Sermon: "Spiritual Boot Camp: Warming Up" (Matthew 4: 1-11)

Last Wednesday, we began the season of Lent. The season of Lent is the 40-day period that leads up to Easter. A few of us gathered here for dinner, and then we had ashes placed on our foreheads as a reminder of where we came from: we came from the dust of the earth.

The season of Lent is a time to redirect our focus on our spiritual lives, to get rid of those things that distract us from spiritual growth, and to re-engage the spiritual disciplines. Growing in faith requires regular and consistent practice in the spiritual disciplines. “What are those?” Spiritual disciplines - sometimes called spiritual practices - are those activities that help you grow in faith: things like going to worship, reading the Bible, praying, engaging in acts of service, and tithing. And they are most effective when practiced regularly.

It’s no different than if you want to get in better shape physically. You need to put in the effort to make it happen. You need to focus. You need to commit.

When Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, he was committing himself to carrying out the mission and ministry that John introduced, carrying it even further than John did. He committed himself to living fully for God.

It’s not easy! Jesus knew that! Many people today think they can worship one hour a week, and that’s all they need. Well, if you wanted to get your body in better shape, do you think you’d succeed if you ate right one meal out of the week, and junk food all the other meals of the week?

It’s not going to happen.

Jesus knew it would take more than that. So, before he began his ministry, he went off into the wilderness for an intense, 40-day period of testing. The purpose of this was to build up his spiritual fitness, to get him ready for all the challenges and temptations that would be coming his way.

When it comes to physical fitness, the challenges and temptations are many, aren’t they? Even at church, there are cookies and donuts. I know! Terrible, isn’t it?

And when it comes to spiritual fitness, the challenges and temptations are many. And perhaps the greatest challenge is just putting in the time required to grow in faith.

But finding the time is really just a matter of priorities, isn’t it? Straight Up Fitness here in Long Beach has a fitness boot camp, and one of the questions they get asked by people interested in attending is: “What if I’m too busy and don’t have time?” Their response: “After working with over 10,416 clients over the years, we have found that ‘I don’t have time’ really means ‘I’d like to procrastinate a little longer.’ The truth is, you can make the time if you really want to…”

That’s their response, and I believe the same is true for those wanting to grow in faith. If you really wanted to grow in faith, you’d make the time. You’d make it a priority. You’d commit.

On the website for an online fitness magazine, I found seven tips for physical fitness boot camp beginners. They apply well to growing in spiritual fitness, too.

Tip #1: hydrate one or two hours before class. This gets your body ready for the intense workout it’s about to receive.... A life of spiritual fitness also begins with water: the waters of baptism. We currently have several young people in our congregation who are preparing for baptism, and I hope you keep them in prayer in this important time in their lives.

Tip #2: Enter with a good, can-do attitude. The workout will be challenging. It’s important to find things in it that make you smile. That’s true for growing in faith as well as in fitness. No matter how hard things get, there is always something to be thankful for.

Tip #3: Stay present. Focus on what you are doing. A distracted mind leads to a poor performance. Our scripture last week told us to seek first God’s kingdom; keep your focus on what’s important. Keep the work of growing in faith foremost in your mind, and put all other cares and worries to the side while you are exercising your spiritual muscles.

Tip #4: Remember your breath and your abs. Breathe through your tough exercises…. When it comes to growing in faith, the breath that flows through us is God’s Spirit, which fills us and encourages us and gives us the strength to carry on. Every time we breathe we remember the spirit, and we remember that we are not alone.

Tip #5: Push yourself to stay up front. Be the first person in the relay race line; stand in the front of the room; run towards the front of the jog line. Being last will make you feel lethargic and more prone to give up...When it comes to growing in faith, the same is true: Be in the lead. Don’t look for someone else you can follow. At times you may even be the only one, and you may feel like you’re doing this all alone. But if you keep breathing, you’ll remember that the Spirit is with you even when no one else is.

Oh, and don’t be afraid to take the lead in showing up for worship on Sunday morning. It’s OK to arrive a few minutes early, it really is. But you don’t want to show up late. If you show up late to exercise class and you jump right in without warming up, you won’t be able to keep up with everyone else, and you might even hurt yourself. Here at Bixby Knolls Christian Church, we start warming up our bodies, our voices, our minds and our spirits promptly at 10:15.

Tip #6: Don’t stop moving. This is probably the one tip I need the most help with, because when I exercise, I tend to take breaks. I hear that physical fitness bootcamp instructors will yell at you to keep moving; if you are in between exercises, they’ll tell you to jog in place while you wait for the next exercise. This keeps your blood moving throughout your body, which in turn prevents muscle soreness.

The spiritual counterpart to this is to keep engaging in those spiritual practices. Maintain the routine. Show up for worship every Sunday. Spend time in prayer and reading the Bible every day.

I’m trying to improve my Spanish, and I do a little Spanish lesson every day. I got up to a 60 day streak before I missed a day. And once I missed a day, it was easy to miss another day. But when I skipped just two or three days and then went back to my lessons, it’s amazing how much harder it was to remember the right words and phrases. There’s definitely value in practicing day after day with consistency.

Not every worship service, Bible study, or prayer time will leave you feeling in a state of spiritual ecstasy. Some of the time, your experiences will be downright boring. (Sorry about that.) But don’t stop. If you stop, if you take a break, it will negatively affect your spiritual growth. There is a reason these things are called disciplines.

Tip #7: Load up on electrolytes after class. Intense workouts and sweating cause you to lose essential electrolytes. Be sure to replenish them with an electrolyte-filled snack.

OK. I’m not really sure what the spiritual parallel to this last tip is. You don’t lose electrolytes or nutrients or calories by engaging in spiritual practices. But, hey, just in case, we do have cookies and, sometimes, donuts…

But this tip does remind me that one of the things Jesus did while he was in the wilderness was fast. Fasting is a spiritual practice that some people engage in, especially during Lent. Really intense fasting does cause the body to lose important nutrients which must then be replenished. But most people will pick just one or two foods to give up for Lent, which has very little effect on the nutrients they receive. If anything, there is a benefit, since people tend to give up junk food, like chocolate.

Some people give up eating meat, at least on Fridays. That certainly was my Catholic grandmother’s practice during Lent. In the times in my life when I’ve voluntarily eaten a meatless diet, I was surprised to discover that it opened my mind to a greater awareness of what a blessing food is. Instead of eating mindlessly as we so often do in this day and age, I became very mindful of my food, where it came from, and how it was prepared. And this, in turn, made me far more grateful and thankful than if I had just consumed it. That wasn’t the benefit I was looking for when I gave up eating meat, which just goes to show that engaging in spiritual practices can lead to benefits you aren’t even aware of.

Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness preparing himself for his mission and his ministry. The season of Lent that leads up to Easter is 40 days long. I’m going to be your spiritual coach, your spiritual fitness trainer, for these 40 days, and I’ve got some exercises for you to do. I’ll be introducing one each Sunday.

This week’s exercise is to pray. Ten minutes. Every day.

If you don’t know what to pray, just sit in silence and meditate on God. Other than the prayers I pray here, during worship, most of my prayers are just me practicing being silent.

You may have a glass of tea or coffee. You may NOT have your phone in front of you, or the TV on or the radio on. You may NOT have a newspaper or magazine in front of you.

If you can’t sit still, it’s ok to walk. Someplace quiet and peaceful is preferable. Last weekend, at the retreat for clergy in the region, I got up early and walked alone along the beach as the sun was rising. For me, that was a great time of prayer.

After ten minutes of prayer, you may feel closer to God. You may feel a strange sense of peace and calm. You may feel a warm lightness to your heart.

Or you may not. As with physical exercise, you don’t always see results right away. But if you maintain the practice, results will come eventually. The key is to maintain the practice.

Don’t have time? Sure you do. You can find the time, if it’s a priority for you.

Is it hard to sit in silence for ten minutes? For most people today, it’s very hard. People my age and younger, and some older folks too, can’t even sit still for one minute without checking their smartphone to fill the void. Ten minutes with nothing to occupy your mind? What torture!

I never said this boot camp would be easy. A 40-day fast in the wilderness isn’t easy, either. But you won’t get the results you want if you don’t put in the effort.

So make the commitment. Get on board. Join our Lenten spiritual boot camp.

The Season of Easter

On this day we mark the celebration of Easter; and what a marvelous celebration it is. As followers of Christ, we have heard the story: how he proclaimed a new kingdom, one completely different from the kingdom of Rome; how Rome eventually killed him by crucifixion, a form of punishment reserved for those who posed a threat to the Roman Empire.

That crucifixion was the ultimate, defining NO to the message proclaimed by Jesus. But then God came back with the ultimate, defining YES. Neither the cross nor the tomb were enough to silence the gospel Christ proclaimed. That good news is proclaimed still! Christ lives! And the kingdom of God remains at hand for those who seek it.

That is what this day means. That is what it is about. On this day, we transition from the darkness of Lent to the glorious light of the Easter season. Having completed our journey to Jerusalem and the cross, we now embark on a new journey: the journey through Easter to Pentecost.

This is how we mark time in the church. Yes, we mark time in other ways as well: there’s the calendar year, which starts on January 1; there’s the school year, which begins in late August or early September. For some, there is a fiscal year, which can start in July, or October, or any month one chooses.

But for followers of Jesus, there is another year: the liturgical year. It begins in late November or early December with the first Sunday of Advent. It includes celebrations like Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost. It is a year which connects our lives to the life of Jesus.

During Lent, we have explored a number of ancient practices. Letting the liturgical year give shape to our lives is one more of those practices. As we observe the seasons and the celebrations – as we watch the colors in the sanctuary change – we find ourselves being drawn closer to the God who created us, and to the Christ we follow: the Christ who is alive, even today.

The season of Easter begins today, and continues until Pentecost, which is May 23. In this season we will see how the good news of Easter began with a small group of Jewish disciples; how it expanded beyond them to include gentiles in the regions surrounding Jerusalem; how it expanded to include Africans and Europeans, circumcised and uncircumcised, slave and free, powerful and weak; how it expanded to include those who had doubts, those who didn’t understand, those whose lives did not follow the strict codes of the religious elite; how it expanded to include even the earth itself, the earth that belongs to God, everything that is in it, and every creature that lives upon it.

It is a message of healing and wholeness. It is a message of liberation and transformation. It is a message of peace, love, and justice.

And it is for all the world.

Service (Matthew 25)

This past week I spent three days with over 100 clergy in our region at a 3-day conference with our General Minister and President, Sharon Watkins, as well as her husband and seminary professor, Rick Lowery. The warm California sun was shining brightly as we studied the Bible, took part in conversations with Sharon Watkins, and worshipped together in three different languages. Before the retreat, Sharon spoke at First Christian Church in Orange, and it was good to see Hattie there along with many others from our regional church.

I also spent two days at Founders Day, an event at which the covenant between Chapman University and the church is most visibly manifested.

For me, this has been an amazing week of spiritual growth, as well as an opportunity to knit more strongly the ties that bind us all together as one church.

In the midst of all this, I did, in fact, find time to write a sermon. Fortunately, I started putting thoughts together long before this past week began. Two months ago, when the idea came to me to do a sermon series on spiritual practices, I wasn’t sure about including a sermon on the practice of service. For one thing, the series of books on ancient practices that I’ve been reading doesn’t include a book on the practice of service, which meant that my search for resources in preparation for preaching would be just that much more complicated. But a more significant reason I hesitated to preach on service is that I didn’t really know what I could say about service that you all didn’t already know.

After all, doesn’t everyone believe that it is good to serve others? Even non-Christians, even people of no faith at all, understand that it is good to serve others. The value of service is impressed upon every one of our children, who must perform community service in order to graduate from high school.

Even the Walt Disney company knows the value of service. It planned a year-long program of getting one million people to serve their communities by rewarding them with a ticket to Disneyland or Disneyworld. That year-long program ended after just two months, when the goal of one million people was reached much sooner than expected. People wanted their free tickets, yes, but they also wanted to be able to do something they felt good about doing.

This week, there was a wonderful article in the Uptown Gazette about the work of Christian Outreach in Action, an agency here in Long Beach that serves people who are hungry and homeless, an agency that we here at BKCC support through donations and by preparing meals.

And so, the people of BKCC, I thought, know about service. The people of our community and our nation, I thought, know about service. We know that service is about helping others. We know that Jesus commands us to serve one another, and we ourselves feel within us a desire to do just that: to serve others, to help the “least of these,” those who, for whatever reason, are economically or socially disadvantaged: the poor and the oppressed; to restore wholeness to a fragmented world; to restore justice, in ways big and small, to those who have been denied justice.

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I didn’t think I had anything else to say about something that I thought everyone agreed upon, that serving others and working for justice is a core value of the Christian way of life.

Then someone told me what Glenn Beck said on his show a week and a half ago. He said that justice does not belong in church. He said that justice, that social justice and economic justice are code words for Nazism and communism. He held up images of a swastika and a hammer & sickle to emphasize his point, to show that he really meant what he was saying.

Then he said that if your church’s website mentions justice, that if it has words like social justice or economic justice, that you need to leave that church and run away from it as fast as you can; and he also said that if your pastor talks about justice, social justice and economic justice, then you need to report him to the church authorities.

Well, just so you know, our church website does mention justice. In fact, justice is the first thing mentioned in our congregation’s mission statement, which is based on Micah 6:8: to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. And, just so you know: as far as reporting pastors who talk about justice, who teach and preach about the need for social justice and economic justice: I’ve already reported myself. I am a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and Jesus calls his followers to justice, to removing the yoke of the poor, and the burden of injustice, to providing food to the hungry and water to the thirsty; to restoring fairness and integrity to property and economic policies.

This is certainly not the first time that those who work for justice have been accused of being communists. Hélder Câmara, a Roman Catholic archbishop from Brazil, once said: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a Communist.”

We talked about Sabbath last week, that spiritual practice that is the fourth of the ten commandments. Justice is at the very heart of the practice of Sabbath, because on the Sabbath, rich and poor, the powerful and the weak, all people are given a day of rest. Scripture also talks about Sabbath years – every seventh year – in which fields would lie fallow as a rest for the land.

And then there’s the year of Jubilee, which takes place after seven sets of seven years: in that fiftieth year, all debts are to be forgiven, all slaves are to be set free, and all landowners who had had their property taken from them would have their property restored to them. That’s radical social and economic justice. It’s also biblical.

Here at BKCC, I’ve already mentioned our support for Christian Outreach in Action. We also support Centro Shalom and other agencies; we prepare food for the hungry; we collect canned food and gently-used clothing; we support the work of our larger church, the Disciples of Christ, which does a lot of work for justice throughout the world, through Global Ministries, through Homeland Ministries, through the office of the General Minister and President, and in so many other ways. We actively serve others by working for racial reconciliation and immigration reform. Disciples are traveling to the Gulf Coast, to Haiti, and to many other places, in order to serve people in need.

Which brings to mind our upcoming Pacific Southwest regional trip to Hawaii. A lot of people go to Hawaii to vacation, to lay on the beach, swim in the ocean, and see the volcanoes, but we are going to Hawaii to work.

Hawaii is part of the Pacific Southwest region, and there are a couple of churches there doing ministry, but they need a little help. They have property needs that need attention, but they do not have the resources to adequately address those needs.

And even though they are a part of our region, a part of our Pacific Southwest family, they often feel excluded from regional life. Now I spent two years at First Christian Church in Morro Bay. I groaned over having to drive six hours from Morro Bay to Loch Leven, and six hours from Morro Bay to the regional assembly which, while I was in Morro Bay, just happened to take place in San Diego. So I know what it’s like to feel detached, alone, in a remote part of the region, away from the life of the larger church which is designed, in part, to help sustain and support congregational life.

But Morro Bay, I suspect, is nothing compared to Honolulu, or Wahiawa, or Kailua. The work that our region is preparing to do, the service that we have committed ourselves to, is not just to address some important property and building issues, but is also to foster a greater sense of community with the farthest congregations in our region.

Our trip to Hawaii is called “Miracle Week.” I’ve mentioned it before. It takes place the third week of August. It is my hope that we can get a group of us to go and be a part of this exciting opportunity; and it is my hope that we will be able to raise some money to help them go, since flying over to Hawaii and renovating churches is not cheap.

If you are interested in going, now is the time to start making plans. I invite and encourage you to read the insert in your bulletin, to check out the information about Miracle Week that’s posted on the bulletin board in the fellowship hall, and watch the video that I’ll have playing in the fellowship during our Baked Potato lunch.

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In a Bible study at last week’s regional clergy conference, Rick Lowery reminded us that, throughout much of human history, inviting someone to eat with you was a highly symbolic act. Think of how often meals are depicted in scripture: starting with the time Abraham prepared a feast for the strangers he encountered, those angels in disguise, and continuing all the way to Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, not to mention the meal in Emmaus, the breakfast by the lakeshore, the feeding of the 5,000, or the many other meals mentioned in scripture.

The symbolism is such that one who dines with you is no longer a stranger. In eating together, your table companion becomes your brother, your sister, someone who, no matter what happens, will never be your enemy; someone with whom you will live the rest of your life in mutual love and loyalty. The bond of love and friendship established as a result of table fellowship can never be broken.

Several of the 8th century prophets describe feasts that God’s people prepared, to which they invited God as the honored guest. The sacrifices were carefully prepared: the finest bulls, rams, calves, and lambs. The table was meticulously set with the finest table linens and dinnerware available. The invitation was sent out to God: there is a place prepared for God at the table, the place of honor.

But God refused the invitation. God broke with accepted protocol, and refused to come. God dared to insult the hospitality shown. In Isaiah, God says: “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats….[Your feasts and festivals] have become a burden to me.”

In Amos, God likewise refuses the invitation: “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon.”

Why does God refuse the invitation? Why does God dare insult those who have offered up such hospitality to him?

God refuses the invitation because at these feasts, justice is not on the menu. Service to others is not one of the entrees listed. The people have prepared these meals to serve only themselves.

In Isaiah, when God refuses the invitation, God says: “Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” And in Amos, God explains his refusal to come by saying, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”

The spiritual disciplines are practices that are meant to draw us closer to God. Well, you cannot get close to God without justice. God will not respond to your invitation if you are not serving others.

But in serving others, and in practicing justice, God will come near, and you will dwell in the light of God’s love. In serving others and practicing justice, God will say to you, “Come, you that are blessed; inherit the kingdom prepared for you. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me… Whenever you do these things to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you do it to me.”

Sabbath (Exodus 16: 4-5, 22-30)

A week ago Friday, my family went camping with some friends at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point. The plan was to leave as soon as the boys were out of school, and return home Saturday evening: approximately 24 hours away from home.


I was really looking forward to spending this time away. I had taken Ginger to work in the morning, returned home, did some housework and preparation for our trip, then returned at noon to pick Ginger up. We were going to go out to lunch, using some Olive Garden gift cards we had received at Christmas but hadn’t used yet. Also, I needed to stop by REI to pick up something for our trip. Both REI and Olive Garden are on Beach Blvd. in Huntington Beach, and Ginger’s school was almost on the way, and we had just the right amount of time to go to Huntington Beach and be back in time to get the boys.

Except that, when I picked Ginger up, she said she had to go home first. I said, “Fine, but home is back that way, and we’re going this way; we’ll go home after lunch.”

“No,” she said. “I want to go home first.”

I did some time calculations in my head. I didn’t think we had time to go back home, then go to REI and lunch before the boys got out of school. It seemed to me that we might have to change our lunch plans, and stop at REI after we got the boys, when we were on our way to Dana Point.

To make a long story short, I got upset. Unreasonably upset. I knew at the time that it was unreasonable, so I tried to keep quiet about it.

It wasn’t easy.

As it turned out, we did have enough time. Maybe not as much time to browse around at REI as I would have liked; but then, I could get myself into a lot of trouble browsing around at REI, so maybe it’s just as well.

And all the while, I pondered why I had become so upset. As I said, I knew at the time that my level of frustration was unreasonable, totally disproportionate to the circumstances. What in the world had happened to me?

It took me several days to discover the answer.

Meanwhile, we ended up having a wonderful time in Dana Point. We tent-camped; and, if you remember what the weather was like last weekend, there was the feel of excitement and adventure as we kept one eye on the dark clouds, hoping that it wouldn’t rain.

It didn’t.

We went whale watching. We went on hikes. We watched the Dana Point Festival of Whales parade. We laughed and told stories with our friends. The kids – all five of them – acted out a little play for the grown-ups. And unlike my time of rushing around before we left, this was a time to relax, to not worry about time.

For me, that is an essential component of a true Sabbath rest. A true Sabbath rest for me is one in which I do not need to rush. Rushing is stressful. Racing the clock makes my heart race, and not in a good way.

During the week, it seems like we’re always racing the clock, always worrying about time. Most days I get the family up at exactly 6:30. They need to be dressed and at the breakfast table by 7:00. By 7:20, they need to be brushing their teeth, putting shoes on, and grabbing their school supplies so they can be out the door by 7:30.

7:30 is the goal, but it’s usually a few frantic minutes later when I finally wave goodbye as Ginger takes the boys to school and herself to work. She’d take me, too, but by then I’m already worked up by the frantic rush to get everyone out the door that I need my fifteen minute walk to church to calm myself back down.

Once here, there are more deadlines: the sermon and worship preparation needs to be done by Sunday, that’s the most important. Staff meeting is on Monday at 9:30; the Religious Leaders Association meeting is Wednesday at noon. Is there Chi-Rho on Wednesday night? Am I prepared for Sunday’s Lenten study group? Am I ready for CYF on Sunday? Better get something prepared, it will be here before you know it.

Is the board report done? Did I read that chapter for next week’s elders’ meeting? Did I send in my registration for Founders’ Day or regional assembly or the clergy conference in time to get the early bird discount?

2:43 – school’s out. I gotta walk over to Hughes Middle School, get Ethan, walk back. Do some more work in my office while helping Ethan with his algebra.

Go home. Eat dinner. What’s on tonight’s schedule? Scouts? Board meeting? Chi-Rho? Elders? Open House? Interfaith Council meeting? Well, whatever it is, better hurry up and get ready; can’t be late.

Even going to bed is by the clock; can’t stay up too late, or I’ll be too tired in the morning. I don’t need an alarm to wake up in the morning, thank God for that! Although, now that we’re on Daylight Savings time, maybe I should set the alarm just in case….

Does any of that sound familiar? I know it does. I hear you talk about things like little league and dance recitals and girl scouts and Job’s daughters and volleyball and volunteering at the hospital and doctor’s appointments and teacher conferences and hosting out-of-state relatives and job interviews; oh, and don’t forget your newsletter deadline … and do I even bother to mention that it’s now just one month until tax day?

This, more than anything, is what I need a break from. God knows I need a break from it all, which is why God commands that I take a Sabbath rest.

God doesn’t suggest that I take a Sabbath rest. It’s a command. #4 of the ten commandments, to be exact. You have three commandments that speak of our relationship to God, and you have six commands that speak on our relationships with one another, and right in between them, at #4, is the command to observe the Sabbath.

However, this command, the command to observe the Sabbath, is the only command that we actually boast about breaking. No one goes around boasting, “I have stolen more things this week! Just one thing after another!” No one goes around bragging, “I murdered so many people last month!” And I’ve never heard anyone say, with pride in their voice: “I bore false witness against ten of my neighbors yesterday. Ten!”

But I do hear people talk about how busy they are. “I’ve been going non-stop for weeks now. I haven’t had a moments’ rest! It’s just one thing after another!” They say it as if they are expecting to be admired for their crazy, jam-packed lives, and perhaps some people do admire them for how busy they are, with not even a moments’ rest, but I know for a fact that God does not. Because God has commanded them to take one day a week, and make it a day of rest.

God knows you need a Sabbath….

For me, more than anything, the Sabbath is a day on which time really doesn’t matter. For me, a day of Sabbath rest is a day on which time moves differently. On the Sabbath, a moment can last forever, and yet, at the same time, hours can just fly by.

The 24 hours we spent in Dana Point were like that. We actually did quite a lot. But we didn’t rush to any of it. And sometimes, we just sat, and watched the clouds, and didn’t worry about what we were going to do next. We ate when we were hungry, not when the clock said we should eat. We moved when we felt like moving. We sat when we felt like sitting.

Please don’t ask me what time it is when I am enjoying my day of Sabbath rest. Is it 9:47? Is it quarter past ten? I don’t care, and I don’t want to know. Such quantifications of time are meaningless on the Sabbath. If I find myself worrying about what time it is, then it is not a Sabbath rest.

Do we have plans on the Sabbath? Do we have an appointment? Are we planning, for example, to see a movie that starts at a certain time? Are we meeting up with friends?

Fine. But please be ready early. Let’s not rush. Let’s not race the clock. If we end up having a little extra time on our hands, great. We can walk around, maybe grab a cup of tea. But if at any point we find ourselves racing the clock, well, there goes the Sabbath.

If it sounds wonderful, well, it is. It is wonder-ful; a day full of wonder. A day of delight. The Sabbath, as God intended it, is not supposed to be some dull, dreary experience where one sits around and does nothing. It is, instead, a day of delight for humankind. And not only for humankind, but also for animals, the earth – all of creation.

It is a day of pursuing one’s deepest joy, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as avoiding work. In fact, some people who just can’t let go of their worries, or who just can’t clear some time in their calendar for a Sabbath rest, may find it to be a great deal of work to take a Sabbath rest. Just like prayer or worship or any other spiritual practice, Sabbath requires, well, practice.

The Israelites couldn’t stop working on the Sabbath. They couldn’t just sit and enjoy the abundance of food they already had; they felt compelled to go out into the fields, and gather manna, even on the seventh day, the day that God told them to not work. But they didn’t gain anything from the work they did on that seventh day, did they?

If you work yourself too hard; become too stressed-out and filled with anxiety; if you don’t take a break from the craziness of modern life; well, you’re not going to gain anything by it. The benefits of working non-stop will not materialize, just like the manna did not materialize on the seventh day. Just stop. Catch your breath. Observe the Sabbath.

If your Sabbath rest involves spending time with friends or family, if it involves a feast (which, by the way, is a great way to celebrate the Sabbath), or if it requires any work at all, then you are going to have to prepare for the Sabbath. Do your shopping ahead of time. Do your cleaning ahead of time. Do as much of the cooking as possible ahead of time, so you don’t have to worry or be anxious on the Sabbath. Once the Sabbath starts, you don’t want to be troubled by such things, or it won’t really be a Sabbath.

Which, I now realize, is why I got so unreasonably upset last weekend. My Sabbath was set to start at 3:00 Friday afternoon, when we climbed into the car and headed toward Doheny State Beach. I wanted all my preparation to be done by then. I didn’t want to have to stop on the way and shop for something we needed. I so hate shopping. To leave that task for after my Sabbath had already started was unthinkable.

It wasn’t until I started writing my sermon Monday afternoon that I understood this. It wasn’t until Monday afternoon that I even realized that Sabbath was what I was looking forward to. Because the truth is, I don’t always make it a point to observe the Sabbath each week.

By the way, that’s not a boast. It’s a confession.

Clearly, one must be intentional about observing the Sabbath. It doesn’t just happen. Left to chance, something is going to fill that blank space on your calendar, and odds are, it won’t be something that you are going to take delight in.

And one more thing, if you haven’t already figured it out: Sabbath rest doesn’t necessarily have to be on Sunday. Some of us have way too many responsibilities on Sunday for that to be a day of rest. If that’s true for you, then perhaps you will want to observe the Sabbath on a Saturday, or a Friday, or whatever day works best for you. It can be from 3:00 Friday afternoon to 3:00 Saturday afternoon, or from sunset one day to sunset the next. That is, after all, how the ancient Jews defined a Sabbath.

And I’m not going to be legalistic insist that it be exactly 24 hours, and I’m not going to make a list of what you can and can’t do, although I do know that if you don’t set some guidelines for yourself, about what you will and won’t do on the Sabbath, then the cares and worries of the other six days will creep in and destroy your one holy day of the week.

Because that’s what Sabbath is: a holy day. Just as the sanctuary is holy space, Sabbath is holy time. A day to truly enjoy and take delight in the life God has given you. It is the day that makes you smile when you look back on it the first three days of the week, and the day you look forward to with joyful expectation the last three days of the week.

Trust me. No, better yet, trust God: You need a day like that.

Prayer (Psalm 63: 1-8)

O God, you are my God; my soul thirsts for you. My lips will praise you. I will bless you as long as I live, for you have been my help…


For those engaged in the practice of daily prayer, the psalms – more than any other book of the Bible – have been their chief inspiration. Many of the psalms are beautiful. Some are harsh. All display the raw emotion of individuals and communities at prayer.

In some ways, the discipline (or practice) of prayer is very different from the discipline of Bible study. Bible study involves a lot of talking about God; especially about how God is revealed to us in scripture, but also how God is revealed to us in life, in our experiences. It can be very stimulating for one’s mind.

Prayer, on the other hand, isn’t talking about God; it is talking to God – and listening to God. It is having a conversation with God: an ongoing dialogue.

Prayer is an exercise of the heart more than it is of the head. It involves our strongest emotions, our greatest joys, our deepest sorrows.

Prayer is “up close and personal.” One can very easily read the Bible in a detached sort of way, but prayer does not allow one to stand back and watch.

Every once in a while, someone will ask what is the right way to pray, the proper way to do it. Well, what I am learning is that there are as many ways to pray as there are people in the world, each with their own unique personality. Some people are extroverts, so naturally their prayers will have lots of words that flow out of them seemingly with little effort. For others, silence is a prayer, as thoughts are put together, and then the realization hits that the thoughts themselves are a prayer, and words are not necessary.

Some people can stand in front of others and offer a prayer on the spot. Others are willing to lead a group in prayer only if they are able to have a moment or two first to ponder what they should pray for, while some people have never spoken a prayer out loud in their life. Prayer is, after all, a very personal and intimate experience.

Nevertheless, there are some people whose speech is filled with prayer. They can’t help but interrupt nearly every sentence with a prayer. They mention someone’s name, and out pops a “God bless him;” or they mention how they found a parking spot at the mall on the day after Thanksgiving, right up close, and “praise God for that!” Quite often these are talkative folks, real jabbermouths, but not always…

I’ve mentioned to you before how my prayers often come to me as I walk to church in the morning. I say that my prayers “come to me” because often, I start walking with no real intention of praying. I’m just walking. And then, as it usually happens, I’ll be halfway or three-quarters of the way here, and I’ll realize that, somehow, my mind has, in fact, slipped into prayer. You see, that is often the only time during my day that I allow my mind to enjoy a period of silence. Even at my desk here at church, I find it hard to ignore the emails on the computer, even for ten minutes. I find it hard to ignore the list of things on my to-do list. I feel a constant need to be productive, to get things done, and so when I do make myself stop for a time of prayer, I find myself resisting the urge to rush through it and get on with my day.

Now, if my prayer comes to me so easily as I walk, why should I go through the effort to pray at other times? I’ll tell you why. It seems to me that, at least some of the time, prayer should be intentional. I think it’s wonderful when prayer comes to me. I think it’s wonderful when God comes to me. But I think it’s important for me to actually go to God in prayer, too. At least some of the time. I think that I probably shouldn’t let God do all the work.

And sometimes, prayer is work. Not too long ago, I read a book on prayer by Robert Benson. It’s actually one book in a series of books on ancient spiritual practices that inspired me to do this sermon series on spiritual practices. There’s one more book in the series yet to be published; I’m hoping it comes out before I preach on it.

Sometimes prayer is work, and in his book, that’s what Robert Benson talks about. He also talks about the work he does in his garden. Here’s what he says:

“In a few weeks, the rakes we own will make their first appearance of the spring in our yard. It will not be too long before the mulch will be delivered. Here we go again.

“Sometime soon, I have to rake off all of the winter mulch, rake up all of the leaves that have ended up in my yard over the winter, turn over the dirt in all of the flower beds, and reset some of the bricks in the patio and the walkways that have been dislodged by the winter rains. I have to prune the roses and trim the hedges and cut back the monkey grass, fix the gate in the back fence, reset the hinges and the lock on the front gate, power-wash the porch, put a new screen in the doors to my studio, edge the patio, put pine straw in the lower garden, and figure out a way to attach a rosebush to the house, the one that is so big now it keeps falling over and blocking the front gate.

“None of which I can actually do in a weekend. So I have some yard work to do, every day for weeks to come. And the truth is that the yard is not going to look like much for some weeks to come yet.

“There is a moment out there somewhere, though, a single afternoon or evening, when I will come around the corner, and the roses will have begun to bloom or the light will fall just right on the fountain, or I will see the cardinals playing tag in the hedges, and it will take my breath away….

“Between now and the time we will put the garden to bed next winter, I figure I have about twelve moments of magic coming, and I could miss some of them if I do not do the daily work it takes to make such moments possible. I also think it is worth every moment of work for those six or eight or twelve moments of pleasure, whenever they come and whatever they turn out to be like when they take my breath away.”

Robert Benson then describes how daily prayer – that is, intentionally praying at a set time or times every day – is like working in the garden. It’s work that, sometimes, we must force ourselves to do every day. But there will be those magic, holy moments that take our breath away. And in those moments, we realize that all our work is worth it.

By the way, the same could be said about worship. Benson says that “there is a temptation for all of us to feel as though worship is not really worth much unless we are personally moved by it. If we are not emotionally touched, then our worship does not seem spiritual to us. It helps to remember that liturgy is the work of the people, not the magic wand of God.”

This week I was invited to join one of our CWF groups for their monthly meeting. An article they were reading mentioned prayer beads – similar to the rosaries used in the Catholic church – that, for some people, help with the work of prayer. I like the idea of prayer beads. I think I might like to get some – or make some – for me. Maybe I’ll get some for all of us. We’ll see.

In Unbinding Your Heart, the book that our Lenten study group is reading, there is the story of a church evangelism committee that had just been formed and was ready to get to work. But they were given a challenge: for three months, do nothing but pray. Meet together once a week, and pray. In their reports to the church board, they said that they were doing nothing but praying. The board members chuckled. Then they started giving prayer requests.

When the three months were over, the evangelism committee “went to work,” which isn’t quite the right way to put it, since they had been working all along, praying. They were fired up with energy, and – led by prayer – began doing evangelism in such a way that the church began to grow and grow.

In ancient times, many Christians prayed seven times a day, at set times. That practice continued for many centuries in monastic communities, and in fact continues today. Outside those communities, the number of daily prayers was reduced to four, for practical reasons. Today, some Christians still pause four times a day for prayer, while others are lucky if they can find one ten minute period to pray.

In his book, Benson describes in greater detail the history of these prayers, and what they are like. Typically, they include some opening sentences of prayer, the reading of a psalm and one other scripture passage, prayers of thanksgiving and intercession, the Lord’s Prayer, and a concluding blessing. Our society being what it is, these prayers are often said in private, although there are those who gather, early in the morning or at some other time, to pray together.

There is no doubt, however, that for individuals and communities and churches that are alive and thriving with the Spirit of God, prayer is at the center of everything they do. Prayer is the core and the foundation. I’ve learned that so much of what we attempt to do in the church would be impossible to accomplish without prayer. All our efforts would surely fail if prayer were not a part of what we do.

I know a lot of people worry about whether they are praying right. I think that the only way to pray wrong is to pray a prayer that isn’t really your prayer, one that doesn’t come from your heart. Other than that, I don’t think you can go wrong. If you ask for something in prayer that God, in his wisdom, thinks is not right, then God isn’t going to answer that prayer. Scripture says that if a child asks for bread or fish, the parent isn’t going to give that child a snake, but I think that if the child asks for a snake, the parent still isn’t going to give him a snake.

Besides, there are psalms in which the psalmist asks for things, prays for things, that I can’t imagine God being okay with. But still, they are honest expressions of the psalmist’s heart. That, I think, is the most important thing in prayer.

The movie Bruce Almighty has some important lessons about prayer. In one scene, Bruce, played by Jim Carrey, has been given God’s powers, and he answers everyone’s prayers by giving them what they want. Complete chaos is the result. He then complains to God, played by Morgan Freeman, and God responds: “Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?”

If you don’t have a clue, that’s okay. In fact, maybe you should pray about that.

There is another scene in which God asks Bruce himself to pray. So Bruce offers up a prayer about feeding the hungry, world peace, etc. etc., and then turns to God and says, “How was that?”

God replies, “Great, if you want to be Miss America.” There is, of course, nothing wrong with praying for an end to hunger or world peace, if that is really what’s in your heart. But that wasn’t what was in Bruce’s heart. All he was doing was praying the prayer that he thought he was supposed to pray, the prayer that he thought God wanted to hear. But what God wants to hear is what’s in your heart. As long as you pray like that, you can’t go wrong.

Bible Study (Philemon)

When I looked over the list of lectionary readings for today, I saw listed a reading from the third chapter of Philemon. So I grabbed my Bible and began flipping to Philemon, but as I did so, I knew already in the back of my head that something wasn’t right.


Do you know what it is?

Philemon doesn’t have three chapters. I turned to Philemon anyway, then went back to double check the listing. Sure enough, it said: “Philemon 3:17-4:1,” although Philemon was abbreviated “P-H-I-L.”

Then it dawned on me: not Philemon. Philippians!

Well, as I thought about it, I realized that Philemon would work just fine for a sermon on studying the Bible, and because Monica was encouraging me to pick a scripture so she could list it in last week’s bulletin, I decided to go ahead and use Philemon.

Philemon would make an interesting passage for a Bible study. It is a very brief letter, written by the apostle Paul, regarding Onesimus, a runaway slave. In the first century, slavery was common. Today, if you can’t make the payments on your house, you go into foreclosure. In the first century, if you couldn’t make payments to someone you owed, you would go into slavery to pay off the debt.

But Onesimus ran away, and joined Paul. This must have presented quite a dilemma for Paul. According to the thinking in those times, Paul had a moral obligation to send Onesimus back to his master.

So he sends a letter to Philemon. He begins by buttering Philemon up a bit, reminding him of what good friends they are:

“I, Paul, am a prisoner for the sake of Christ. I write this letter to you, Philemon, my good friend. Every time your name comes up in my prayers, I say, ‘Oh, thank you, God!’ Friend, you have no idea how good your love makes me feel.

I have a favor to ask of you. As a prisoner for Christ’s sake, I could command you, but I’d rather make it a personal request.

While here in prison – did I mention that I’m currently a prisoner for Christ’s sake? – I’ve become a father (so to speak) of dear Onesimus. I’m sending him back to you, even though it feels like I’m cutting off my right arm in doing so. He has been so good to me, filling in as your stand-in to help out while I’m in prison for the sake of Christ.”

Do you notice how Paul implies that Philemon himself should have been present, helping Paul? Thank God for Onesimus, who was able to be there as Philemon’s stand-in!

Anyway, it’s clear that Paul expects Philemon to welcome back Onesimus, to not punish him, and to treat him no longer as a slave but as a brother.

What makes this interesting from a Bible study perspective is that, in Ephesians, Paul says: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.” Does that sound to you like the same Paul that pleaded with Philemon on Onesimus’ behalf?

In fact, scholars believe that it’s not the same Paul. There are shifts in thought and language in the writings that are attributed to Paul, shifts so significant that scholars are convinced that they were written by a number of different people. The letter to Philemon, it is believed, was written by Paul himself, or at least dictated by Paul directly to a scribe. Books like Ephesians, on the other hand, are generally believed to have been written by others who wrote later, in Paul’s name.

What are we to make of this? What are we to make of other seemingly contradictory advice and instructions that appear in the writings attributed to Paul? Here Paul says that women should keep their heads covered when they teach and preach; there, he says women shouldn’t speak at all. Here, he tells husbands and wives to work together in marriage; in another spot, he orders wives to be subject to their husbands.

A number of years ago, a resolution was brought before the General Assembly that sought to declare that, for Disciples, scripture is our highest authority. The General Assembly voted against the resolution. Well, this led to some eye-catching headlines in the press: “Disciples vote against the Bible!” But as former General Minister and President Dick Hamm has said, we were not really voting against the Bible. “It was right and important,” he said, “for the Assembly to defeat this resolution, because scripture by itself is not our highest authority.” Using scripture by itself, one can justify all sorts of horrible things; things like slavery, genocide, environmental destruction. Therefore, our highest authority cannot be scripture by itself, but “scripture together with reason, experience, and tradition, all under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. All must be kept together with each other.”

Now, someone might argue that everyone reasons differently, has different experiences, and comes from different traditions, and how can you base authority on that? But the fact that we are so different, with different experiences in particular, is what makes Bible study in a group setting so meaningful and important.

When I was in seminary, I took a class on Hispanic theology in the United States. Most of the theology that is presented and discussed in seminary is theology from a European male perspective, which meant that most biblical interpretation was done from the perspective of white European males.

But in the Hispanic theology class, I got to see the stories of scripture through the eyes of a population whose experiences have been very different.

The theologians we read in class wrote in their books of their experiences of coming to the United States, learning English as a second language, figuring out what cultures and traditions to leave behind, which ones to keep, and what new American traditions and values to adapt. One theologian, Roberto Goizueta, spoke of the experience of not being fully American, not being fully Latino, but being both, experiencing life “in between.”

Justo Gonzalez, whose two-volume The Story of Christianity was the basis for a year-long course on Christian history, wrote in his book Mañana that “we are no longer Latin Americans living in exile in the United States but Hispanic Americans, people who have no other land than this, but who nevertheless remain exiles.”

To put it another way, Hispanics in the U.S. are often told to “go back home” – even if they were born here – and if they do return to the land of their ancestors, they are often told that they don’t belong, that they are too “American.” Which means that there really isn’t a place where they are fully accepted.

Now let’s say you’re having a Bible study, and the passage being studied is Psalm 137, a lament for the Jews who were taken captive and forced to live in a faraway land: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps … How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”

Or, let’s say that you’re studying the life of Jesus. He’s not welcome in his hometown, he’s not Roman enough for the Romans, and even though he’s a Jew, he doesn’t quite act Jewish enough for the Jewish elite in Jerusalem. He spends his ministry wandering from place to place, a part of several cultures, but somehow stuck in between them as well.

Don’t you think that a Bible study, a conversation, with immigrants might help us more fully understand the overall message? Who better to help us understand experiences like these than those who have experienced similar things themselves?

Or let’s say you’re reading Acts 8, about Philip’s encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, but was turned away because, as a castrated male, he was sexually different, and Deuteronomy specifically says no castrated males in the temple. On his way home, he was, I’m sure, disappointed at having the temple doors slammed shut in his face.

As he traveled, he was reading a passage of scripture that caught his attention, pondering its meaning. It was a passage about a lamb being led to its shearer (do you think the image of cutting here had special significance to this castrated man?) … a passage of one who was humiliated and denied justice (wasn’t he just denied justice at the temple?) … a passage that mentions generations (there would be no more generations for the eunuch).

When the apostle Philip meets the eunuch and explains the scripture to him, and explains the good news about Jesus, and then agrees to baptize the eunuch and welcome him into the family of God, who can help us better understand the joy this eunuch must have felt than those among us today who have likewise had the church doors slammed shut in their faces because they are sexually different? The experiences of our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters can be a wonderful blessing to all of us when it comes to understanding and interpreting biblical passages of rejection, liberation, and reconciliation.

Each week, when I prepare my sermons, I do a lot of Bible study – study that involves not only reading the Bible, but also reading about how the Bible has been interpreted throughout history. I read about how others have experienced the Bible, and about experiences that have helped shape the way they interpret scripture.

I get really uncomfortable with preachers who preach with a Bible in one hand, its soft leather cover flopping around like the ears of a dead rabbit, as if to say that the Bible is all they need. Yes, the Bible is holy and inspired, but it is also a living text, a living word, that invites us into conversation both with the stories of scripture and with one another. The Word of God is alive and dwells among us, sharing both knowledge and mystery. For me, that is what makes studying the Bible so exciting, and so necessary to a deepening, growing faith.

And it’s OK if we don’t always agree about how the Bible is to be interpreted. After all, we do have different experiences, we come from different traditions, and God created us in such a way that sometimes we even think differently, reason differently, from one another.

But let’s not argue. Let’s not judge. Instead, let us have a conversation. Let us welcome the Spirit’s guidance as we talk. Let us study the Bible with open hearts and open minds. And let us allow God’s Spirit to lead us to a deeper understanding.

Fasting (Luke 4:1-13)

Last week, I began a series of sermons on ancient spiritual practices. “Worship” was the topic of that sermon, a practice that is – more than any other – distinctly communal in nature.
Today, the practice that I’m going to talk about is fasting.

Until just recently, I never thought that I would preach a sermon on fasting. Like many of you, I was aware that many people in the Bible fasted, and that many early Christians fasted, and that there were even some people today – not many, but some – who engaged in the practice of fasting.

The ancient ones I admired, but the modern ones I tended to dismiss as people who took their faith a little too seriously. And I never once considered fasting as an option for myself. What, me fast? Then what? Wearing scratchy wool as a spiritual practice? Or self-flagellation? I think not.

Besides, I thought, wasn’t fasting in ancient times almost a practical necessity? A rough winter here, a famine there; fasting helped one survive. It enabled the food to last a little longer. If you’re going to be fasting anyway, out of necessity, then I guess you might as well make it a spiritual practice.

Today, however, it’s not a practical necessity. Well, not for me, anyway. There’s a grocery store and a number of restaurants in easy walking distance. The house cupboards and the refrigerator are stocked with food. Even on the days when I stand in the kitchen and complain that “there’s nothing to eat,” … there is. Society tells me that I can have whatever I want whenever I want it, without even having to wait for it. So why should I fast? Why should I allow myself to go hungry?

Fasting, it seemed to me, was not a spiritual practice for the 21st century.

Of course, there were some flaws to my thinking. For one thing, there are, of course, people today who do fast out of necessity; that is, they don’t have a choice. They’re hungry, and they have no food.

Also, I had to admit that in the Bible, fasting as a spiritual practice is a choice. Even kings fasted. Surely they didn’t have to. They chose to, despite having a palace full of food. This knowledge, however, did not change my views on fasting. Not right away, anyway.

Then there came a winter in which Ginger accompanied me to the Earl Lectures, a 3-day conference put on by the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. When we lived in northern California, I attended the Earl Lectures every year; although this particular year, because Ginger came with me, I gave up my usual glamorous hotel room at the Berkeley YMCA and instead booked us a bed-and-breakfast not far from where the Lectures were taking place.

We made several trips walking back and forth from the bed and breakfast to the Lectures, and each time we passed by a nice restaurant that, to us, looked very inviting. It was called Café Gratitude, and on our last night in Berkeley, we decided to eat there.

We walked in, and this friendly young man with incredibly long dreadlocks showed us to a table. He handed us menus, and as I began looking it over, I realized what made Café Gratitude unique.

All the food was vegan, meaning there were absolutely no animal products: no meat, no cheese, no eggs, no chicken broth. All the food was grown sustainably, organically, and locally. All the food was live, which mean that it was fresh – not cooked. And, as we soon discovered, all the food was really, really good.

I don’t remember who said it first, Ginger or I, but as we ate, we realized that we could do this. We could make some changes to our diet and become – well, not vegans – but vegetarians at least, which meant that we could still eat eggs and dairy products.

After all, this wasn’t our first vegetarian meal of the week. We were in Berkeley, after all. And we didn’t eat a whole lot of meat at home as it was. We certainly weren’t the type of people who had bacon for breakfast every morning and steak for dinner every night. Making the change wouldn’t be as difficult for us as it might be for some people.

Plus, we knew that there were a number of good reasons to eat vegetarian. Ginger was excited by the potential health benefits of a well-planned vegetarian diet. In fact, once we started the diet, she said she felt better, that she had more energy, than she did when she ate meat.

What appealed to me was the fact that vegetarian diets were easier on the environment, requiring (in most cases) far fewer resources to produce than meat-based diets. I have always tried to reduce my impact on the planet, and going vegetarian was a good way to work toward that.

However, I did decide that I wasn’t going to be too strict about all this. I decided to allow myself to eat meat in certain circumstances. In particular, I would eat meat in response to hospitality shown to me. If someone invited me to their house for dinner, say, I wasn’t going to insist on vegetarian food, and I didn’t want to insult them or make them feel awkward by not eating if there were no vegetarian options. After all, I wasn’t fasting. I was just making some changes to my diet.

More often then not, though, I did have a choice. And when I did, I chose vegetarian. I ate garden burgers at Burger King and grilled cheese and In-N-Out. I didn’t go to McDonald’s.

The most amazing thing, the most surprising thing, about being a vegetarian was how it made me aware; how it made me mindful. So often, we eat a meal, but we don’t even taste it. We don’t savor it or acknowledge it. We don’t give thanks for it. Sometimes, we don’t even chew it.

Not long ago, I was sitting across from someone; we were both eating French fries. She finished hers, but her hand moved over to my fries and she kept eating.

“Hey!” I said. “You’re eating my fries!”

She said, “No, I’m not.”

I said, “Yes, you are – I just saw you eat four or five of my fries.”

She said, “No… I finished my fries, and then, well, OK, I had one of yours.”

I said, “No, I watched you eat five of my fries, one after the other. Do you not even remember eating them?”

I couldn’t be too hard on her. Many times I’ve eaten a meal – just shoveled it in – but my mind was elsewhere, and I’d go to take another bite but the plate was empty, and I’d wonder where my food went.

Did I really just eat all that? Gee, I don’t even remember how it tasted. Was it good? Did I like it? Well, yeah, I guess I must have.

For some reason, when I was a vegetarian, I became a lot more conscious about things like this. Being a vegetarian forced me to actually think about what I was eating. This in turn reminded me of my body, and the holiness of my body, which is the temple for God’s Spirit. This is because, for me, eating a vegetarian diet was a way to honor that holiness. Knowing that my motivation was to reduce the impact on the earth, I felt that the food choices I made connected me to people around the world. Eating with this awareness, I was reminded not only of those who live with hunger and poverty, but of how my everyday decisions can affect their lives, no matter how far away from me they might live.

I was also reminded of where my food comes from. Most meat, I knew, comes from large-scale farms, factories, and slaughterhouses where the conditions are, shall we say, anything but holy. I believed that eating food that came from such places did nothing to honor the holiness that is within me.

And finally, eating a vegetarian diet somehow reminded me to taste my food, to experience the joy of each unique flavor, and to give thanks.

As a result, many of the meals I ate became more meaningful, more fulfilling, more satisfying.
Gradually, after about two years, meat found its way back into my diet. I guess I got tired of fixing separate meals at home. However, I do often choose, even now, to eat a meatless meal when I can.

I’ve talked a lot about eating vegetarian, but technically, giving up meat is not the same as fasting. Fasting is having no food for a set period of time. Being a vegetarian is not fasting; it would more properly be called abstaining – in this case, abstaining from meat. However, my experience did open my mind up to the possibility that perhaps fasting does have a place, even in the 21st century.

And so, when I began reading a book on fasting by Scott McKnight, I was curious. He talks in his book about how fasting is, first a foremost, a response. He makes that very clear. Fasting is a response to a sacred grievous moment. Fasting is not a tool to be used to get what you want. It is not a tool to be used to gain God’s favor. And it is certainly not a tool to help you prepare for swimsuit season. Fasting is something you do in response to a sacred grievous moment.

In the Bible, fasting always refers to food. Fasting usually lasted for a day or less, almost always ending when one ate the evening meal. In Jesus’ time many Jews fasted twice a week, from sunrise to sunset, but the fast always ended in the evening.

So when I read that Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days, I’m not sure exactly what that means. First of all, 40 is a symbolic number in scripture, and I’m not sure if it should be taken literally here. And secondly, while the Bible says that Jesus fasted for 40 days, it doesn’t say anything about the nights. So who knows.

The practice of fasting continued for much of Christian history. John Wesley, to name just one example, fasted every Wednesday and Friday, and was highly critical of those who didn’t.

Since fasting is a response, what is it that fasters are responding to? It could be a death. It could be a conversion. It could be a response to God’s absence, or the awareness of one’s complicity in injustice and suffering. It could be in response to the realization that we need to grow in grace, to shed sins, and to become more loving and holy.

Fasting makes a person more aware, more mindful. It puts a person in tune with what God is doing in that sacred grievous moment.

Fasting is obviously a very bodily practice. Our tendency is to separate the body from the spirit. That may, in fact, be one of our hang-ups about fasting. It involves the body. What does that have to do with the spirit?

We often think of the body as insignificant to a life of faith. But that’s how it was thought of by ancient Jews and Christians. And for some people, fasting helps put body and spirit back together, restoring wholeness to our being.

Actually, fasting can be dangerous when we separate body and spirit. Many people have poor body images, and some will take extreme measures, including extended periods of self-starvation, to have their bodies conform with the image that the culture tells them they should have.

That’s not fasting as a spiritual discipline. That’s an eating disorder that separates the body from the spirit. Neither the body nor the spirit is honored by eating disorders, but fasting as a spiritual practice does honor both body and spirit.

I have done very little actual fasting in my life, and the little fasting that I have done was usually in response to a misunderstanding. Something along the lines of: “I thought lunch was included; I was supposed to bring my own? Well, I guess I’m fasting today.” And for the rest of that afternoon, I’d be aware of an emptiness in my belly; and that hunger, in turn, would make me aware of those whose hunger is far more severe than mine, and also of how grateful I am for the food I do have; and that kind of hunger (the hunger I experienced) and the awareness and the gratitude is never a bad thing.

So what do you think? Are you ready to give it a try? If so, let me know how it goes, because I’m not sure yet how willing I am. If not, then I encourage you to at least think about the food you eat. Think about where it comes from, and how it gets to your place. Pause a moment before you eat, and give thanks.

And then, taste your food. Really taste it. Don’t read, don’t think about something else. Notice the flavors, the textures, the smells. Enjoy the gift that you have been given. Take joy in what you’re eating. Savor every bite. Let your meal nourish your body and soul. And be grateful.

Worship: Practicing for Life (Luke 9:28-36)

In June 1996, I spent nearly two weeks at Dzilth-na-o-dith-hle. That's the name of a small Navajo town centered around a boarding school and a health center in northwest New Mexico. I was an adult counselor with a group of 53 youth and adults from various Disciples congregations in Indiana.
We drove for two days, spending a night in Okalahoma City on the way, and arrived at Dzilth-na-o-dith-hle late on a Tuesday evening. We were greeted and welcomed by Johnny Henderson, who ran the dorm at the school and who served as our host for our stay. His first words to us were, "the Navajo don't have a religion. We have a way of life."
Prior to the trip, I had done quite a bit of research in preparation for both the trip and my course. What Johnny told us confirmed what I had read. I had read that it is difficult to find Native American words for "religion." I had read that the Navajo would not recognize the dichotomy that exists in our culture between what is spiritual and what is material. And, I had read that "the Navajo Way" means the totality of life, both spiritual and material. There is no separating the two.
However, despite my preparation and despite Johnny's comment to us, I became frustrated in the days that followed. I knew that when I got back to Indiana, that report would be waiting for me; but so far, I was finding it hard to learn about and experience Navajo religion.
Then, about halfway through our stay, it dawned on me: everything that I had experienced so far on the trip was related to Navajo spirituality. I had not recognized it as such, because I was searching for a separate component of Navajo culture that would fit the concept of religion with which I was familiar. This, despite my research, and despite Johnny Henderson's comments that first night, all of which should have prepared me for this realization. I was, in fact, surrounded by--and immersed in--Navajo spirituality, and I didn't even realize it.
What I had been looking for was a system of belief, because that's how my religion, Christianity, had been defined to me. I had been told that Christians are people who believe certain things. Believe this, believe that,... and you're a Christian.
Navajo religion, on the other hand, is not a system of belief. It is, as Johnny said, a way of life. It cannot be separated from other aspects of life, because it encompasses everything.

There is a deep spiritual hunger among people today; but what most people are looking for is not a system of belief. They're looking for a way of life, one that gives life meaning and purpose; a way of life that connects them to the universe and to the creator.
And so they are looking to Native American spirituality. They are looking to Buddhism as well; books on Buddhism just fly off the bookstore shelves these days. In their search for faith as a way of life, they're not looking to Christianity, because in many ways, Christianity has lost its way.
In Christianity, they see arguments over beliefs, but very little Christian living. They hear a lot of people speaking against this or that, but very few people living for anything.
It wasn't always so. You may know that the earliest Christians were called "followers of the way." For them, Christianity wasn't just a system of beliefs; it was a way of life. Christianity wasn't just what they believed in; it was how they lived. It was who they were.
And to help them follow the way of Christianity, they engaged in a number of practices. Some of these practices are a part of many lives today, but others have all but disappeared. They include: worship, fasting, Bible study, prayer, sabbath, service, tithing, and observance of the liturgical year.
Why have Christians engaged in these practices throughout history? They do it for the same reason athletes train. They do it for the same reason that musicians practice. It takes effort to become what you want to be. It takes work. Do you want to be a better Christian? Do you want to grow in faith? Do you want to live a life of meaning, a life of wholeness, a life of abundance, the life that God wants you to live? If so, then you need to train for it. And practices help.
When I was in eleventh grade, I felt my first earthquake. It happened during my first period American Literature class. As soon as my classmates and I felt the ground begin to shake, we knew what to do: immediately, we crawled under our desks and covered our heads, as we had practiced in our drills.
Not long after that, I felt my second earthquake. This one happened in the middle of the night. I was in bed, but when the shaking woke me up, I lay there, unsure of what to do. Actually, I knew that I should probably find my way under a table or desk or to a doorframe. But I had never practiced what to do at home in an earthquake, and laying there, in bed, frightened, I could not get my body to move. I knew what I should od, but I had not practiced doing it, and when the critical moment came, I found that I could not do it.
In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell chronicled the lives of several people who were masters at what they did. He analyzed the lives of star atheletes, premier violinists, and even Bill Gates. He wondered what led them to succeed, to excel, to be the best in the world at what they do.
The answer, he discovered, was practice. Each of them had spent approximately 10,000 hours practicing their craft before they became masters at it. That's a lot of practicing. If you somehow managed to practice four hours every day, seven days a week, with no days off, it would take almost seven years to reach 10,000 hours.
Needless to say, the things these people did was more than just a hobby. It was more than something they did on the weekends. It was their life. The athletes that are now gathered in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics: training isn't a part of their lives. To be an Olympian, training is your life.
In the same way, following Christ isn't a part of the lives of Christians; following Christ is their way of life.
The ancient practices of our faith are designed to help make faith a way of life. And when faith becomes a way of life, life becomes whole, abundant, filled with meaning--just the way God intended it to be.
Not everyone wants faith to be their way of life; some people are perfectly content with compartmentalizing it, dividing their life into what is holy and what is not; dividing their soul, if you will. Others want faith to be their way of life, but they don't want to work for it.
Well, it doesn't work that way. Faith requires practice; another word for practice is discipline, which, of course, is related to the word disciple.
Many of the practices you can do by yourself: prayer, fasting, tithing. You don't need to organize a group of people together to do these things. In fact, it is often better to do these things privately, at least most of the time.
But one of these spiritual practices is not like that. One of these practices requires two or three people, at least, to gather together. That practice is worship.
Three of the disciples were with Jesus when he was transfigured. Jesus was God's son. You'd think he could have gone up on the mountain alone. You'd think he wouldn't need help to do any of the things he did. And yet, he was frequently taking two or three or twelve disciples with him wherever he went.
On that mountaintop, God was revealed in Jesus in a very powerful way. On that mountaintop, that group of disciples worshiped. Then they came down from the mountain and began serving those in need, which, some would say, is an even more authentic form of worship.
I know--and you probably do, too--people who believe in God, good people, people who may even pray to God, but who don't go to church; people who are content to practice their religion on their own, in their own way.
Well, imagine a violinist who practiced every day--perhaps even four hours every day--but who never had a teacher. Imagine a violinist who played the violin every day, but never had the chance to practice or play with an orchestra.
Imagine a hockey player who practiced shooting the puck over and over for hours on end. If your team ever needed someone to take a penalty shot, or if you found yourself in a shoot-out, he'd be your man! But put him into the game, and he wouldn't be able to pass, and God help him when the opposing team comes after him.
To worship, you need a community.
Our worship is given shape and form by the liturgy. In some churches, like the Roman Catholic church or the Episcopal church, the liturgy is very rigid and formal. In our congregation, the liturgy is more relaxed and informal.
Liturgy includes all that we do in worship. It refers to the shape of the worship itself. The prayers, the call to worship, the readings and the responses are all a part of the liturgy.
The word "liturgy" literally means "the work of the people." Worship is work. It requires the participation of everyone present. Unlike some of the other spiritual practices, it requires that we bring ourselves to a specific place at a specific time, whether or not that place and time are convenient for us.
Worship requires preparation. We need to get ourselves ready to come to worship. Some people like to meditate or pray before they come, to prepare their hearts and minds for worship. And certainly, those who lead us in worship take time to prepare.
In worship, we get to practice some of the most important qualities of a Christian way of life: love; hospitality; sharing peace with one another. We greet one another, we welcome strangers, we pray for one another.
This is our training for life. We practice it here, much like a hockey player practices passing and scoring, much like school children practice ducking under their desks. We practice love, hospitality, and sharing peace here in worship so that we will be able to practice love, hospitality and sharing peace the rest of the week.
And then, just as the disciples came down from the mountain and began serving those in need, so are we sent out from this place of worship, to do the work God calls us to do; the work that some would say is an even more authentic form of worship.