Art Through the Eyes of Worship

Is art way of seeing? And if so, what is the lense through which art envisions, creates, describes, and frames? I contend that for Christians that lense is worship. Although liturgy can be defined as the "work of the people" and surely means the daily acknowledgment of God's will and purpose in this world, I am referring to worship in a more Sunday, communal gathering sense. This collective formative view of worship is under real questioning in some circles. This may in part be due to the recent market driven relationship of many books and musical creations regarding the issue of worship and its outworking. For some, this heavily commercial driven interest is a dumbing down of what real worship is. I too wonder about the depth and purpose of much of this "product." However, this recent surge of interest in the theology of worship and the many expressions of worship can and should be a good thing. For some worship is a private matter and can be done at home, in nature, on a bus and thus the Sunday or corporate outworking of worship is merely a formality. Regardless of the dumbing down of worship's significance and place in a believer's life, this discussion wants to take another look at the role and position of worship in our lives especially and primarily in the lives of those who create for a living or avocation. The world we live in has made worship private and primarily otherworldly. It has become disembodied from any corporate sense. We hear all the time; "I don't need to go to church to worship. I can worship on my own." Can you? I am sure that if one were held without rescue on some desert island, the Spirit of God is sufficient to embrace us and reveal Himself in some manner. Rather than make the anomaly the case, let's just think about our own American world if you will. Every Sunday in thousands of cities and towns throughout this nation, churches focus on some form of worship. They enact some sort of liturgy corporately and through this practice hope to assist their disciples in learning of the God they corporately worship. This rehearsal, learning, and enactment bring with them the narrative of the faith and display openly the symbols that form and inform those who choose to believe. Because for many worship is seen as a retreat into some private inner space, many eschew corporate expressions of creedal faith and corporate involvement (e.g. Communion) as being highly formal and avoid these trappings. It is clear, however, that some sort of formation is taking place based on the symbolization of faith enacted during the time we call the" worship service."In recent conversations with artists I have found that there is significant focus on what many might call the immanence or "sacredness of everyday life". Surely God's creation is good and surely all experience can be brought under His Lordship. He is Emmanuel in His creation. However, I think the inordinately strong need by some in the arts to see daily life as sacred may be a reaction to a deeper need to make corporate worship more holistically formative and less technical and rational. Because many churches focus their Sunday gathering on the sermon as the center of the gathering, worshipers are forced to see God through this lense of reason and logic. God is an idea and worship and service are technique. Don't get me wrong, understanding is important to faith and information and biblical exegesis is vital to the tutorial side of being a disciple. However, this penchant for causing the corporate gathering to be forced through the vortex of rational, propositional prescriptions makes faith more of a science than a pilgrimage, more of a course than a way of living. Corporate worship must be re introduced as the sole purpose for which we gather corporately on any day. Our narrative is rich with history and experience in this regard. Worship need not be a retreat or personal experience centered on the mind or the emotions but a corporate reenactment of what it means to be Christian. Aidan Kanvanaugh (a Benedictine liturgical theologian) tells us that in worship the church "does the world as God means it to be done." It is at this point that the issue of creativity and the arts come in. For creative types, a vantage point is essential. In years past through the lense of modernity, this vantage point has been full of self reflective emotion, therapeutic doubt and suspicion, romanticized projections of a higher awareness, and a cynicism that causes all experience (even worship) to come under undue scrutiny and critique. This lense pushes corporate worship to the side and makes it more about institutional power, more about the confusion of symbols, more about the darker side of church history and its inability to gather the faithful around some sacrosanct formal technique that works for everyone all the time. Ironic is it not that the freedom many in the arts crave is actually destroyed by their own famished imaginations that cannot envision a hopefulness around the powerful formative experience of corporate worship. This famished imagination is starved in part because of the ill focused lense through which they (the aritst) are attempting to frame life. By rooting all experience ultimately in themselves, corporate worship, which to some degree is a willingness to die to self at best and a brief moment of self-forgetting at worst, becomes a cultic activity which powerfully confronts the highly individualized formative lense of modern creativity.The term realism comes up over and over again in the creative lives of many artists I encounter. I ask above if art was away of seeing. If the goal of life is to see reality (life as it really is and I question this as the ultimate goal), my question would be "what is reality." Once again I contend that only through the vantage point of worship does one see what reality really is. We were created to worship God. If art is an attempt to capture the "essence" of life if you will, then one must know when this essence is revealing itself and know how to capture that essence in some medium. Seeing, knowing, capturing are all activities that worship rightly aligns. When we see as God sees then His creation is rightly displayed. We will know as He knows when our experience is formed out of His mind and His creative imagination. When we capture according to His will then the manner in which we perform, inform, and create is equally glorifying. In worship, the moment of truth is not only symbolized but also brought into our understanding. By seeing worship and in particular communion as the source out of which our humanity is made complete and whole and holy, we then can see and rightly divide all manner of experience.Thus, for artists, worship is central to their aesthetic. Without a deep experience in corporate worship I question whether the art that comes forth will ultimately bring the Father glory. He is not selfish but He does want our adoration. This worship will then spill over into Monday and the rest of the week. Everyday life will indeed reflect His glory. God is not held in a box in some formal expression of worship on Sunday. He is, however, powerfully revealed in these practices and artists must humble themselves to find the vantage point from which real creativity will flow. As many artists seek some sort of aesthetic discipline, I suggest that the central discipline to which they submit is corporate worship. Learn of your deepest parts, find and encounter with other pilgrims" the vital presence of the living Lord in the Eucharist, in the bread, in the cup, in the powerful symbols of the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the coming wedding banquet," as Rodney Clapp asserts. Rehearse this with your family. See the very skin of God take on life and breathe the very breath of God on His children. Let your imagination be informed by the very powerful act of worship and let the symbols and metaphors that emanate from your aesthetic find their ultimate meaning in the adoration and worship of our God. Worship is the vantage point through which art becomes truly aligned and redemptive. Get your creativity infused with the power of the Holy Spirit-take communion today with your family. Rejoice and go in God creatively.