We looked at noisy worship with Judah celebrating a renovated Temple in 2 Chronicles 29 and celebrating the Passover in chapter 30. Then what? I really like what happens next:

After the Passover celebration, they all took off for the cities of Judah and smashed the phallic stone monuments, chopped down the sacred Asherah groves, and demolished the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines and local god shops. They didn’t stop until they had been all through Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. Then they all went back home and resumed their everyday lives. (2 Chronicles 31.1, MSG)

Not just ceremony, life change. Not “Now that the Passover is over with, we can go back to life as usual.” They “resumed their everyday lives” but with a new perspective.

It’s a stretch, but did you notice how the Yankees lost the World Series last week? The Yankees do not play sound, fundamental baseball, and it killed them in the 5th inning of Game 5, which the Dodgers went on to win, clinching the championship four games to one. Center fielder and star slugger Aaron Judge made his only error of the year on a routine line drive. The shortstop made a bad throw to the third baseman. The pitcher failed to cover first on a routine ground ball. All in the 5th inning where the Dodgers tied the game after being down 5 – 0.

Those who follow such things say that the Yankees won the American League by talent and lots of home runs. But lack of fundamentals came back to bite them. An ESPN article by Jorge Castillo starts this way:

All year, right through the American League Championship Series, the New York Yankees overcame a tendency to play sloppy baseball by vanquishing opponents with overwhelming talent. The metrics calculated — and the eyes figured — that they were the worst baserunning team in the majors during the regular season. They regularly committed head-scratching defensive miscues. They were not nearly as fundamentally sound as one would expect from a 94-win AL champion.

The Yankees’ haphazard style of baseball was ignored. “Look, we’re winning games! Who cares if we’re a bit sloppy?” Hezekiah’s people could have said, “Look, we celebrated the Passover! Who cares how we live if we participate from time to time in exuberant worship?”

Nope, it’s not enough to worship enthusiastically on Sunday. Have we “smashed the phallic stone monuments, chopped down the sacred Asherah groves, and demolished the neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines and local god shops.”? Then have we gone about our everyday lives in “a steady and determined life of obedience“?

I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street…So, my dear friends, listen carefully; those who embrace these my ways are most blessed. Mark a life of discipline and live wisely; don’t squander your precious life. Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me, awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work. When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of GOD’s good pleasure. But if you wrong me, you damage your very soul; when you reject me, you’re flirting with death. (Proverbs 8.12, 32 – 36, MSG)