By the Way: The Gift of Worship

By Rev. Shane Hein on February 22, 2020.

You shall have no other gods. – the First of the Ten Commandments.

On Jan. 26 a helicopter flying over the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas crashed killing all nine people aboard, including the pilot. Four of the other eight victims were pre-teen girls on their way to a basketball tournament, and one of the parents killed was none other than former NBA superstar, Kobe Bryant. Although a tragic event, worthy of our thoughts and prayers for the families and friends of all those who lost their lives, Bryant was most certainly the reason that this accident received wall-to-wall media coverage for several weeks after the crash.

News outlets from all over the world ran clip after clip of other famous athletes and celebrities, as well as some ordinary L.A. Lakers basketball fans, expressing their tremendous grief at the loss. I don’t really have a problem with that in itself. However, this whole incident, along with the subsequent outpouring of grief from all over the globe, got me wondering why this one man received so much attention, particularly when accidents like this happen all the time, every day, without so much as a whisper from the press corps.

Realistically, of course, the media cannot possibly be expected to cover every single accident from all over the world. But, let’s face it, far more tragic and devastating events have happened in the world before, and after, the Bryant helicopter crash. Even within the three or four weeks since this story broke there have been at least two more attacks on Christian churches, one in Africa, the other in the Middle East, both claiming two dozen or more lives each.

I have no doubt that many of those who wished to express their sadness over the loss of Bryant were sincere, but the utter volume of messages that have come pouring in from many who could not possibly have even known Bryant on a personal level, can only be described as a type of worship.

Now, as Christians, it is certainly our mandate to pray for the family and friends of those victimized by tragedies like this, and Kobe Bryant is not, nor should he be, an exception. Worship, however, the likes of which we have seen take place as a result of this tragedy, and as we have seen take place at the loss of so many other famous people, is something that God has reserved strictly for Himself. Not even the angels will allow themselves to be worshipped by us, and there is a reason for that.

We are created by God to worship, and so that is what we do. The object of our worship, though, is often a separate question, even for Christians. For instance, I probably glanced at my iPhone at least a dozen times while writing this column. I spend an inordinate amount of time watching sports on TV, and goofing around on my laptop to the exclusion of other, more important and life-giving activities, including time with my God. The reason that God demands that worship be directed at Him, rather than at worthless wooden idols, man-created technology, and even famous and talented people, is because the objects that draw our worship are the objects in which we place our trust.

Neither Kobe Bryant, nor the inventor of my cell phone, had anything to do with the creation of the world. I am pretty sure that neither of them had any part in redeeming it either. And, though both of them have affected people in the world in positive ways, neither is tasked with sanctifying us, or making us Holy. That is to say, the Triune God has given us the gift of Himself as the One in whom we can always place our complete trust. Our worship of God is a reminder of that gift, and so it should come as no surprise to us that He saw fit to make it the first of the Ten Commandments. You shall have no other gods.

God’s Richest Blessings,

Rev. Pastor Shane Hein is from St. Peter Lutheran Church.

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