Orthodox Worship & Veneration

Worship:

Orthodoxy means the right way or proper worship. If you strive to worship God in the right way, you are striving to be Orthodox. This correct path is not easy and it is bound to ruffle the feathers of your friends, family, and indeed hometown.

When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage (Luke 4:28).

Read Luke 4:16-30 and you see the reception Jesus, of Nazareth, gets in Nazareth. He tells them that the proper way to worship God is to indiscriminately aid the neglected members of society. Their response? You are a Nazarene, why do you not aid us Nazarenes?*

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26).

In this later passage, regarding worship, from the Gospel according to Saint Luke, we find our God, Jesus Christ, telling us to prioritize Him over all other loyalties - be they filial, tribal or even our own vitals. The message is clear. Orthodoxy is not easy. You will lose friends, and be deemed impolite when you walk God's narrow road.

Veneration:

Picture the qidasay (divine liturgy/thanksgiving & sacrifice ceremony) as a grand dinner party. The host of this dinner is Jesus Christ, and He has invited you. He is not home alone. His entourage, including family and friends, are there with Him. The mother of God, the martyrs, the Old Testament patriarchs, the righteous, the saints, the angels and archangels are sipping wine like they were at a wedding in Cana.

There are two mainstream mistakes regarding the veneration of God's entourage. The first mistake, is to ignore God's entourage. It is incredibly rude to go to a dinner party and focus solely on the host. You should respect the host's guests and the host. But, the host deserves to be given the main attention. The second mistake, is to treat the host's guests with the utmost reverence, and ignore the host. Alternatively, to revere the host's guests at the expense of the host.

Every analogy is imperfect, and breaks down if pushed too far, but this analogy is poignant in distinguishing between worship and veneration. To ignore the intercessory prayers of the martyrs, saints, righteous asleep with the Lord, and the never-sleeping angels is heterodox. It is also heterodox to hold them in higher accord than the God of all that is visible and invisible. There is a popular Ethiopian Orthodox hymn that says 

ነይ ፡ ነይ ፡ እሚዬ ፡ ማርያም ፡ ቤዛዊተ ፡ ዓለም ፡፡ (come, come, Mary, redeemer of the world)

It was recently changed by an Orthodox singer and priest to 

ነይ ፡ ነይ ፡ እሚዬ ፡ ማርያም ፡ ቤዛ ፡ ነው ፡ ልጅሽ ፡ ለዓለም ፡፡ (come, come, Mary, your son is the redeemer of the world)

Is this change permanent? I do not know. What I can say, is that the latter arrangement of words is Orthodox, and the former is not. It knows the difference betwixt worship and veneration. Mary is one of the dinner guests from above. She wants you to respect her, as does her son who is her God. She would be offended at anyone who put her at the same level as her son who is her God. The adjusted lyrics venerate the Mother of God by cooing her to come into our lives and pray for us, whilst maintaing correct worship of her son Jesus Christ as redeemer of the world.

This teaching is not easy. This teaching will bring enmity. But, this teaching is the good news. You want to use flowery language for the Mother of God when you sing her praises, but it is not right to go outside the bounds of the holy scriptures handed down to us by the Apostles of Jesus Christ. I would challenge anyone who disagrees with me to draw the distinction betwixt how to worship God and how to venerate Mary. I think they would fail utterly to do so, if they think Mary is the redeemer of the world. Mary is not. The redeemer of the world is the eternal Word of God made flesh.

Post Scriptum:

*Nazareth was know as a podunk town with many ills. There was definitely work to be done there.