Be Upstanding

I love the opportunity to worship in an international church.  We were privileged yesterday to worship at Basel Christian Fellowship in Switzerland.  People from various nations and backgrounds gathered around Christ as Lord. Meeting in the chapel of a retirement home, they come together to worship.  While their native tongues are often something other than English, the service is in English and thus becomes the lingua franca for worship. 

Yet even English has its differences.  Very early in the worship the pastor called us to be upstanding for the first hymn.  For one brief moment I thought he was calling us to high ethical standards.  But the context told me he was asking us to stand up.  That brief moment caused me to shut off my auto pilot and engage in the service as it unfolded.  It is the reason I often will read passages in translations other than the one I use primarily.  It forces me to slow down and stop reading over the top of the story or ideas being communicated.

Being told to join together in upstanding forced me to think about what I was doing in worship.  Oh, that this same intentionality would be my weekly experience in my own culture.  How many times have I gotten deep into the worship service before I realize I am there to worship.  My mind has taken several excursions by then.  When I get back to the U.S. I hope to have an “upstanding” moment every week in which I am quickly called to check back in to worship and turn off the cruise control.

Whether it’s a call to be upstanding or simply a call to worship, my desire is to engage in worship from its beginning and stay engaged to its conclusion.  May we all be upstanding every time we join with other believers to honor God through our worship.

Please Do Not Fall

Upon arriving in Zurich for the first day of our Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, France trip took a train from our arrival terminal in Zurich to the terminal housing the baggage claim.  (It has the distinction of having the equivalent of a "flip book" along the tunnel with cows mowing and a young woman welcoming you to Switzerland.)  As we disembarked and approached the escalator we were confused to hear a voice over the loud speakers stating, “Please do not fall.”  We looked at each other and began to giggle.  A few moments later, as we began our ascent on the escalator, we heard the voice again.  “Please do not fall.”  It was only as we heard the voice a third time near the top of the escalator that we both realized the voice was actually saying, “Please do not board,” a reference to the train as the doors were about to close, not the escalator.  What we took as a command from Captain Obvious turned out to be a command from those concerned with passenger safety.  Somehow the acoustics in the building, our jet lag and maybe a slight German accent turned the word “board” into the word “fall.”

Once we listened carefully we were able to hear the words as they were, not as we thought they were.  It took three times to hear accurately what was intended for our safety but which we had dismissed as superfluous.

How often do we also fail to hear accurately the words of God and dismiss them as either unintelligible or as unimportant?  This is why we must continue to listen carefully and take into consideration context and the actual words spoken so that we might better understand and respond to what it is God is saying rather than what we think God is saying.  In the case of the public address announcement it turned out that it was directed at those near the train, not those near the escalator.  And the words were a specific statement (do not board), not a general statement (do not fall).  So it is with much of Scripture.  We need to be careful about making general statements too specific (glorify God in your body=do not eat red meat OR husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church=have a date night once a week) and specific statements too general (fasting=refrain from something/anything OR forsake not assembling together=meet over coffee with another believer).

Hearing clearly takes time, energy and intentionality.  For those of us privileged to own our own copies of Scripture the opportunity and the responsibility to handle accurately the Word of God increases.  While it is true that the Zurich airport did not want us to fall, it was even more true that they did not want us to board.  Both were important truths, but one was actually what the airport wanted to communicate while the other was was only what we thought they might be telling us.  May we all get better at hearing what God is actually saying rather than what we think or hope He is saying.  It will make all the difference in the world.