Is simple worship worship of the simple?

How odd we are as people!  I had a conversation with someone in which the individual admitted that they do not like liturgical worship.  They prefer the simple.  They believe God is honored more by the simple than by the elaborate.  What I suspect they are saying is less about God than about their own particular preferences.  Simplicity may be a virtue in some things but I hardly think it applies to God nor is it reflective of how we come to Him and He bestows His gifts to us.  It is curious, however, that we seem to laud simplicity as a virtue in worship -- even Lutherans!  Lutherans who are not and should not be iconoclasts or enemies of ceremony!

We tend to find life itself less than simple and seek out people with more than a simple education to help us chart the way through illness, finances, advancement, travel, auto repairs, home improvements, and food.  Who prefers a physician who is a simple doctor doing simple things when you have a heart issue or cancer or any other illness?  Who goes to a financial counselor because of a recommendation that the individual is simple?  Who visits a mechanic who tells you he prefers the simple repairs without benefit of computer or diagnostic aids that have become typical of the auto repair shop as well as the health clinic?  Do you get my drift?  Even simple food is not quite simple when you go to prepare it -- the people have to know what they are doing to get me a nice, rare, and seasoned steak on my plate.

Somehow, however, when it comes to God we think the simpler the better.  Yet how do we reconcile our preference for simplicity with the elaborate and orchestrated construction and liturgies of the Ark of the Covenant, the Tent of Meeting, or the Temple rituals?  Even in the New Testament, it would seem that St. Paul is challenging the Corinthians for having desecrated the Sacrament in part because they merged the simple and secular eating with the eating of faith that meets God in the sacred of bread and wine set apart by His Word.  In good order, says St. Paul, not to describe where something comes on an outline but rather a reverent and mannered Divine Service that is managed according to God's Word and His intent.  Peak into Revelation and you find a heavenly liturgy that is hardly simple or simplistic -- not only what happens but where it happens is beyond imagination (at least according to St. Paul).

So how is it that when it comes to the Divine Service on Sunday morning, we tell God thanks but no thanks and shoot for what is simple?  We are the liturgical Amish -- the plain people, at least on Sunday morning.  What an oddity it is!  We are on holy ground, handling holy things, meeting the Lord where He has promised to be.  There is nothing simple or simplistic about that.  In fact, it could be a mark of blasphemy to make the complex simple so that preference rules over reverence and awe and the things of God are treated as if they were nothing special.

I will make a grand assertion.  I believe that the pursuit of simple worship ends up being the worship of the simple over the praise of God.  I think it true that when the minimalistic goal triumphs in the domain of the Divine Service, that is more front and center than the fuller rituals and ceremonies Lutherans were once accustomed to and fought against giving up.  Along with that, we learned that the Sacrament could be quarterly or monthly and we were still good -- perhaps even better than having it too often so that might become normal in our gatherings at the Lord's biddings.  This was never a hallmark of the Reformation even though it might have been the ideas of a few of the Reformers.  

I will admit that it is cheaper, easier, and requires less of us to do little rather than more on Sunday morning.  If that is part of the attraction of the simple, then we are in deeper trouble than I thought.  Our utmost for His glory remains the truth of worship whether it takes place on a desert island among a couple of washed up survivors or in an eye-catching cathedral with plenty of musicians, assisting ministers, and ceremonies.  We do our best and our highest for His glory because He has done nothing short of that for us.  There is nothing simple in our redemption.  A child can meet it the same place the educated adult meets this glorious truth -- in faith -- but a child learns and an adult practices with rituals that reflect the words and ceremonies that teach the truth.  If you are one of those who insist simple is better, shed your jewelry, your techno toys, your comfortable homes, your travel plans, your fine automobiles, and your medical resources and sit at home on a hard chair eating hard tack and water while reading one good book (I think you know which one).  If simple is good enough for God, it ought to be good enough for YOU.