Blogging Towards Sunday
January 27, 2008
Obama vs. Hillary, Tazo Tea,
Zaccheus & Experiential Worship
Luke 19:1-10

We're deviating from the Lectionary this week as we celebrate a baptism in our church community. So I chose the story of Zaccheus as the scripture to build our gathering upon. I love it. It's so graphic. So whacky. It has to be true. A short guy climbs a tall tree to check out the man of the hour who then invites himself over to this short guy's -who's taller in infamy than he seems - house for a happy hour with the excluded and forgotten ones of the village. It's like an un-Sex In the City meets Entourage with the humor of Weeds, all with a tree thrown in.

What strikes me reflecting on this story this week is the idea of experience. Zaccheus has clearly heard all about Jesus, but never encontered him, never experienced him. The story is all about participation, connection, and experience. Jesus refuses to let Zaccheus remain a spectator, which he's been doing in life for a long time. Disconnected from his community, from his neighbors and from encountering the Living God of the Bible because he's been auto-excluded and clandestinely ridiculed as a tax collecter, Jesus reconnects him to the vine of community. He doesn't do it with a speech. He doesn't do it with a tract. There is definitely no placard he's carrying. Instead he says to the guy in the tree, "Come down. I'm coming to your house for dinner. Hurry - invite some friends over because I'm coming to party with you at your house!"

This past week or so, the emerging Presidential Election Season has increasingly focused on EXPERIENCE: Who has it?; Who doesn’t?; Who has too much of it?; Who doesn’t have enough? I was struck by a comment by Bill Richardson who asked in a debate, "When did experience become such a bad thing?"

I wonder why we think that in our practice of faith in church communities? In Christian worship we oftentimes downgrade experience to the back row. Worship ends up being first and foremost about an expert – supposedly me in our church community – who talks about faith: what to believe, how to believe, how to act and how to integrate faith and daily life. But that’s not what faith is like!!! Faith is about how we live, who we share with, how it informs our decision-making and priority-choosing. Jesus calls us to a faith that shapes us at the core of our being, work, rest and relationships! It’s something you can’t just talk about or listen to. You have to live it. You can never have too much of it. (Colossians 3:17)

TAZO teas teach a bit about experience. Each packet (see some photos in the slideshow above) describes the tea with an experience – drinking this tea is like resting in a field of flowers, or praying with sacred monks, or escaping to a remote hilltop. They sell a lot of tea that way. I think that same strategy is what we often lack in worship which is often more times about giving information than actually forming us a spiritual people.

I think Jesus got that - not the tea - but the idea. We need to experience things for ourselves. Not just just hear a debate about it. Not just read a tract or placard on a street corner. We need to not simply listen to someone tell us about God but to experience God ourselves and to participate and connect with what God is doing in our world, our hood, and our community. I think that often in the church we're so often stuck up in the tree with our excitement, that we forget to come down and put our feet back on earth to approach each other in truly human ways. Maybe that's why no one comes to church anymore?