Worship at the well: From Dogmatics to doxology (and back again)

Trinity Journal, Spring 2002 by Vanhoozer, Kevin J

V. CONCLUSION.

WHAT TO GIVE THE GOD WHO HAS EVERYTHING

Let me now pause to rehearse the main points:

* First, it is Jesus' life, death, and resurrection that makes possible the sending of the Spirit who, in uniting us to the Son, draws us into God's triune life and enables us to worship in spirit and in truth.

* Second, we worship what we know. If our knowledge is not deep, our worship won't be either.

* Third, worship has a cognitive dimension: what we are to know, and thus to worship, is who God is and what God has done.

* Fourth, what we have come to understand in the classroom we should come to celebrate in chapel. The meaning of Christian life comes to focus in worship as nowhere else.

* Fifth, theology is not only the study of God, but a means for improving our worship. Conversely, worship is not only the praise of God, but a means for improving our theology.

* Sixth, our worship is the index to how well we have understood our faith.

* And seventh, the worth-ship of our worship is a function of how deeply we perceive God's worth. In true worship the Spirit relates us to the Son, the truth of God, enabling our worship to correspond to who God is.

Of course our worship, like the well water we drink in my house, inevitably contains certain impurities. At times our worship, like that of the Samaritans, betrays the influences of our place and time-cultural contamination. So, just as theology leads to worship, so worship leads to further theologizing as we seek to correspond to God's Word and Spirit rather than the words and spirit of the age.

What exactly do we give God in worship? My family tells me that I'm hard to shop for at Christmas. We all know people for whom it is hard to shop. Sometimes it is hard because we do not know their tastes and hobbies, their likes and dislikes. Sometimes it is hard because they already seem to have everything they need. Yes, it's hard to know what to give the man who has everything; how much harder is it to know what to give the God who has everything, the God who has life in himself? Or is it? Jesus tells us in John 4 that what God desires is people who worship him in spirit and in truth. What we should give God is the acknowledgement and the recognition of who he is and what he has done. When done in spirit and in truth, both theology and worship alike, dogmatics and doxology, are a fitting tribute. Both can acknowledge God's infinite worth.

Two final points. First: it is precisely because real worship is in spirit and in truth rather than confined to a certain place that it can be localized, anywhere and everywhere. Worship should therefore spring forth wherever the people of God happen to be sojourning. As a springing forth of the Spirit of God back towards God, worship localizes the Trinitarian well. Our corporate worship here at Trinity is a localized expression of the triune God who exists everywhere. Second: our corporate worship is a means for articulating, transmitting, and receiving the vision that we believe in and reflect on in the classroom. Chapel may be our last best hope for integrating what otherwise risks staying departmentalized. Like the well, corporate worship provides a vital resource to help Christian pilgrims along their journey of faith. Worship replenishes our supply not of water but of spirit and of truth. Corporate worship-drinking from the Trinitarian well-is also precisely what we need to sustain us during our sojourn in the groves of Academe. May we all therefore learn to worship, and to learn, in spirit and in truth.