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This is a text that links the quest for social justice with worship (vv. 6-7). Martin Luther seems to see things that way:
… the performance of all the works of the Second Table of the Ten Commandments, such as honoring father and mother, living a patent, chaste, and decent life, is worshiping God. For he who leads such a life is serving and honoring the same God.
(What Luther Says, p. 1547)
John Calvin echoes these sentiments, contending that without God we are not likely to give our neighbors what we need:
… the love which we owe to our neighbors cannot be sincerely cultivated unless we love them in God… indeed the love of our neighbor does not thrive where the Spirit of God does not reign.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. VIII/2, p. 232)
In the modern era, Mark Labberton has written a book whose title (The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice) clearly conveys these themes. He writes:
Worship is to be the one activity that sums up the scope of our lives.... The hope we are offered and are meant to offer others is that the gospel of Jesus Christ fundamentally alters the context in which we live.
We need to help our parishioners to stop trying to separate religion and politics, faith and justice. Research on the human brain indicates that in both activities the brain's prefrontal cortex is activated and the back part of the brain (the parietal lobe) becomes passive (Dean Hamer, The God Gene, pp. 72ff; Daniel Amen, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, esp. pp. 111ff). Worship and seeking justice are obviously biologically related, so let's start bringing them together in our spiritual lives.
… the performance of all the works of the Second Table of the Ten Commandments, such as honoring father and mother, living a patent, chaste, and decent life, is worshiping God. For he who leads such a life is serving and honoring the same God.
(What Luther Says, p. 1547)
John Calvin echoes these sentiments, contending that without God we are not likely to give our neighbors what we need:
… the love which we owe to our neighbors cannot be sincerely cultivated unless we love them in God… indeed the love of our neighbor does not thrive where the Spirit of God does not reign.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. VIII/2, p. 232)
In the modern era, Mark Labberton has written a book whose title (The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice) clearly conveys these themes. He writes:
Worship is to be the one activity that sums up the scope of our lives.... The hope we are offered and are meant to offer others is that the gospel of Jesus Christ fundamentally alters the context in which we live.
We need to help our parishioners to stop trying to separate religion and politics, faith and justice. Research on the human brain indicates that in both activities the brain's prefrontal cortex is activated and the back part of the brain (the parietal lobe) becomes passive (Dean Hamer, The God Gene, pp. 72ff; Daniel Amen, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, esp. pp. 111ff). Worship and seeking justice are obviously biologically related, so let's start bringing them together in our spiritual lives.
