Worship Breaks Down Our Misdirected Loyalties

John Witvliet writes on Our Inestimable Privilege: Full, Conscious Participation in Christian Worship. He talks about conversations that help to re-orient the focus of our worship:

One other point for discussion is how worship breaks down our misdirected loyalties even as it builds up our deepest loyalty to God. Every act of praise is a strong act of negation as well as affirmation. Every time we sing praise to the triune God, we are asserting our opposition to anything that would attempt to stand in God’s place. Every hymn of praise is a little anti-idolatry campaign, as Walter Brueggemann explains: “The affirmation of Yahweh always contains a polemic against someone else. . . It may be that the [exiles] will sing such innocuous-sounding phrases as ‘Glory to God in the highest,’ or ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.’ Even those familiar phrases are polemical, however, and stake out new territory for the God now about to be aroused to new caring.” When we sing “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” we are also saying “Down with the gods from whom no blessings flow.”