Theology 101:

Why Does God Demand Worship?

Doug Culpt

Why does God demand worship? This question can be a stumbling block for believer and non-believer alike. It seems to suggest that God is egotistical, arrogant and even tyrannical. And yes, God might very well be egotistical, arrogant and even tyrannical to demand worship if such a demand arose from some need or deficiency in God.

The only problem with this line of thought is that God is completely self-sufficient. There is no need or deficiency in God. God does not need our worship. Our worship adds nothing to God. In fact, God did not even need to create us in the first place. Rather, our creation is the result of the overflowing abundance of love that is God. So why the command to worship? Certainly, justice dictates that we worship God because it is due God. But might there be an additional reason for the command?

Everything I do, I do it for you

The catechism tells us that God created us freely and out of love so that we might share in God’s life eternally. And who is this God? God is a Trinitarian communion, which means we are all called to communion.

However, while we are born with an innate desire for communion with God, for that is what we were created for, our ability to live into this communion is far from automatic or instinctual. Our innate desire must be deepened, directed and habituated so that our will can choose the way into life. In short, our hearts need to be trained.

Consider the example of an athlete. Suppose someone has the desire to play a sport for the first time with the intent to someday make it his or her career. The person might have some natural ability and talent. But the athlete must first learn how to play, what the rules are, and how to win. The person then must train in order to perfect his or her talent so that it can be optimized in the playing of the sport. As the person grows in skill and knowledge, his or her desire to play grows in intensity to the point the person is willing to commit the totality of his or her life to the goal of playing professionally.
And how is all this achieved? Through obedience to the commands of the coaches, referees, parents, mentors and even team captains.

God’s command for worship serves this same function. The way of life into communion with God consists of adoration, prayer, sacrifice, promises and vows. According to the catechism, adoration acknowledges God as God, “as the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of every- thing that exists, as infinite and merciful Love.” It also acknowledges the “nothingness of the creature” who simply would not exist were it not for God. In other words, adoration is to praise and exalt God and to humble ourselves.

Prayer is the “indispensable condition for being able to obey God’s commandments” as it accomplishes the acts of faith, hope, and charity. Sacrifice, when it is offered to God in adoration, gratitude, supplication, and communion, can unite us to the one perfect sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and thereby transform our very lives into a sacrifice to God.

Promises and vows to God similarly can become signs of our respect for God when we hold ourselves to them faithfully and lovingly. The evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience are of particular value as a response to God’s great gift of himself. 

All of these condition our desire, strengthening and focusing it on our ultimate good. Through worship of God, our love for God grows and the Father’s plan for salvation is accomplished.

It takes two

The two great commandments provide us a picture of perfect order. Notice that the love of self is assumed, or taken for granted, by these commandments. This desire to seek out our greatest good is a God- given gift — for to be driven toward our greatest good is to be driven to God. So the most “selfish” thing we can do is to obey the first great commandment by loving God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind — for communion with God is our greatest good. So we can see that God’s demand for worship aligns perfectly with and habituates us to our greatest good — for we do not always recognize our greatest good due to sin.

The second great commandment then orders the love of self by teaching us that proper self-love consists in loving our neighbor precisely in the same way and to the same degree we love ourselves. In other words, we all want, or should want, the greatest good for ourselves so to love our neighbor in the same way necessarily means we must want the greatest good for our neighbor. Why?

We can only love the God we cannot see (our greatest good) by loving the neighbor we can see (i.e., by desiring and working for their greatest good, who is God.) Again, we are reminded in Mt 25:40 and 25:45: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me”; and “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.”
So we see that charity by its very nature as a fruit of the Spirit is, in fact, not self-seeking, “a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice,” as Pope emeritus Benedict XVI wrote. And so we find ourselves face to face with the wondrous mystery and tension that is the Catholic faith. It is a faith that teaches us the road to the kingdom of heaven is traversed not by grasping, but only by kenosis (self-emptying). It is a faith that tells us the most “selfish” thing we can possibly do is to forget ourselves and get busy loving our neighbor. It is a faith that shows us it is in loving our neighbor that we fulfill God’s command for worship and find our own fulfillment.

Doug Culp is the delegate for administration and the secretary for pastoral life for the Catholic Diocese of Lexington.