Last month we appeared in juvenile court for the custody hearing regarding Gabriel. I’d never addressed a judge before, so I forgot the respectful “Your Honor” in my replies. Even a “sir” would have sufficed. My neglect might have been due to his not wearing a black robe. Or it could have been the lack of a bailiff who would have said, “All rise …” or a stenographer who’d have typed it all into a netbook. There was no polished wood. The judge didn’t even have a gavel, as far as I could tell.

Worship isn’t something we add into our calendar as a set appointment or something we put on our checklist. Worship is our calendar. Worship is our to-do list. (It’s also our checkbook … or, debit cards. Who writes checks?) Everywhere we are and in everything we do we can worship God, or we can ignore him. If you need a particular style of music or crosses in view or altars or stained glass, then you’ve missed it.

I was talking with some friends recently about gossip, how it destroys unity in the church—brothers and sisters in the family of God. But here’s the thing: whatever grievance you have against someone that led to your gossiping about them loses merit the instant you sin against them with your slander. It may not seem fair; it may not seem right. But when you involve others in a dispute you have with someone, then you’ve upped the ante.

It usually happened at these evening services (but sometimes on a Sunday morning) when the Spirit would let loose and all manner of worship celebration would occur. Music would go on for an hour, yet it was obvious the praise band had only prepared four songs, which was why they kept playing them over and over and over—and these were short songs to begin with, choruses they called them, because they didn’t normally contain verses or bridges or pre-choruses, as are common in today’s worship songs. In an effort only jazz greats like John Coltrane and Bill Evans could appreciate, the band would beat a four-line stanza to death: One more time! “I went to the enemy’s camp …” I absolutely loved it as a kid.

Artists can be so hard on themselves. I believe this accompanies artistic talent, pushing us to reach for higher heights in art. And as Christian artists, we should want, like court musicians, to play our best for our great King and Master Artist. If not for perfectionism would any of the great artists (musicians, painters, writers, poets, dancers, actors, photographers, sculptors, etc.) have produced the masterpieces we treasure today? If not for perfectionism, wouldn’t art be mediocre? Wouldn’t all singing be a karaoke performance?

Hedonism, the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness any way possible, doesn’t satisfy. Neither does religion, which is like stagnant water. Religion convicted her of her hedonistic lifestyle, providing her with ample guilt to keep her devoted her entire life—and empty. But the reality of guilt and the emotion of guilt must lead somewhere other than religious exercises. So she brought her guilt to Jesus, and he overturned the verdict and began the process of eradicating her burden of guilt.

I’ve been thinking about last Wednesday’s post and how I criticized the Pharisees for their adherence to the Law, or at least their dependence on it for their salvation. I considered the woman and her “many sins,” which we infer involved sexual sin. So, what does the Law say about sexual immorality? Here’s just a sampling of what the Torah says (specifically Deuteronomy 22).

I think there are two approaches we take to worship. We can worship in an attempt to get forgiveness for sins. Or we can worship out of an awareness that we’ve already been forgiven.

As I was growing up, my dad tried to teach us how to be proper in the way we addressed adults, how we held our forks, and how we were to wear a shirt at the dinner table. (We spent summer days shirtless and shoeless, not because we were poor, but because it was … uh, summer in Arizona.) Dad grew up in Connecticut but relocated to the West in time to correct us when we would refer to one of our aunts or uncles by their first name. We’d simply call them Bobby, Jan, and Katy. But Dad would offer: Uncle Bobby, Aunt Jan, Aunt Katy, usually in his formal New English “ohnt.”

You’re probably familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Separately, three people came upon a man who’d been mugged. One was a priest, another a Levite, and the last a Samaritan, who would have been hated by the Jews. Typically, we walk away from the story thinking we should be more compassionate toward others, especially those we normally wouldn’t like. But, as there usually is, there’s more to the story.