You Can Live Your Life to the Max - It's a Matter or Ritual

Researchers tell us that there is a universal rhythm to all life. 

All life seems to share an internal clock that is in tune with the whole creation –
and in sync with some cosmic clock. 

There seems to be a basic human need our whole species has,
that is the need for periodic time of rest – daily and weekly.

We ignore our God created rhythms at our own peril.

We may not fully understand what happens when we stop daily and weekly, and meditate and pray and experience the community of Christ, but we are better for it.


From the Ancient Texts:  Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
From the Early Church: Revelations 21:1-7

Jesus said I have come that you might have an abundant life – that you might live a full life – that you might live it to the max – being all you were meant to be (which is so much more than you ever thought possible).

Each of us can live a fuller life.
In the weeks past we have seen how:
It’s a matter of choice: and we are exhorted to choose now.
It’s a matter of allegiance: all or nothing.
It’s a matter of finding community.
It’s a matter of focusing on others.
It’s a matter of attitude.
And, today I hope to show how ritual contributes to a fuller, more abundant, life.

Two fairly recent longitudinal studies of the physical and mental health of several populations that reveal several factors that seem to affect people's health.

Two of the findings of these studies were of interest to me:

First: People who go to church regularly are healthier than those who don't go to church regularly; and

Second: People who go to church regularly live longer than those who don't go to church regularly.

From other reading and studies, I had some hunches as to why this may be so.

Aside from pious sermons and preachers' platitudes, there seems to be an outpouring of scientific studies recently, in several different fields of inquiry, that help to answer these questions.

Today, I want to share with you some ideas about the power of ritual – ritual, a virtue that will help you live a better life.

Some of knew my Dog, Ike.
Ike was a Basset Hound who lived with us 7 or 8 years after he retired from the show circuit.

One of these days I am going to elaborate on what I have learned from my dog: the gospel according to reverend Ike. [But that's another sermon.]
One of the things that my dog Ike reminded me of, and what anyone who has ever lived with a pet finds out,
is that all living creatures are governed by an internal clock.

Ike would wake up and want to go outside everyday at about the same time.
And, he usually was not in a position to see a clock.
And, I never taught him to tell time.
But he knew.
And, you know, he is completely oblivious to daylight savings time.
Much to my chagrin, he never knew when we changed the clocks.
And he knew when it was time to go bed.
His sleep at night was different from his naps during the day.
During the day, he may have been lying still with his eyes shut, and from all appearances he was asleep, but he apparently was very alert to all activities around him.
When anyone came into the room, he was up instantly and alert.
But, at night, after he decided it was time to call it a day, it would take dynamite to wake him and get him to move.
He was naturally in tune with a rhythm that was somehow beyond our mechanical timekeeping.

Ike reminded me that scientific studies conclude that all creation –  all life on our planet –
all animals, all plants, all mammals, all humans –  seem to have an internal clock that is in tune with a certain circadian rhythm.
Researchers at the Center for Biological Timing say that these clocks are endogenous –
they are developed internally somehow.
They seem to be inherited and do not require, or need, any outside influences.
They have shown that animals raised in total darkness, still have biological clocks that are rhythmic in nature.

Think about it.
 How does that happen?
All life seems to share an internal clock that is in tune with the whole creation –
and in synch with some cosmic clock.

That may not come as a surprise to those of us who grew up in the church and came to know the story of God creating the universe.
But, for scientific researchers from all kinds of fields –  biology, micro-biology, botany, human behavior, and on and on –
for researchers to tell us that there is a universal rhythm to all life,
actually confirms some of what our faith has been telling us.
Not only do we have circadian [or daily] rhythms that we are in tune with.
But we have circannual [or seasonal] rhythms, as well.
And the scientific community knows much less about how these work.
But, work they do.

We seem to be a cyclical people.
We organize our lives around certain rhythms or cycles, don't we?
Some people organize their whole year around a sports season, don't they?
And when something happens, like say, the players go on strike?
and the season is canceled?
We see them get all out of sorts.

Some people used to organize their lives around the television season, remember?

Some people organize their lives around the school season, don't they?

Some people have summer homes, and organize their lives around spending time here and there.
We seem to have a need to create our own rituals that inform and govern how we live.

All of us have daily rituals, don't we?
(Daily rituals that when interrupted, we get all out of sorts.)

One of the basic stories of our faith describes a ritual God used in creating the universe.
You know the story, God created the world in six days.

But, creation is not a six day cycle, is it?

No, it's a seven day cycle, isn't it?

God created the universe in six days, and on the seventh day rested, rejuvenated, enjoyed.

And that is the cycle that we seem to be plugged into.

Indeed, the truth of this has been know from ancient times.
At the beginning of the Hebrew religion, Moses came down from the mountain with the 10 commandments from God.
And the fourth commandment refers to this universal rhythm of life:
Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy....
You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me.

On that day, no one is to work –  neither you, nor your children, nor your servants, nor your animals, nor the aliens who live in your country.

This speaks to a basic part of our genetic make up. This speaks to a circannual rhythm of life.
This speaks to a basic need that we have to stop,
to rest,
to contemplate,
to rejuvenate,
to enjoy our surroundings.

Our Granddaddys, and Grandmammas in the faith, recognized this some 5,000 years ago.
And we have been told this all our lives.

And now scientific evidence seems to confirm that this cycle is basic to our existence,
basic to our make up,
basic to our well-being.

Again, the times and seasons mentioned in Ecclesiastes acknowledge the cyclical nature of our lives and our basic need for ritual.

Now, we humans have ingeniously developed a myriad of ways to circumvent our internal clock and the natural circadian rhythms.
We invented the light bulb to extend our day well into the night.
We invented the Eleven O'Clock News and Charlie Rose to override our internal clock
and keep us awake well past our internal clock that governs the shutdown of our bodies and minds for rejuvenation.

We invented the alarm clock to wake us up because we don't trust, or don't hear the internal clock that lets us know its time to awake.

We invented a whole host of activities that occupy our weekend time providing conflict with time allotted for worship and education and spiritual growth.

We work hard at our play all weekend, and face the rest of the week unrefreshed, unrejuvenated, unrested.

We read books,
and listen to tapes,
and revere those who teach us to use our time wisely, and efficiently, so we can get more done.

And we honor those who "work the hardest".
But, the latest health studies confirm what our ancestors in the faith knew all along:
when you ignore the rhythms of the universe,
when you ignore the circadian and circannual rhythms,
when you ignore your basic need for ritualistic sabbath time –
a time we all need for rejuvenation, revitalization, rebirth –
when you ignore a ritualistic day of rest,
you experience burnout,
elevated blood pressure,
heart disease, stroke, cancer, sleep disorder, obesity, autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis –
and a host of other related problems.

There seems to be a basic human need our whole species has,
that is the need for periodic time of rest – daily and weekly.

Now, most of you know this.
And this is where this church is different from a lot of churches.
Most of you are here today because you want to be –  most of you are here today because you really would rather not be somewhere else.

I know for a fact, that some of you went through a great deal of pain and trouble and it took a lot of effort to get here.
But you are here.

And the rest of us truly take inspiration from your presence.

Most of you want to be here on Sunday, because it helps you get through the rest of the week, doesn't it?

Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy....
Make it a day of rest, dedicated to me.
You will be better for it.

I really don't know if anyone in this room suffers from sleep deprivation.
But, we all have known people, and have read about people who seem to thrive on only 3 or 4 hours of sleep a day, haven't we?
I can't remember what the medical term is for that, but you know what I mean.

Some of you may have seen the recent article in the paper of a recent study of these people. Actually, several longitudinal studies have shown that these people –
who may supplement their 3 hours of nightly sleep with a brief nap or two during the day –
naps usually of only 10 - 20 minutes duration -- these studies show that these people,
for the most part, show no diminished brain processes, no diminished motor skills,
no diminished capacities what-so-ever.
In fact, people who experience this particular sleep pattern are frequently our most brilliant, our most creative, our most talented people.

But, there is one curious finding of these studies. For the most part, these people don't grow old.

For the most part, these people do not live to be 80 and 90 or 100.
Most don't make it into their sixties.
While these people go through their lives as though they were somehow super-charged,
something happens to their bodies that cuts short the expected life span of most mortals.

It is possible to ignore our internal clocks and to silence the circadian rhythm our Creator endowed us with.

But, when we do, we shorten our God-given time and short-circuit our God-given endowments.

Modern scientific evidence tells us what our faith has passed on for centuries, we absolutely need periodic time for rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Our bodies and our minds, do in fact experience a rejuvenation during periodic periods of rest:
On a daily basis,
on a weekly basis,
on an annual basis.

We ignore our God created rhythms at our own peril.

We may not fully understand what happens when we stop daily and weekly, and meditate and pray and experience the community of Christ, but we are better for it.

There is healing power in the ritual of observing a sabbath.

There is healing power in the ritual of going to church regularly.

There is healing power in taking time regularly to dwell on things beyond our selves, to cultivate the presence of Christ, to exercise our souls.

Observe the sabbath and keep it holy.
Behold, I make all things new again. ..I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
To anyone who is thirsty, I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it.
 Whoever wins the victory will receive this from me: I will be his God, and he will be my child.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, for sure, there is healing power in ritual.
Many of you in this room already know the truth of this.
And the good news for the rest of us, is that we can test this out.

We are better off, unquestionably, unequivocally, and undoubtedly, when we observe a ritual of going to church regularly;
When we observe a ritual of daily quiet time in prayer;
When we observe a ritual of giving thanks to God for all things in our lives.

There is healing power in ritual.

You know it.

God promises it.

Tell the children.

Tell your friends.

Tell everyone you know.

Something powerful is going on here.

Amen.

The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, experienced this sermon during a worship service October 23,  2011.

Vision 2012: Underpinnings of A New Vision for Being Church

One of the major underpinnings of emerging church visions should be, it seems to me, is to be Christian.
That is to say, to see others as Jesus saw them,
and to do what Jesus did.


It seems to be an almost universal descriptor of the time to come just before things get better:
a time when the old folks will dream dreams, and the young folks will see visions.

In 1926 there were a lot of folks dreaming dreams and envisioning a new church here in Drexel Hill –
there were the men in the Presbytery who envisioned and built this very building in which we gather today – at a time when Drexel Hill was largely vacant lots and unpaved roads;
and there was the minister who was charged with gathering a congregation to worship here;
and there were the forward-thinking people who wanted to be a part of this new way being church in a suburban neighborhood.
They all were driven by their dreams and energized by their vision of what this church could and should be.

Of course even before that there was the vision of the early settlers who came to these parts from Scotland and Ireland in the 1700's.
As they established new lives for themselves and their families here they felt a need for churches – churches like they had back home,
churches that had educated ministers that could help them find aspects of the faith that would help them cope with the new realities of their new lives in the new world.

And there was the vision of the ministers who came here from Scotland – being sent as “missionaries” charged with the purpose of starting churches among the folks that were here.
The reality they found upon their arrival here was so different from their experience back home, that they were driven by dreams and vision of what could and should be.

And, I spoke of the changing reality this church had to deal with throughout the 84 years of its ministry here:
a changing reality some of you may be able to actually speak to, but all of you would be able to relate to.

The excitement and energy that enveloped the folks here during the first few years of ministry could only be described as enthusiastic – enthusiastic: a word that literally means God-filled.

Things were going great.
The new homes were being built.
People were moving in.
The church was growing.
The church provided ministries to the community that were needed and wanted.

And then, within three years, everything changed.
The bottom fell out of the economy.
No one was unaffected.
No community was unaffected.
No church was unaffected.
Construction of the new homes stopped.
People were out of work.
Lives were interrupted.
And the people of the church here were forced to revision its hopes and dreams,
to reinvent itself to a new reality.

And then, by 1940, as construction started picking up again, people started working again, things were beginning to look much differently for the folks in Drexel Hill.

This room could no longer hold all the people that were wanting to be a part of this church.
All kinds of creative ways were designed to utilize the space for the maximum benefit for the most people.
And plans were made to construct a new building with a sanctuary large enough to hold several hundred people at one time.
A campaign was undertaken to raise the funds to construct such a building,
and by 1941 construction had started and hopes and dreams abounded as the whole community watched the holes dug, the foundation laid, and the walls started.

And then the war broke out.

Reality changed again.

It was a time for new dreams and new visions of what this church was to be and to do during these new times of war.

Construction stopped.

New ministries were started.
The church saw itself in a new way during those years.

And it didn’t take long for new vision to arise of the need to finish the construction of the building because the soldiers and their families would be needing what this church could offer when the war was over.

A similar revisioning and repurposing happened in the early 1950's as the folks here wanted to better serve all of the children and families that were in need of what the church could offer to them.
And a new building was funded and built.

It seems that revisioning and repurposing was an ongoing part of the ministry of the folks at this church.
Conversations were held with every Presbyterian congregation within two or three miles of here to encourage thoughts of new ways of doing ministry with possibilities of combining efforts and begin to dream dreams of new ways of being church.

A crisis occurred in 1989 that precipitated another revisioning of how ministry could be done here.

I vividly remember being interviewed at that time and listening to representatives from the congregation and the Presbytery telling me that there were funds available for six months of ministry before the church would have to close its doors,
would I consider serving here for those six months.
It was a six-month contract.
Well, in January, I began by 22nd year here.

Clearly God was not through with His church at any of these past points in this church’s history.

What has been called for again and again,
and what the people here have able to do over and over again,
is a rethinking,
a revisioning,
a reworking,
a redesign,
of what this church could do and be.
Theologically, we would say “being open to hearing to what God was telling us to do – and then doing it.”

All of this is as background for what the Session and the Congregation here has done to this point.
The successful sale of the building here was a result of a lot of prayerful listening, and thinking, and dreaming, and visioning of other possibilities for doing ministry as a church in the days and years ahead.

An immediate result of the culmination of the sale of the building here is that all of the stress of worrying about how to pay the bills is gone.
We now have the ability that few churches have – we have been given time to rethink what we could be – and might be – in the days ahead.

The Session has agreed with my assessment that this gives us unique opportunity to spend some time listening – for God’s will,
contemplating the dreams that will occur,
fleshing out the visions that will come,
to develop and design for what this church might look like if it responded as God leads.
(I’m calling this emphases VISION2012)

In the past few years and months I have been doing a lot of reading and studying about new possibilities of being church that are emerging to better be engaged with world we are living in.

I don’t know about you, but I get more and more annoyed when folks representing my faith misappropriate it for some misguided cause or another.

I often feel certain parts of what I know as Christian faith are being hi-jacked – and being used for purposes at odds with what Jesus taught.

As I engage in this revisioning process myself, I look to what are the underpinnings of whatever forms a new way of being church might take – what are the basics that ought to be there in order to be recognized as a community of faith.

One of the books I have been spending time with was published last year.
The title itself intrigued me from the start:
If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus

It seems to me that many churches today have gotten way off track as to purpose and practice.
You know Jesus never went to church.
There were no churches in Jesus’ day.
There is no record of Jesus ever even using the word church in any of the teachings or sayings attributed to him.

There is a persistent unspoken thought that if Jesus were to come back today, he would not recognize anything that goes on in Christian churches.

Anyway, the author of this book, Phillip Gulley, speaks to me – and to the concerns of many people I know – in the way he organizes the chapters in his book.

Chapter 1 begins: If the Church were Christian . . .
Jesus would be a model for living – rather than an object of worship

This is something that has bothered me for a long time.
It seems that churches are much more interested in promoting right thinking (orthodoxy according to code) rather than doing what is right.
Instead of setting up barriers to keep the wrong kind of people out of our churches, we should be paying attention to the teachings of Jesus – as James reminds us faith without actions is dead.

The author writes: if we in the church were serious about honoring Jesus, conducting ourselves as he did would be our chief concern.

Other chapters in this book are:
If the church were Christian . . .
Affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness.

If the church were Christian . . .
Reconciliation would be valued over judgment

If the church were Christian . . .
Gracious behavior would be more important than right belief

If the church were Christian . . .
Inviting questions would be valued more than supplying answers

If the church were Christian . . .
Encouraging personal exploration would be more important than communal uniformity

If the church were Christian . . .
Meeting needs would be more important than maintaining institutions

If the church were Christian . . .
Peace would be more important than power

If the church were Christian . . .
It would care more about love and less about sex

If the church were Christian . . .
This life would be more important that the afterlife

Well, these are Phillip Gulley’s ideas, but I find them intriguing –
even maybe helpful as we start thinking about what church should be,
what it might look like,
and what it might do.
What if the church were Christian?

And so, one of the major underpinnings of emerging church visions should be, it seems to me, is to be Christian.
That is to say, to see others as Jesus saw them,
and to do what Jesus did.

Through my encounter with another popular thinker and writer, I would say also that another underpinning of a new church would be compassion.

That is to say that compassion would be one driving element that informs whatever we would do and become as a church in the days ahead.

But enough about me and my thoughts.
What about you?
What are your dreams and visions for being church?
For new or different ways of doing church?
As you spend time listening for God’s lead,
what is coming to you as basics – underpinnings – essentials of what we should call church?

Basic to my understanding is what I talked about last week.
It’s what Peter picked up on and started promulgating.
Our faith, our church, is not built of brick and mortar, but our church is built out of living stones.
You and I are living stones –
living building blocks that when connected to one another become strong with abilities to withstand onslaughts of outside forces.

I would hope that in whatever form it may take, our church would be known as place of a forgiveness and compassion;
just as I would hope you and I would be known as people of forgiveness and compassion.

This week please pray for your church.
Pray for a vision.
Pray for wisdom of discernment.
Pray for courage to pursue whatever comes as God’s will for us.
Amen.

- a sermon the congregation at Christ Presbyterian Church heard on February 20, 2011.