Beyond Our Galaxy?

Just got home from our church's Sunday morning gathering [and our subsequent lunch at CPK] still doing some thinking...

This morning we sang a series of songs which all had the same kind of unifying theme - the bigness of God. Now I have nothing against this kind of theme, which is quite popular in worship music today, but it did leave me wondering a few things. As we sang God of Wonders, I kept thinking about the first line, "God of wonders beyond our galaxy." What is the point being made here? Is it that God's wonders extend beyond our galaxy, or is it that God is a God of wonders that somehow resides infinitely beyond our galaxy? While I would like to think the first option, I'm suspicious that it might be the second option.

Why is much of our worship focused on the image of God being above and beyond this creation? I'm wondering if this has something to do with our vision of the nature of this world. If our dominant vision of this world as something inherently and utterly sinful, lacking anything good, does this in fact necessitate that we posit God as wholly other, outside, and beyond this creation? It is almost as if we are afraid of attaching an immanent presence to God for fear of somehow tainting God in the process.

This brings me back to something I've thought for a while. While the early Church apparently wrestled with the divinity of Jesus, the current Church has subsequently wrestled with the humanity of Jesus, even approaching something close to docetism - the thought of Jesus as not being fully human, but as something wholly other. It just seems that we are somehow more comfortable with seeing God as "other" than wrestling with the holy in our midst.

So here's the question I wrestled with this morning. What might it look like to worship God as immanently present, the holy in our midst? What if our worship was not contained merely as worshiping God as originator and controller of the world, but equally embraced God as incarnationally present in this world?

I think the answer to that question might change the way we worship, how we see this world and the kingdom, as well as how we might live in this world.

Thoughts?

Comments

[Ryan]

I would add that this "God as other" concept shows up in the pneumatology of many worship songs as well. I've noticed that numerous songs ask for God to send his spirit, or for the spirit to come, instead of acknowledging the Spirit being present in us and our current and future actions here and now.

[Chris Pritchett]

Mike, thanks for causing me to think about our worship songs. It's too easy sometimes to emphasize one aspect of God over another.