"Minding Your Habits"
David C. Myers
August 26, 2007
Jeremiah 20:7 - 12
Hebrews 12:1 - 2
Text: "I am ridiculed all day long, and everyone mocks me. . . . The Word of Yahweh came to me, bringing constant insult and derision." . . . Jeremiah 20:7 & 8
William Willimon, bishop of the United Methodist Church and former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University tells the story of the early days of Vatican II in the 1960's. The Council was moving at a snail's pace and it was not at all clear whether or not reforms in the Catholic Church would be forthcoming, and what the magnitude of them would be. While they were debating worship, a Cardinal from one of the Eastern European countries stood up and said, "They (the Communist regimes) have closed our schools, they have disbanded our women's groups and our youth groups, and they have taken away our publishing houses. All that we have left is what happens at the Sunday Morning Mass, and for God's sake, give us enough to survive."
And after that testimonial the Vatican II reforms were swift in coming and they were far reaching in scope. And the rest is history.
It is the task of the church to give us, "for God's sake, enough to survive."
And how do we survive in the face of what is going on in the world?
It's not easy to be the church, just ask the prophet Jeremiah. It was hard to be a prophet for God. His message seemed so irrelevant to his friends and the culture they lived in. He wrote, "I am ridiculed all day long, and everyone mocks me. . . . The Word of Yahweh came to me, bringing constant insult and derision." (Jeremiah 20:7 & 8) So Jeremiah pleads with Yahweh, complaining to God that his is an impossible task; because in the eyes of his friends, he didn't make any sense, he just wasn't relevant.
If that sounds at all familiar, it should. Too often we default to the surrounding culture and let its values and ways be ours. We let the world set our agenda; and why not? After all shouldn't the church be relevant to that culture if the church is to grow?
But Jeremiah gives us an example - especially in the face of being unpopular to the world. Jeremiah knew downright persecution. And yet, he could not escape God's call and claim on his life. He spoke, "But if I say, 'I will not mention God nor speak in God's name anymore,' then the word in my heart burns like a fire imprisoned in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." (Jeremiah 20:9)
Being a Christian is not easy. It's hard to stand against the conventional wisdom of the world.
You see, what I'm getting at this morning is the basic belief that we are not "born" Christian, but that we need to be "made" or "formed" Christian, and there are times when it is hard work being a Christian. And that process of making Christians can be difficult when set in the context of a world that finds the church "odd" and not particularly relevant.
You see, we are not to conform to the world, but rather be set apart from the world. In fact, our task is not to be relevant - at least as the world sets the agenda - but instead the holy task of the church is to be irrelevant to the movement of Western culture.
So, like the Eastern European Cardinal, we ought to be concerned that people are, for God's sake - and their own - getting enough nurture and enough character formation to survive.
And just how are we being formed? How is our Christian character being developed? Are the rituals of our worship and the life of our church helpful? Are we getting enough to sustain us?
The Hebrews passage this morning talks about perseverance. It's an appropriate concept for our faith. The author writes that we need to "run with perseverance the race that is set before us." It is interesting to note that the writer of Hebrews didn't say, "to run with excitement", or "to run with eagerness", or even "to sprint", but instead said, "to run with perseverance". I looked up "perseverance" in my Webster's to be sure of its meaning. To refresh our memories, to persevere means "to persist in any enterprise undertaken in spite of counter influences, opposition, etc."
Reflecting on the passage from Jeremiah, I decided that this morning I wanted to preach on a very integral part of the life of the church - our worship life. Because it seems to me that this is the central place where we are nourished and where we come to "get enough to survive."
My grandmother had a favorite saying that she would say when I was not behaving quite as I should. When I was about 6 or 7 and would come to the supper table all dirty and grimy from a hard day of building roads out in the back yard, she would look at me, a scruffy little kid, all boy, and say, "David Carl, now you mind your habits." And by that she meant for me to go wash my face and hands, brush my teeth, say my prayers, and, in general, learn a little civilization.
Grandmother would also use that expression when she would hear someone was ill or having problems in his or her life, she would say, "Oh, they have been neglecting their habits." And by this she meant that hey have been living their lives in such a chaotic, disorderly way, . . . well, of course they're sick, when you neglect your habits, what do expect? They've allowed the non-essentials to crowd out the essentials - and that's what you get when you "neglect your habits."
Now, I understand that many times for us, "habit" is a dirty word. We come out of the tradition that values spontaneity of feeling, inner sensitivity; and somehow "habit" speaks to us of drudgery and dullness of religion that has lost its fire.
But that's too simplistic a view of how human beings behave. Many times we find that it is in doing the most habitual things where we can the most spontaneous. John Westerhoff makes the flat statement that "if you have to think about it, it's not good worship." That kind of comes against the enlightenment view of what we are supposed to be doing in worship. We've switched from the view that everything in worship "should do something kind of warm inside of me" to the more rational view that everything "should make sense to me", that it should help me see things of in a new way. And it is because we have become more educated, and that we are of a different culture than our denominations were originally.
Well, what I'm trying to say is that a great part of what we do as a community of faith is developing good habits. We are talking about character here. To say that someone has character is an everyday observation that someone has developed certain habits; that one can be counted on to behave in certain ways, even "in the face of opposing influences, opposition, etc."
Even in the Contemporary Service, have you notice the habitual way the worship is structured? We sing two songs, pray, sing another song, collect an offering, meet with the children (hopefully helping them form some good habits), listen to Scripture, listen to a sermon, then sing and say goodbye.
So we find ourselves, in church, going over the same old stories again and again; doing the same old actions. These habits are the basis on which the relationship to God and to each other is based.
"Do you want to be a concert pianist?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, practice your scales."
"But I don't want to practice my scales. Besides I saw at the Mall that you can play beautiful music with one finger on an organ."
"Well, of course you can, but that has a CD. Go ahead and buy an organ, but don't call yourself a pianist - or for that matter an organist - until you have practiced your scales."
If you want to play football you must spend time lifting weights to get strong, eat food to get big, run to build up your stamina and speed, learn the plays so as to get along with your teammates. If you don't want to do those things, you better think about watching football, rather than playing it.
We need to build habits. Doing the same things over and over. Building and strengthening our relationships with God and each other.
Now occasionally we will hear, "Well, I feel a little bad on Sunday morning, and I don't fell like worshipping." And perhaps our response ought to be, "then this is the time you must worship - at all costs you must worship when you don't feel like it.
It's just like in a marriage. Show me a marriage where, say, a husband won't say to his wife, "I love you" unless he really, really feels it; or, a couple decides - with real integrity - that they won't kiss unless "it really means something and they really feel like it" and I'll show you a sick marriage. Couples find that there are things that you do, even when you don't feel like it; because the longer that you don't do it; well, pretty soon you one day wake up and notice that you never feel like it, and then you never will be able to.
And so one thing the church can do on Sunday morning is say to those folks who want to stay at home, "Come down and we'll teach you how to pray; we'll teach you how to worship."
One thing I've heard people say is, "I don't like a written prayer of confession in the service, because those aren't my sins, or, I don't feel like confessing them."
Well, . . . naturally. That's normal. That's why we do it! We get into the habit of confession, and after a while we begin realizing that as people we do make mistakes, that we do sin against God and before one another; - and that also God forgives us and accepts us.
Another thing. It's not natural to feel gratitude.
One of the things that being a parent did for me was to get me in touch with reality - once again. It was a shocking reality. I used to think that children were born with certain natural traits like, . . . like, . . . being grateful. They're not. Just a few weeks ago night Deb and I chanced upon America's Funniest Home Videos - and there was a clip of a 6 or 7 year old boy opening a Christmas present in front of the tree. As he opens it you can see his disappointment turn to intense anger. Then he throws the gift on the floor, screaming and crying, "I don't want another race car!" Kids are not instinctively grateful. Those kinds of things have to be taught. "Say 'thank you' to Uncle Charley for the candy." "Say 'thank you' to God for your life." "Say 'thank you' to God for the food you eat." "Say 'thank you' to God for the love acceptance and forgiveness you have received so abundantly." We have to get habituated to these kinds of things so that we will be able to experience "forgiveness from God as we forgive those who trespass against us."
A lot of modern people say they don't feel close to God any more. And you have to wonder; is it because God went somewhere? . . . or is it because we have moved away? My suspicion is that it is a matter of inattention to habit, and that we have moved away from God when we have been neglecting our habits.
So I talk about ritual, about minding habits, because this thing called Christian discipleship or spiritual formation is so strange to us and the world around us - it means we have to keep working at it. And yes, one may report years later that one still feels like a novice, that it still hasn't become second nature to us. But given time the claim of the church is that with perseverance and minding our habits, it will become second nature to us. That doing justice, that showing gratitude, that sharing love and acceptance, that being able to confess - all so we can fully receive God's gracious acceptance, all of this will become second nature to us. These "odd things" as defined by the world will become a part of us. You see, "ritual" - as in worship ritual - is just another word, in the final analysis for "habit".
Well, this morning's sermon might not have been one that has tickled your funny bone, or inspired you to go save the world. But hopefully it has been faithful to the word of Jeremiah, who in the face of his friends and the society who told him he was irrelevant, still persevered and was faithful to his calling to be God's prophet.
So there you have it.
"Minding your habits."
Maybe not inspirational.
But faithful. Doggedly faithful.
And in so doing so, we will find that not only do we have "enough to survive", but we have enough to live abundantly.