How and Whom

The superficial silliness of many misguided contemporary attempts at “Celebration” and the dulled predictability of many traditional Sunday morning services may speak more to our adoration and protection of ourselves, our desires, and our notions than to the living God who calls us together. This is what Paul was saying when he admonished the saints at Corinth: “When you get together you don’t eat the Lord’s Supper, you are selfishly eating your own supper and you are eating it to your own destruction!” (see 1 Corinthians 11:2-29). Perhaps, as Paul went on to say, one reason that we and our congregations are sick, one reason that our worship does not hurt or help and rarely heals, is that we do not worship the Wholly Other but only a limp, idealized image of ourselves.

– William Willimon, Worship as Pastoral Care, p. 23