Why family worship is crucial
The twentieth century philosopher Josef Pieper wrote an extended essay on leisure which takes as its point of departure the thesis that culture depends on leisure, and that leisure is not possible unless it is related to worship. His insight is as applicable to the family as it is to entire civilizations, and has shaped the way that we think about the aim of our family time.
For Pieper, worship is absolutely central: what we worship is that towards which we devote all our energies. He is speaking broadly about the practical ways that we structure our time, both as individuals and as families: what do we really live for? Is it money? Security? Outdoing our neighbors? Having the latest technology? In a related vein, the question about worship affects our approach to work and free time. What are we working for? What is our attitude toward free time? Are work and free time creative and positive, or varying forms of drudgery?
Everyone must choose what to worship — what to make the central point of their lives — and this is equally true of families. True worship means asking the fundamental question of what is worth living for. Failing to ask that question means handing over our freedom to the pursuit of whatever end the rest of the culture says is worth pursuing. And in much of the world today, that answer is money. To worship the Lord is to resist making everything a means to an end which we have not chosen for ourselves. Real freedom, in this sense, is detachment from the useful, the efficient, the practical — and even from “common sense,” which is little more than agreeing with everyone else even if they are fundamentally misguided. Pieper says it well:
Thus, the act of worship creates a store of real wealth which cannot be consumed by the workaday world. It sets up an area where calculation is thrown to the winds and goods are deliberately squandered, where usefulness is forgotten and generosity reigns. Such wastefulness is, we repeat, true wealth: the wealth of the feast time. And only in this feast time can leisure unfold and come to fruition.
Real wealth, he suggests, is feast time: the willingness to simply be in the presence of people we cherish to celebrate the life that God has given us. Note that what he is talking about is not simply resting up for work, “recharging the batteries” so we can get back to work. Instead, he is talking about stepping outside the very pattern of work altogether and living in a different mode. Leisure “runs at right angles to work,” he suggests; it exists for itself and not for the purpose of making us better worker bees in the economy.
Excerpt from Reclaiming Family Time
