I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:21-24 (NIV)
Dear heavenly Father, you certainly don’t mince any words in this text, in terms of how you feel about your worship. How convicting… meditating on this Scripture, I realize it’s quite possible for me to thoroughly enjoy a service of worship—the liturgy, the Lord’s Supper, the music—and yet the same service might truly grieve and offend you.
Conversely, there are probably services from which I exit bored, critical, and “uninspired;” and yet in these services you find great delight and pleasure. Forgive me when I make my experience the measure of the acceptability of your worship. How self-absorbed and arrogant of me.
Father, it’s also obvious that “justice rolling like a river” and “righteousness flowing like a never-failing stream” is music in your ears—the kind of praise songs you really enjoy—a hymnody for which you long, a “worship set” that isn’t mere noise or cacophony to you.
Forgive me when the new song of the gospel does not lead me to a new life of caring for others. Forgive me when the satisfaction of being in your presence does not lead me to the sacrifice of serving in the community. Forgive me when I can be just as disconnected and merciless as the priest or the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, who enjoyed your real presence and then proceeded to ignore real need (Luke 10:25-37).
Lord Jesus, you were the Good Samaritan to me, and you still are. But you didn’t just find me beaten and broken alongside the road; you found me running as fast as I could from you. I know God and worship him, only because you first cared for me, served me, loved me by giving your life for me. Make me a humble, grateful, joyful worship servant. So very Amen I pray, in your holy and loving name.