we come to worship are we expecting a life change? We can play games just as Saul was trying to do, or we can realize that it is "obedience rather than sacrifice" that our Lord is looking for. mjm
