Charismatic Chipmunks and Worship

No one showed up. The four of us, dressed in our Sunday’s best, stood amidst the trees. We had a cross sitting on a bench beside us. We had a sermon prepared, a guitar tuned, and an order of worship—no one. About 30 minutes before the service began, we circled around and prayed for whoever came. We waited, nothing.

As we waited for the service to start, I stood on a log, pacing back in forth with my hands in my coat pocket. I looked at the cloud covered mountains, and the trees with morning tears. I could hear birds singing and laughing around me. The trees stood in the color of life, and the streams in the valley ran smoothly. Then a thought occurred to me. Perhaps we were late for the worship service.

All around me, creation screamed and sang to God. If I stood still, I could hear the greenings of creation, but they sound like music. Since the fall, the song of creation is both a requiem and a hallelujah chorus. The trees creak and bend, the clouds hang in melancholy, and the streams run—tired and weary. Oh yea, creation worships and screams, Scripture says even the rocks cry out. There’s a pain in worship. Certainly there is a groaning in creation that we too often neglect in our human experience of worship. Too often it’s light smiles under heavy eyes, and a strong sense of ‘ok’ness. But if we look at creation, it groans. It feels the pain all too well and doesn’t mind sharing its pain with God. Yet, it knows and hopes for the return of Christ.

We have a ‘charismatic’ chipmunk that, to our ears, speaks in tongues every week during our pre-service prayer. Perhaps it’s speaking its own prayer language, but we know it worships with us every week. In fact, it always worships—everyday. Yes, our Pentecostal chipmunk is a fine example of hopeful worship. Even in the groaning is hopefulness. Why? Because creation knows the sons of God are being revealed. They cheer us on to worship, they have their invitation to worship, their hymns, their sermons, their offerings, their doxology and benediction.

If you listen to that chipmunk, it wants us to join.

‘Yes, join our worship! Take hope my human friends, we worship the living God. Yes, it’s painful for now, but we hope, we have a magnificent God! Look around you, our trees sway in dance, our streams run fast, our birds sing the chorus of salvation. He’s coming back! He’s restoring us again, praise be to God’

And then back to tongues.

Perhaps my view of worship is too thin.

As a Christian, and also a minister, I tend to make worship the thing humans do to entertain God. Every Sunday, churches fill with people who get up to praise and worship God. It’s a force they create, devise, and execute. We sing some songs, ‘get fed’, and go home tired. We fulfilled our duty, but no groaning or joy is felt—only dormant idleness. This is not worship because it lacks wonder.

Worship is not something we create, but something we step into. Like a river passing by, it flows whether or not we soak our toes in its cool wetness. All of creation is begging God for restoration of the new creation, and it always praises the God it serves. The ecological cycle of death and life, fall and spring, point to the reality of a fallen earth that worships God. When we worship, we join with them in groaning for the new creation, crying out to God for Christ’s return, hoping in the God of the universe. We step into the stream, we bathe in it, we let its waters pass through us. We feel the cool breeze. We join the wonder. We enter worship.

So whether we have 5 or 50, worship is happening. Whether we have a cute order of worship or not, it still continues. Why? Worship is for all creation, not just humans. It’s not something we create; it’s something we enter. It’s a world of wonder. It’s a groaning. I hardly view worship as groaning because I hardly see worship as a cry of my need for God. But now that I think about it, I feel the pain of creation. I feel the pain of fallenness, of groaning. I understand my chipmunk friend, the birds, the trees, the rivers, my fellow believers, and join them.