Worship and serving God

 

People often take words for granted and don't realize the word has little meaning. I have the word "worship" in mind. What is "worship?" People go to Buddhist temple and there sits a huge statue of the Buddha in all his glory, and people get on their knees and bow to it. You ask these people what they are doing, and you get an answer that is easy to translate "worship." But it isn't worship. Of course a Westerner translates it with that word, and thereby instantly doesn't understand what the Buddhist is doing. The Buddha is in Nirvana. That means he is "at peace" or "in bliss" or in a kind of heaven where everyone meditates all the time, or dead (extinct), it largely depends on the Buddhist sect you ask; most Buddhists don't give it much thought. As such the Buddha has no knowledge or even interest in the people honoring him in the Temple. "Honor" is probably the best translation. Does the Christian god demand worship? There are certainly enough Biblical passages that refer to giving him glory. That, I suppose, is worship. Why? When one glorifies God, it is not going to add even the tiniest bit to his infinite glory. You cannot add anything to infinity. Looked at closely, the concept seems unsophisticated if not primitive. OK, we "worship" God by loving him and doing his will and serving him here on the Earth. God commands us to do these things, not for his benefit but for ours. I wonder. Wouldn't it be better if we did these things on our own accord and not out of some indirect left-handed motive? How about we love God because we love him? How about we do his will because his will is what is good, and we do what is good on our own volition? As far as the last one goes, "serving God," this makes no sense. What can we do compared to his infinity? When someone says "I'm doing God's work," one can appreciate this as deep, but also see self-righteousness and maybe a little pride.

You’re putting your finger on a real problem: one English word trying to carry several very different human experiences. “Worship” is one of those words that looks solid until you lean on it—and then it wobbles.

In English, especially shaped by the traditions around the Christianity, “worship” tends to bundle together a few ideas: praise, submission, love, obedience, and sometimes even fear. It implies a relationship between a human being and a personal, aware, responsive God—one who can, at least in principle, receive what is being offered. That assumption is already doing a lot of work.

But when a Westerner walks into a Buddhist temple and sees people bowing before a statue of Gautama Buddha, the same word gets applied—and it quietly distorts what’s going on. In most forms of Buddhism, that gesture is not about feeding glory to a deity who is watching and judging. It’s closer to reverence, gratitude, imitation, even a kind of embodied reminder. You bow not because the Buddha needs it, but because you do. The act shapes the mind: humility, attention, aspiration. “Honor,” as you suggested, is already closer.

So right away, “worship” splits into at least two different things:
– offering something to a being
– doing something to oneself in the presence of an ideal

Those are not the same, even if they look identical from across the room.

Now, your question about God—why an infinite being would “demand” worship—is an old and serious one. Thoughtful theologians have wrestled with it for centuries. The more sophisticated answers tend to move in the direction you’re already pointing: God doesn’t need worship; rather, worship is what properly ordered creatures do. Not to increase God, but to align themselves with what is real and good.

In that view, “giving glory to God” is a bit like acknowledging the sun is bright. You’re not making it brighter; you’re seeing clearly. Refusing to do so isn’t modest independence—it’s a kind of distortion.

But that still leaves your discomfort intact, and I think rightly so. Because in practice, the language of “commanded worship” can sound like vanity projected onto the divine. It risks making God resemble a very large, very insecure monarch.

Your alternative—loving God because one loves, doing good because it is good—is actually quite close to what many religious thinkers would say is the highest form of devotion. Not obedience out of fear or calculation, but alignment out of understanding. In Christian language, that would be something like loving God “for His own sake,” not for reward or avoidance of punishment.

As for “serving God,” taken literally it does sound absurd—what could the finite possibly add to the infinite? The usual move there is to reinterpret it: one “serves God” by serving what God values—other people, justice, compassion, the created world. In other words, it’s indirect. Whether that feels meaningful or like a rhetorical sleight of hand depends on one’s temperament.

And your last point—about “doing God’s work”—yes, that phrase sits on a knife edge. It can express genuine humility (“I am part of something larger than myself”), or it can slide into self-importance very easily. The difference is often less in the words than in the person using them.

If you step back a bit, “worship” might best be understood not as a single act, but as a category of behaviors humans use to orient themselves toward what they take to be ultimate—whether that’s a personal God, an enlightened teacher, truth itself, or even moral ideals. The outward forms can look similar; the inner logic can be entirely different.

Your instinct—to strip away the word and ask what is actually happening—is exactly the right move. The word is doing less work than people think; the underlying human impulses are doing more.