Practice
Makes Better
Readings: Romans 12:9-21, Jeremiah 15: 15-21
Arlington Presbyterian Church
September 3, 2017
On Saturday mornings, I take this class at Gold’s Gym called
Body Flow.
It’s a combination of a little
Tai Chi, a bunch of yoga, and good section of Pilates. It closes with a little
optional meditation.
After
surgery, it was the first thing I went back to at the gym.
Body Flow is a relatively fast-paced class, and if you haven’t
done yoga before, it’s likely that you will get a little lost.
Luckily, I had ventured into the
world of yoga while I was in NYC just enough to actually know what I was doing
in this class when I started.
And then
I learned a lot of other stuff.
Yesterday morning, I was back in class for the 3rd
time since my surgery…continuing to take it easy, of course.
There was a guy in there who
clearly hadn’t done a lot of yoga ever. It was hard for him to follow the flow
of the poses, and he wasn’t particularly limber.
So it wasn’t an easy 45 minutes
for him. But he stuck it out and that is awesome. I’m not sure how much he
enjoyed it, and I don’t necessarily expect that he will come back.
But
what he did today was perfect for today.
But the thing about yoga is that you have to accept where you
are and start from there to improve.
You can’t push too hard or your
body will tense up and it will set you back. You have to ease into positions
and approach your limits with grace…and allow yourself the space to lose your
balance.
It’s not like weight lifting or
running where you just have to keep pushing and pushing hard to make gains.
Judgement is the antithesis of
yoga practice. Judgment will hold you back, and keep you from growing.
Yoga is a practice about pure self-acceptance,
it requires just surrendering to moment and celebrating what you can do today.
Because today is different than
yesterday and the body might not be able to accomplish the same thing it did
yesterday or what it can do tomorrow.
I think this is a good approach for reading the Romans text. We read this passage in the Moving Forward Team meeting
last Monday, and I think folks found this text a bit overwhelming. The passage
follows directly after the text we explored together last week.
Present your bodies as a living
sacrifice holy and acceptable to God for this is your spiritual worship. Do not
be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so
that you may discern the will of God, what is good and acceptable, and perfect.
It goes on to encourage the
reader to be clear about who you are and your abilities and limits. And that
there are many members of the body of Christ, each of us with different gifts.
This next section, our passage for today, gives instruction
about how to be in relationship with other people.
There is some really hard stuff
in here about living peaceably and feeding enemies and extending hospitality to
strangers.
And
honestly it is impossible to do all of this stuff all of the time.
Thank goodness, the rest of this
Romans book is about the saving work of God, because we certainly can’t save
ourselves if this is the measure.
We can’t expect that we can do all of it all the
time.
It takes a deep patience and a
heart full of love to be able to be fervent in serving the Lord, rejoice in
hope, and to be patient in tribulation. Forget being in constant prayer.
How in the world can we possibly do
that?
Then this whole section on
forgiveness. I mean really, bless those who persecute you and don’t curse them.
Rejoice with those who are
rejoicing, weep with those weeping.
Associating with those who are
not of the same class as you.
Live in peace with everyone.
And let God handle the vengeance.
And my absolute favorite really hard thing to
do is to feed your enemies because it will be like lumping coals on their head.
This kind of living requires a level of self-awareness that
most of us don’t have.
It requires the capacity to keep
our emotions in check, to be able to recognizes things that trigger emotions in
us.
It requires choosing an outlook
that may not be natural for us. To be hopeful instead of pessimistic.
But the truth is unless we
recognize and accept our pessimism or our anger or our fear or our patterns of
thought, then we can never change them. Unless we know our limits, we can’t
stretch beyond them.
Judgment is useless when working toward each of these things.
If we start judging ourselves, we get rigid, and rigidness is almost the
complete opposite approach that will allow us to take on these practices that
Paul outlines.
This practice, too, requires surrendering to the moment. There
is no way that we can do anything that Paul suggests if we’re holding on to
grievances of the past or filled with expectations about the future.
And it requires pure self-acceptance. In the earlier section,
Paul reminds the listener to have sober judgment about themselves and to serve
in ways that are appropriate to their spiritual gifts.
As I was preparing, there were a few spiritual practices that
came to mind that can be helpful in this work.
The first is put for in Ignatian spirituality, and that is the
Daily Examen.
“The Daily Examen is a technique
of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s
presence and discern his direction for us.
The Examen is an ancient practice
in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.”[1]
One practice that is offered on
Loyola Press’s Ignatian Spirituality website suggests 5 steps.
1. Become
aware of God’s presence.
2. Review
the day with gratitude.
3. Pay
attention to your emotions.
4. Choose
one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look
toward tomorrow.[2]
The process of reflecting on the day with gratitude frames the
day in a positive way.
And focusing on the places where
God was present orients our minds toward positive experiences.
It allows us to eventually
recognize God’s presence in our day during the moment and not just in
hindsight.
And recognizing God’s presence
can help us to cultivate the qualities lifted up in the Romans text,
to trust in God to have vengeance
or to be filled with hope and joy enough that we aren’t bothered by our enemies
or our cranky friends.
Another practice that I am familiar with is mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the basic human
ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and
not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.[3]
Mindfulness can be practiced
through any activity, although intentional practice for growing periods of time
helps us to cultivate mindfulness throughout our days.
It helps to slow down our minds
and our thoughts so that we can be more aware of our state and adapt to be more
focused on the qualities lifted up in the Romans passage.
A third practice is one that we did last week. We prayed the
scripture in the style of Lectio Divina.
This practice allows for us to
take in the words of scripture in different ways.
It allows the words to dance
around our heads and to stand out to us in new ways.
It’s helps the scripture to be
imprinted onto our hearts and souls so that they are the influences that drive
our thinking and out actions.
Offering our bodies as a living sacrifice is not a one-time thing. It is a process of offering oneself again and again. And these practices help us to do that.
I want to close this sermon today with the Lectio Divina practice again as we did last week. I wasn’t
organized enough to get others to read this morning, so I will do the reading
this morning.
From Romans 12:9-21
Let love be genuine;
Genuine
Genuine
hate what is evil,
hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
mutual affection
mutual affection
outdo one another in showing honor.
Do not lag in zeal,
be ardent in spirit,
serve the Lord.
Serve the Lord
Serve the Lord
Rejoice in hope,
Rejoice in hope
Rejoice
be patient in suffering,
be patient
patient
persevere in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the saints;
extend hospitality to strangers.
Hospitality to strangers
Extend hospitality
Bless those who persecute you;
bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice,
weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another;
Live in harmony with one another
Live in harmony
do not be haughty,
but associate with the lowly;
do not claim to be wiser than you are.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil,
but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.
In the sight of all.
In the sight of all.
If it is possible, so far as it depends on you,
live peaceably with all.
Live peaceably with all
Live peaceably with all
Beloved, never avenge yourselves,
but leave room for the wrath of God;
leave room for the wrath of God
leave room
for it is written,
"Vengeance is mine,
I will repay, says the Lord."
No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them;
Feed them
if they are thirsty, give them something to drink;
something to drink
for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their
heads."
Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.
Overcome evil with good.
Overcome.
Let love be genuine;
hate what is evil,
hold fast to what is good;
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