When you plan for worship, there’s a lot to think about and plan. For example, you need a theme for a worship session. Or we got to have simple instruments like tambourines available so that children can use them for worship. Or you need to put a music team together. Or check which version of the Bible to use for the readings.
Ingredients for worship don’t come out of nowhere, they need refinement.
It’s true that God desires our intention, our “heart”, rather than the exact particular ways we do things. The “particular ways” is more about human connectedness, it enables us to form meanings within our social and cultural worlds.
God desires the best. The idea of first fruits in the Old Testament has a lot to do with agriculture, for that matter, largely for nomadic tribes in desert regions. When you have had your first harvest, you might not know whether more will come. This is probably less a concern when you have large harvest, but for small, tiny, harvest, the price of the first fruit for you is high. It is in your acknowledgement of God providing for you that you exercise your faith that he will sort out the rest.
This is what Leviticus 2:14-16 says about firstfruits as offering to God. The idea here is that the harvest is already mature, complete, fully grown ready for consumption. The “first” is not so much the moment the first evidence appears that you offer it to the Lord. It is still your effort to see it to completion, full mature harvest, and then bring it to the Lord. Ok, as said elsewhere in this series, this is the practice in the Old Testament. Jesus has fulfilled this requirement in the New Testament.
As a started on meaning of oil and frankincense, please see this page.
It is in your acknowledgement of God providing for you that you exercise your faith that he will sort out the rest.
My reflection about this is that there is still a lot in preparation for your “harvest” to be ready, complete – in the specific context of worship, we should not “prepare” a “half-baked” worship session (or allow unprepared worship to take place). For example, what words / passages to use to prepare congregation in sung worship; we have not decided the key for a hymn or song when it is available in 2 or 3 alternatives; for some hymns there are alternative tunes, we need to decide which one; for Bible reading, which version of the Bible to use; for the instruments for children, are they all there and who will get the instruments out and collect back?
That does not mean we must prepare all worship sessions to determine every possible, conceivable decisions. It does mean we need to have prepared enough that our leading of worship worships God and no distraction. For me, once I know about outline of a worship session including hymns and songs, I often spend days thinking and playing back “in my head” these hymns and songs throughout the day
The “preparation for full growth” of the harvest is relevant, if I could read this verse this way. There is room then for those of us learning an instruments, or a certain role in the worship (e.g. Bible reading, preparing music scores, preparing for prayer) to have the opportunity to pick up valuable experience to become fully prepared for future use of our duties. The music discipleship programme also addresses this preparation for full growth.
The point is that in a worship session, we are offering the best of what we can offer but all that is being refined that we seek better ways to play a leading part for congregation to worship God.
