"For no one is going to say that he does any service to a spring by drinking from it, or to the light by beholding it." – St Augustine (City of God X.5)
Worship is a gift. God certainly does not need it. Worshiping the Creator is the creature's destiny – the only source of her happiness. God does not need worship; we do! But there is a trap in this truth – an ironic temptation to which so many "contemporary" or "seeker sensitive" folks succumb. We need worship, but worship is not for us.
Thus we must worship God to be happy, but we must not worship God to make ourselves happy. For then we are not worshiping God but ourselves.
This morning, as a visiting friend attempted to keep up with the liturgy, I was reminded of how long and complicated our services are, especially during Lent. Orthodoxy is overwhelming. We are the ecclesial equivalent of the dad who teaches his son to swim by tossing him in the lake. So no wonder advocates of seeker-sensitive services complain about our worship being long and difficult to understand.
This criticism comes from a good place, but it wrongly presumes that more than being for us, worship is about us. The truth is that worship is supposed to be demanding, because it is about God. In the end this may be what the "enquirer" finds appealing about ancient worship. In the demand they detect authenticity. It's sink or swim.
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