"Don’t preach to me!" I hear people say and I understand it to mean that they see worship as a boring and dull, even painful, experience.

Why has that happened?

Exactly when and where did the wondrous proclamation of God’s love become so ugly that it is now equated with a most despised experience?

"Don’t preach to me!" goes the plea and with it a reinforcement of a repugnant religion.

What went wrong?

How did preaching become a euphemism not for the joyous announcement of the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven, but of hell?

Maybe it happened when we started to get nervous about being perceived as fools.

To gather together to share in the mystery and marvel of God’s love doesn’t make much sense in a world consumed with power, dominance and success. To come to a place where the cross proclaims our understanding of reality and purpose rather than a dollar sign is really quite crazy.

Paul called it a stumbling block for some and sheer foolishness for most others.

But there you have it. Worship is our time for the reflecting upon and the celebrating of such wondrous love as this.

When we fail to do that, when we modify it, alter it, codify or try and control it, we turn what was once a beautiful gift into an ugly curse and the temple needs to be cleansed.