Weddings And Worship

Last night Ginny and I watched a wedding on tv.

Thousands of couples chose yesterday, July 7^th, 2007, as an auspicious day to exchange marriage vows; they considered 7/7/07 a lucky day.

In Nevada, couples could even have dozens of Elvis impersonators arrive at the service in a hot air balloon to escort the bride down the aisle and sing Love Me Tender to her.

More power to ‘em!

I wish them all joy.

Funny thing is that last week while I worked in the crawlspace repairing plumbing pipe, for some reason I got to thinking about worship and that train of thought naturally lead me to thinking about marriage.

No there is nothing romantic about broken pipes. Here I was lying on my belly in an inch or two of filthy water and mud in a dark, spider-infested crawlspace trying to twist around to saw off a rusty leaking pipe and, between hardy curses as I scraped my knuckles, thinking about worship.

Since we came back from vacation I’ve been reading a biography of Margery Kempe, a lady who lived between the years 1373 and 1438. I bought the book at a flea market while we were on vacation. She wrote the first female autobiography in the English language.

A stanch adherent to the Medieval church, Margery Kempe was noted for her extreme displays of behavior as she worshiped. Besides that, she comes across as a thoroughly obnoxious and aggravating busybody.

During church services, she often fell prostrate on the ground, rolling about, weeping and screaming. She felt the Holy Spirit had given her a gift which she called a Holy Shriek.

A holy shriek resounded much louder than an ordinary shriek, much to the consternation of other folks who tried to pray in the church.

Margery felt this noise to be an essential part of her worship.

Many of her contemporaries considered burning her as a demon-possessed witch, an idea which as I view it 500 years later finds some merit.

If you’ve ever watched the British tv series Keeping Up Appearances, think of Hyacinth with a strong religious bias.

If anyone is interested, they can find the text of Margery Kempe’s book at: http://www.holycross.edu/departments/visarts/projects/kempe/text/main.htm )

So, prostrate under the air conditioner and making certain grunts and noises which can in no way be construed as holy, I thought of Margery and her style of worship (which in no way represents my own).

The lady dressed in white and said she wanted to look like a saint; I dressed in an old swimsuit and looked like Bruce Willis at the tail end of a Die Hard movie.

But my face-down wallowing on the floor posture was the same as Margery’s.

A posture of private worship.

In long ago times, before lovers started writing their own wedding vows, an ancient traditional wedding service included these words:

"With this Ring I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow; In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; Amen."

What in the world did that mean?

“With my body, I thee worship”.

The word worship is rooted in the word worth. In relationship to God, it means we acknowledge Him as worthy. We recognize His value. We regard Him as supreme. We relish His beauty and perfection.

Or, we don’t.

That is why the Scripture so condemns idol worship as a disgusting abomination; some people attribute to some thing the worth and value of God Himself.

But how does that phrase, “With my body, I thee worship”, (for the most part dropped from modern wedding ceremonies) fit into the Christian concept of worship?

I think that when I say to Ginny, “I worship you”, I’m saying that of all the beautiful, talented, charming, attractive women I see and have ever seen (and there are scores of such women in the world), I have chosen you as worthy of all my body can give. For me, you are the tops among a hundred thousand thousand contenders for the crown.

That doesn’t mean that others aren’t out there. They are. It does not mean that I’m oblivious to their existence or that I never notice them. I’m not blind. But it does means that forsaking all others I cleave to you. With my body, I thee worship.

In Saint John’s vision of Heaven, he saw then thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of people worshiping Christ saying, “Worthy is the Lamb which was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing…”

Who is He to receive all these things from?

From me.

From you.

Who else?

There is, of course, a flip side to this.

While we worship God, He judges us.

The word judge and the word worship, in practically, carry the same meaning — to ascribe value to, to determine the worth of, to appreciate, to treasure, to hold worthy.

Both words mean to give one’s honest opinion of someone or something.

Today and everyday we give our opinion of God.

On that great and terrible day of the Lord, He gives His opinion of us.

“This is my body, broken for you,” He once said.

“With my body, I Thee worship”.

Does anybody else see the connection?