Some don’t like the system bearing his name. Some don’t like that we use his name to describe our system of understanding. Most, on both sides, however, miss what animated the man John Calvin.
Calvin was a man focused on a single goal. Though his life shaped our theology, our understanding of liberty, our conception of the state, our grasp of vocation, of the arts, of every “slice” of our lives, his goal was simple, uncluttered, alone. Calvin did not set out to reform our conceptions of this meta-theme or that. No, Calvin’s single concern was that God’s people would learn aright to worship the living and true God. Worship was what shaped him. Worship was what drove him. Worship was what formed Geneva and all that followed after.
Please don’t misunderstand. Calvin didn’t believe that in order to remake the world, we must remake worship. Instead, Calvin understood that we must remake worship. Everything else is icing. To put it another way, Calvin understood that we must seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, not so that we might have all these things added to us, but so that we might have the one needful thing — the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
We, the heirs of Calvin, have forgotten this lesson. We, if we think about worship at all, see it as a means to the end. The end we have in mind is the power and the glory. We want to build political coalitions that we might change the world. We want to overcome the powers of the Hollywood elite that we might change the world. We want to remake the economic landscape that we might change the world. What God wants is that we would bow down in repentance and give glory to His name. What God wants is what Calvin did.
When Jesus told us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, He wasn’t telling us: “Now when you go about your life, when you pursue your goals, don’t forget the big picture. Don’t lose sight of why you do what you do.” Instead Jesus was telling us: “Seek this. Seek this alone. Forget about everything else. Have a single-minded passion and leave the rest alone. It is in My hands anyway.”
We, on the other hand, have it all upside down and backwards. We will, when remembering him, look at the glory that once was Geneva because of his ministry there. We will look out at all the nations that felt the ripples of Calvin, moving from Geneva, to England, to these United States, then back out across the globe through the modern missionary movement. We will, remember the great economic power that was unleashed with the spread of liberty that likewise redounds to Calvin.
What we miss is the true glory, the real story. What we will miss is the unvarnished beauty of a single congregation in one neighborhood of Geneva, bowing in prayer to the living God, lifting up their voices, singing the Psalms of God, receiving the Word preached, and receiving the Word as bread and wine. There is where the glory is found.