Bodily Worship: Ordinary, Repetitive...and a Life-Changer - Rev. Jethro Rachmadi

PREFACE

This sermon note is an excerpt from a sermon series entitled Bodily Worship by Rev. Jethro Rachmadi on the account of online worship. As the world is partly shut down due to the pandemic, churches around the world find a solution in technological aid to continue religious services. And for some people, such abnormality might even be considered a more efficient way of worshipping and should therefore be the post-pandemic new normal of worshipping".

By addressing this issue, we do not by all means force or promote shaming towards those who choose not to come to bodily services during the pandemic, because some congregants may live with elderlies or juveniles, doctors or nurses, or simply would like to be more cautious for themselves.
Our sole purpose in addressing this issue is to acknowledge that online worship is an inevitable abnormality that we must all hope and pray to return to normal bodily worship.

This is the fourth session of the Bodily Worship series. Previous sessions talk about how liturgy exists inside and outside of the church gate and how liturgy takes a big role in shaping the hearts of men. Though ordinary, liturgy is a double-edged sword that powerfully and actively changes its doer down to men's most inner desire. We know that the heart reflects men's desire, but it's almost as important to remember how the heart also plants men's desire. After all, we are what we desire, or more relationally, Who we desire.

For more information on the prior sessions, please click on the link below:

Bodily Worship #1: https://griikg.org/bodily-worship/
Bodily Woship #2: https://griikg.org/bodily-worship-2/
Bodily Woship #3: https://griikg.org/bodily-worship-3/

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BODILY WORSHIP: ORDINARY, REPETITIVE...AND A LIFE-CHANGER

1. The Derision towards the Ordinary

Our Lord works through ordinary things. You might have even heard of this parable of a city that was drowned in a big flood. A man sought safety on the roof of a house, as he prayed, "Lord, have mercy on me and be quick to save me!" Not long after, a man in a wooden boat rowed towards him as he offered a seat on his boat. But the man shook his head saying, "Sorry, sir. I've prayed to God to save me. He will be the one who saves me". And so the wooden boat left him. Soon after, a navy boat approached him and threw a rope towards him, but the man rejected the rope for the same reason. Finally, a helicopter hovered above him and with a loud voice a soldier cried, "Sir, take hold on the ladder, we will pull you up, the water has reached your neck!" But the man replied, "No, sir. God will be the one who saves me Himself". At the end of the day, the man died and went to heaven. He asked God why He did not save Him, and God said, "I sent you a wooden boat, a navy boat, and a chopper, but you refused. You waited for an extraordinary rescue, while I work through the ordinary."

Romans 10:17 says that "[...] faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of God", but let us go back to its preceding verses, "and how are they to hear without someone preaching?" (verse 14b). Someone preaching the Word is an ordinary act. We constantly expect spectacular repentance testimonies. Honestly, nobody wants to hear, "I came to believe in the Lord Jesus by reading the Bible for 20 years, or by coming to the Sunday School diligently as a kid." The story that we want to hear is of a murderer who repents. But even when we study such extraordinary testimony, there is always an ordinary matter that we missed. Say that murderer repented because when he was imprisoned, he happened to find a piece of small paper that happened to be torn from a Bible. But surely somebody had to first bring a Bible to the prison, somebody else had to print the Bible and somebody had to translate it to another language. And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

When we go to a doctor's appointment, nobody wants to be prescribed you just need enough rest, some vitamin C, exercise regularly, and don't forget to hydrate. What we wish to hear is us needing a super dose of vitamin C or other extraordinary solutions.

Finally, have you not noticed that it is through ordinary things that the God we know in our Bible creates the most extraordinary things?

The Reason for Suffering - Pdt. Jethro Rachmadi

Kita sering dengar pertanyaan, "kenapa sih Tuhan kasih COVID-19 ini?", dan kita sering resah untuk mendapatkan jawabannya. Kita harus berhati-hati dengan menuntut jawaban terhadap semua pertanyaan-pertanyaan kita. Kadang, kita nggak harus mengetahui segala sesuatu.

Memang, Tuhan tempatkan banyak beautiful things di dunia ini untuk kita ketahui dan pelajari. Dia kasih kita Taman Eden. Tapi juga ada hal-hal yang kita tidak perlu ketahui, seperti rasa buah pada pohon pengetahuan yang baik dan jahat itu.
Inilah perbedaan antara bijaksana dan inteligensi. Kalau kita pintar secara inteligensi, kita tau banyak hal-hal. Tapi kalau kita bijaksana, kita akan dapat menerima kenyataan bahwa ada juga hal-hal yang kita nggak harus ketahui, karena hal-hal tersebut di luar hak kita untuk kita ketahui, dan kita nggak akan pernah bisa mengerti secara penuh anyway (seperti contohnya kebesaran Tuhan).
Bahkan sebagai orang Kristen pun, kita sering menuntut harus tau ini itu. Ada orang-orang yang ke gereja hanya untuk cari kemakmuran, ada pula orang-orang yang ke gereja hanya utk cari kepandaian, apa bedanya?? Tidak ada!
Bersyukurlah kita, kalau kita tidak bisa mengupas dan mengerti Tuhan kita secara 100%, karena itu artinya bijaksana Tuhan kita jauh lebih besar daripada kita.

Seperti jawaban Tuhan kepada penderitaan Ayub, terkadang kita tidak perlu tanya alasan di balik sesuatu, tetapi yang penting adalah apa tujuan di balik semua ini dan apa yang kita bisa lakukan lewat peristiwa ini. Itu pertanyaan yang jauh lebih penting. Dalam kasus Ayub, jawaban Tuhan adalah: Lihatlah binatang-binatang Behemoth dan Leviathan (mythological creatures), mereka sangat liar dan tidak bisa dijinakkan. Sama seperti bagaimana kita tidak bisa menjinakkan Tuhan.
Daripada bertanya "kenapa Tuhan timpakan ini kepada aku?", mungkin kita bisa belajar bertanya,  "apa yang Tuhan mau kerjakan melalui ini?". Instead of melihat ke masa lalu (bertanya kenapa), lihatlah ke masa depan (untuk tujuan apa).

Ketika murid-murid Yesus bertanya kepada Yesus di Yoh 9:1-41, "Rabi, siapakah yang berbuat dosa, orang ini sendiri atau orang tuanya, sehingga ia dilahirkan buta?", "Bukan", jawab Yesus, "tetapi karena pekerjaan-pekerjaan Allah harus dinyatakan di dalam dia."

Memeluk kenyataan bahwa kita tidak bisa dan tidak harus tau segala-galanya juga menandakan adanya trust (kepercayaan) kepada Tuhan. Ini sangat beautiful. Seperti di dalam relasi cinta, jika kita mencintai seseorang, dan kita tau bahwa orang itu juga mencintai kita, akan terdapat trust diantara saudara dan pasangan saudara. Saudara bisa trust, bukan karena saudara telah mengetahui segala-galanya tentang pasangan saudara, tetapi justru karena saudara belum mengetahui semuanya. Dan ini sangat beautiful, karena love is trusting in the absence of knowledge.

2 Mei 2020

Catatan renungan ini belum diperiksa oleh pengkhotbah.

Love in Light of the First Law of Thermodynamics

I often attempt to explain how the disappearance of love's excitement does not imply the love's insincerity. We often accuse love for not being genuine because the spark is no longer there, the butterfly in the stomach gone.

I like to use Newton's First Law of Thermodynamics as a model to explain this phenomenon, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another.

NOT DESTROYED

Yes, the euphoria of juvenile love diminishes as we mature in relationship. Although we very much enjoy each other's company, we lack the excitement and electric shock we had during out first years.
There is nothing out of the ordinary here; it is as expected. In fact, it could be a sign of growth.

The reason why the first excitement or joy fades away is to give space for a new kind of joy. The new joy does not replace the former joy, but enrich it. You may not feel the butterfly in your stomach anymore, but you have the joy of child-bearing, the joy of raising a child. When the child has grown into an adult, you will yet experience a different joy, that is in watching your children's children grow, and so on and so forth. For who can withstand a constant excitement and euphoria for a prolonged period of time? We would eventually get tired and sick of it ourselves! Like a child who eats too much candy. At first it tastes heavenly, but after days of sucking a lolly, his stomach would start to ache and the last thing he wishes to do is to have another candy.

Love changes from one form to another. When you grow old and grey, you may not possess the spark of youth, for it has been transformed into the strength of mature love, finely tested by time. It is at that moment that you may gaze into your partner's eyes and frames of moments would be projected: the moments when you were there for each other through illness, through adversaries, through disagreements. Yet above all, still you say "I would go through it all over again for you."

NOT CREATED

Back to Newton's First Law of Thermodynamics: "energy can neither be created nor destroyed [...]".
We have talked about the transformation (and not destruction) of love.

But how is love not created?

Man, Pureé and Apple Pie

I find a man oddly comparable to a bowl of rustic vegetable pureé,
or to a sloppily cut slice of a classic apple pie,
what difference is there?

Since harvest, all were collected, selected and piled, observed and judged,
Stripped and peeled and cored and cut,
Salted and drowned we must, with sour, sweet, and rather bitter spice,
Before then thrown into a furnace of flame.

At dinner, people gather round the table,
Hand-in-hand saying grace.
'Grace?'
Man search for grace round the table,
But grave—not grace—was what man found.

For as often as grace dances a hideous waltz,
As it hides under the veil of suffering,
Love shall sing an uneasy tune,
Chained in a chair, forced into a confession.

But alas! See the Man being passed around,
In the dining table that last supper,
To quench the thirst of many,
'He' was grace grief could not stand before.

Ode to a Crescent Moon

what elegance, O Queen of bleak sky,
   though dire wolves await thee bid adieu!
as stars shine bright to glow and die,
   thou still and silent through the night.

bent of mystery, cry of deep misery,
  of a maiden's love--yet to be requited,
what beauty to see, what's hidden from me,
  an enigma dark from mine own sight.

when crescent gone, as dogs howl low,
   a beast of bumps and tainted flesh,
unfolds all secrets now to show
   what it means to be whole again.

Two

Not all who lie
awake at two
In morn's dark veil
are broken souls.
Some ponder deep
of everything
and nothing that
was, is and will to be.

They have been struck
By arrows of
A cupid's bow
that penetrates,
that weaks the strong,
that calms the bold,
that blinds the eye
that now,

Their slumber e'er
forgets its course,
and thoughts sail hard
around the room.
For love rise when
their real life's play
be better than,
their dreams at night.

Longing

what I most crave,
to have thee now,
so sweetly sing
mine name thee love.

I long thee, dear,
as river longs,
as water waits,
a seeking deer.

my blood thine drink,
my place by thee,
'till dawn be dusked,
'till we do sink.

Wajah - Wajah Cinta

Seorang muda bertanya kepadaku,

“Apakah masih ada tersisa
jejak cinta di dunia ini?”

Jawabku:

“Cinta itu ketika ibu menghajar anaknya,
Lalu ia menangis terisak di ruang atas,
Dan setelah pudar sembab di matanya,
Ia membalut luka buah hatinya.

Cinta itu ketika ayah pulang mencari nafkah
Membawa sekerat roti untuk anaknya.
Dengan wajahnya yang letih ia tersenyum,
Senyuman yang tak menyentuh matanya.

Cinta itu ketika badai hidup melanda,
Dan seorang sahabat duduk di sisimu,
Rela merasakan badai itu bersamamu,
Demi menarikmu ke air yang tenang.

Sesungguhnya,
Cinta itu sederhana,
            namun sulit dipahami.

Cinta itu cuma-cuma,
namun tak terhingga mahalnya.

Cinta senantiasa berbisik,
namun gaungnya mengubahkan dunia.”

Melting Wax

Have you spared

a thought

to a candle?

Have you hearkened how

its flame blazes

with grace, wavering around

a dark chamber, projecting its

passionate fiery dance?

Have you overturned your house

frantically in search of a stick

Of cold white wax.

Perhaps it’s your birthday,

that you so must lit it,

only to murder it away,

into smoke and nullity,

into a wish—yours.

My love for you

is no different.

My soul burns

With divine ecstasy,

In the thought of you.

And what joy, what joy!

When you come running

for me, to grant your wishes,

which ought I sacrifice for,

To the death—mine.

My beloved, it is no secret

how dashing you look

under my amber light,

as I watch you

from my melting wax.