To many Christians, Reformed folk seem more than a little uptight about worship. Calvin left Geneva when the city council attempted to force him to adopt liturgical forms from the city of Bern, even though Calvin admitted he had little quarrel with the Bernese liturgy itself. Puritans made themselves odious to moderates in the English church with their opposition to vestments and ceremonies. And today, when many churches have made great strides to bring Christian worship into relevant conformity to the demands of popular culture, all we Reformed can do is balk and criticize and stand in the way of progress. There we go again.

Whatever the wisdom of the particular liturgical protests that Reformed pastors and theologians have registered over the years, the Reformed instinct to protect the purity of worship is exactly right. Worship is more closely regulated than other areas of life. We are to obey God in every circumstance, but when we gather for worship we gather to rejoice before the face of the Holy God. We must always obey God in our own homes, but when invited into His home, we must be on our best behavior. Our joy depends upon it.

At home, we are free to read Shakespeare and Judith, Trollope and Joyce, but here our public reading is limited to the canon of the Old and New Testaments. At home, we may tell make up fresh stories every day, but a preacher is bound to keep telling the same old story again and again, which is the story of Jesus. At home, we are free to eat cheese crackers and drink grape soda, but at the Lord’s Table there is no buffet of choices. This is the Lord’s service, not ours, and we have no right to do what we please with it.

Nor, for that matter, does anyone outside the church. So much as it lies in you, Paul says, live at peace with all men. We may submit and accommodate and yield charitably in all kinds of ways for the sake of peace with our brothers and even with our enemies. But the threshold of the sanctuary is the threshold of our peace. Jesus is the Lord of this service, and His word determines what is said in the pulpit, what kinds of prayers are prayed, what is served at the Lord’s Table, who eats and drinks. There are times to be defiant elsewhere. Here we have no choice. Here we must be defiant.