Habits, Grace United Church, Sept 12, 2021

welcome to the worship service of grace united church in wellsville new york i've got a story to tell you have you heard this one there were four elderly yet very agile nuns and they found themselves in a precarious situation one evening they were on the second floor of their convent when there were these puffs of smoke that entered their living area they felt the doors and they noticed that they were hot and there was no easy means of escape so they had to think quickly the nuns slipped out of their habits and they tied them together and they all escaped down a side window and outside of the building the onlookers were amazed at their bravery one reporter approached them and asked them as you descended the side of this building were you worried about the cloth rope that it would break they laughed at him so hard they said haven't you heard old habits are hard to break old habits are hard to break today we're talking about habits but not these kinds of habits the kinds that we practice day in and day out this is what we're talking about today our routines sometimes some of our habits are good like flossing our teeth and returning the cart to the corral in the grocery parking lot but other habits are not quite so good they can irritate hurt or even drive our loved ones a little bit crazy in preparing to discuss this serious topic i came across a number of jokes about habits let me share a couple with you two elderly women were discussing the bad habits of their husbands even after all these years my husband will not stop biting his nails the first woman explained my husband had the same habit the second woman said but i fixed that she said i just hid his teeth on the other side of town two men were talking about their wives one said for the past 10 years my wife has reminded me constantly to put the cap back on the toothpaste on our anniversary i decided to change this bad habit and make my wife happy for a week i was diligent always keeping that cap right on the toothpaste i was expecting my wife to thank me but she never did finally last night she turned and looked at me and said why did you stop brushing your teeth talking of habits the other man said i can't break my wife of the habit of staying up until five in the morning what is she doing asked his friend well she's waiting for me to get home we all have bad habits as individuals and as the church well except for of course this church and we don't have very many well one of the bad habits of the of the early church the first century church was the practice of showing partiality to the rich many in the ancient church made a right turn down rich avenue if a person with gold rings and fine clothes would come into the congregation followed by a poor person in dirty clothes they would be treated quite differently church members tended to honor the one wearing the fine clothes and say have a seat here please well they would look down on the poor one saying stand there or sit at my feet you see they were making distinctions this is what james talks about in this letter they were acting as judges with evil thoughts he says doesn't this discrimination show that that your judgments are guided by evil motives these are bad habits this early church had troubles eugene peterson offers an interesting introduction to the book of james in the message bible he says when christian believers gather in churches everything that can go wrong sooner or later surely does he makes a wonderful analogy he says outsiders on observing the problems in the church conclude that there's nothing in the religion business except perhaps business and possibly a dishonest business at that now insiders see it a little bit differently just as a hospital collects the sick under one room and labels them as such the church collects sinners many of the people outside the hospital are every bit as sick as the ones that are inside but their illnesses are either undiagnosed or disguised it's similar with sinners outside the church so christian churches are not as a rule model communities of good behavior they are rather places where human misbehavior is brought out into the open it's faced and it's dealt with the letter of james shows one of the the church's early pastors skillfully going about his work of confronting diagnosing and dealing with areas of mischief misbelief and misbehavior that had turned up in congregations that were committed to his care deep and living wisdom is on display here you see wisdom is not primarily knowing the truth although it includes that it is skill in living skill in living how do we live out our faith over the past two thousand years have we learned the the lesson of this early church families with well-behaved children showing up at worship for the very first time are almost always going to be received more warmly than a homeless person off the street or someone with bad habits or behavioral issues or a problem that tends to be disruptive we make distinctions and sometimes even act as judges with evil thoughts listen my beloved brothers and sisters says james has not god chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him but you have dishonored the poor one of our bad habits is judging people based on their outer appearance and not taking the time to find out what is in their hearts for instance an attractive young family could be coming to church maybe only to get their child baptized so that maybe a nagging grandparent will stop bugging them about it at the same time a homeless person could be rich in faith and anxious to find a community of love and acceptance where they can share their gifts we'll never know until we get beneath the surface so how do we move away from showing partiality making distinctions and judging people by their outward appearances according to james the answer is not better theology morality or biblical interpretation it's better habits the new york times reporter charles duhigg has written a book called the power of habit in it he tells the story of companies that found success simply by replacing established routines with smarter habits back in the early 1990s starbucks employees were regularly cracking under the pressure of making so many different kinds of custom-made coffees then starbucks created the latte method for their baristas latte stands for listen acknowledge take action thank the customer and explain why the problem occurred with this new habit customer and employee satisfaction radically improved the alcoa aluminum company was in a slump in the same way in the in the late 1980s the board hired paul o'neill as the ceo investors hoped that he would increase revenue but he focused instead on decreasing employee accidents from these unsafe work workplace habits and so he instituted new processes that required caution and over the next decade the company's income skyrocketed over at febreze the focus shifted to the habits of consumers and not to the employees when for bees was launched as an odor cleaning product in 1993 it flopped why well because people with stinky houses didn't know that they needed it but when the company discovered that people are proud to finish up their chores they suggested a new habit to reward yourself after you finish your chores with a blast of febreze and the product now makes 1 billion dollars annually in all of these cases success came from getting into the habit of doing things differently professor author and spiritual leader will win williman tells a story of from early in his career when he was serving as a college chaplain late one evening his phone rang he recalls it was about 10 45 at night and a student called to talk to him the student introduced himself to williman but he didn't really recognize him i just want to talk to you the student said and so the student talked and willman listened and he listened and he listened some more as the student told him about the many challenges that he was facing he told him about the stress of his classes and he went on to share about his struggle with dating relationships and then he talked about troubles with friends who were on the dorm hall and finally after talking for over a half an hour the student said thank you so much i feel so much better now william couldn't help himself he just had to ask he said why of all people did you call me at 10 45 at night to talk to me well the student said you're the only one on campus that loves me and he hung up wow williman said it hit him like a ton of bricks he said sometimes we think that we're doing something so important we're working on projects writing sermons teaching doing whatever we think is so noble but god is working in the little things the little habits that we have of sharing a kind word of encouragement or support to students and that little habit made a big difference to one student it made him feel loved then he told of another man a man who called him one day and out of the blue he he calls and says hey do you remember me he's the director of an inner city mission now and he told his name and he asked if willman had any recollection of him and of course willman remembered him he remembered that he was an unruly kid in church if everyone was going left he would go right he was that kind of a kid willemn doubted that his church going had had any impact on this boy but you know what he told him he said i'm calling you to tell you what an influence you had on my life you are why i am doing ministry williman couldn't resist asking why and the man replied you were the only pastor who at the communion altar looked at me in the eye and said my name he said his name sometimes it's in the little things it's in the little habits like looking in a child's eye and saying their name of recognizing them or of offering a word of encouragement when it would be easier for us to focus on our own problems being in the habit of noticing others these are little habits james offers some good suggestions for those for those in search of better habits he begins by urging us to obey the law of love which he calls the royal law of scripture you shall love your neighbor as yourself this means treating others as we would want to be treated and showing the same mercy to others that we will want to receive from them james identifies this as the royal law because it is a rule that stands at the very center of the kingdom of god you see when we show partiality in the church we break this law of love by favoring one person over another we're treating one person as more valuable than the other a habit that makes no sense in a kingdom of equally precious children of god but when we love our neighbors as ourselves we're acting in a way that puts equal value on every person whether rich or poor strong or weak neighbor or self have you heard the story about the church lady well there was a church lady who was always dressed very properly and always carried her bible with her now she had a bad habit of judging people and letting them know what she thought of them one day she was riding on the crosstown bus and a drunk guy got on there was only one seat left which was right next to the church lady she said to the man you're a disgusting and smelly drunk you're going straight to hell the man said excuse me ma'am i think i'm on the wrong bus this is kind of like the story that jesus told the rich man and lazarus it captures really the internal the eternal importance of this law of love unlike some of the agricultural parables of jesus it moves rather easily from century to any other century even to ours and so you can imagine a rich person enjoying the finer things of life and not far away is lazarus covered with rags who would like nothing more than to satisfy his hunger with the extras that the wealthy person wouldn't even notice the crumbs the rich person is in the habit of looking down on lazarus and treating him like dirt shouting get a job as he rushes by and then lazarus dies and is carried away by the angels to be with abraham the rich man also dies and is buried from hades where he's being tormented he looks up and sees abraham and lazarus just chilling out up there but still in the habit of showing partiality and making distinctions the rich man calls out father abraham have mercy on me and send lazarus to bring me a spritzer for i'm in agony i'm in all these flames even in the afterlife the rich man is treating the poor man like a servant abraham shakes his head no and the rich man changes his request then father i beg you send him to warn my brothers so that they will not also come to into this place of torment again abraham says no reminding him they have moses and the prophets they should listen to them since long before the time of jesus people have have known the commandment of god you shall love your neighbor as yourself the words of james hit the rich man right between the eyes for judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy as individuals and as a congregation we must get into the habit of loving our neighbors as ourselves mercy will be shown to us only if we're willing to show mercy to others the other day while listening to one of my favorite podcasts by kate bowler i heard a comment by malcolm gladwell he was talking about how with the development of increased self-awareness often fostered by the myriad of self-help books that we read we have begun to understand ourselves as very nuanced individuals for when for any one of our faults or mistakes we can come up with a list of reasons for our actions we are so complex you see but when someone else bothers us or hurts us we can we only just think oh she's just mean or he's an angry person we often don't think of the complexity of their lives or give them the benefit of the doubt that we offer to ourselves for judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy james writes in his letter to the church james challenges us to keep our faith and our works together what good is it ask james if you say you have faith but you do not have works the rich man in the story may have had faith at the very least he knew about father abraham but he showed no evidence of good works since he had failed to help the poor man who was who was lying there at his gate can faith save you asked james if her brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you just only says to them go in peace keep warm and eat your fill and yet you do not supply their bodily needs what is the good of that james is warning us about the danger of hypocrisy in which a person's credibility is undermined by saying one thing and then doing another james knows that it's impossible to respect a christian who tells poor people to keep warm and to either fill well while failing to take care of them often when politicians to close disclose their tax returns they reveal just how much or how little they have given to charity often it is the ones who who say the most about the importance of giving to charities that give the very least that's hypocrisy that's faith without works james urges us to get in the habit of keeping faith and works together seeing words and deeds as two sides of the same christian coin is the key to living life a life of an integrity and of avoiding the charge of hypocrisy speaking of hypocrisy did you hear the one about the ecumenical pastors conference toward the toward the end of one of the last evenings a group of ministers from various denominations met to unwind the priest said you know it's been such a great time together i really feel that i can let my hair down with you all i wonder as we've been talking about spirituality i've been thinking about the importance of confession you know it's good for the soul i wonder if any of you have bad habits that you would want to confess to each other and just kind of get them off our chest well one one pastor responded i confess that i have i have a bad habit of drinking too much i don't intend to but it has really become a problem for me and then he went on to tell of all the problems it created and then the next minister says you know that's no worse than me i've gotten into the habit of dipping into the offering plate it happened one time and now i can't help myself and then that pastor went on to tell of all the items they had purchased with all this embezzled money cars computers and even a lavish vacation on and on these newfound friends went around the table each one sharing a bad habit covering a multitude of sins that would shock their congregations at best and probably likely call for their removal finally someone asked the priest if he had any habits that he would care to confess i only have one bad habit he shook his head i'm a terrible gossip old habits are hard to break it's important to have good habits it starts with our thoughts just like with these ministers our thoughts move us to actions and they lead us to a destiny someone wisely said sow a thought reap an act sow an act reap a habit sow a habit reap a character sow a character reap a destiny experts tell us that we have ninety to a hundred thousand thoughts every day that's a lot isn't it our thoughts are important because what we think is what we'll do they shape our they shape our habits i have found that where i look is where i walk in other words if i'm looking in a certain direction then that is the direction that i'll be walking we don't generally look one way and walk in a different way where you look is where you walk and what you think is what you'll do let's use our minds for good to develop great habits being loving including others replacing the bad habit of favoritism with a good habit of respect for all people let's be people known for the habit of integrity our neighbors are watching us our credibility is always going to be based on whether we practice what we preach what habit do you want to practice what habits demonstrate your allegiance to christ it's never too late to start a good habit today i encourage you to take a minute to jot down a new habit a way to show your love of god through your actions imagine over time it will become an old habit and one that is very hard to break may god bless you as you attempt to develop the kind of habits that enrich your life and others amen [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] [Music] us [Music] receiver [Music]

Channel: Grace United

Views: 95

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Dr. Karen Borchert, Grace United Church Wellsville New York, James, James 2

Id: NgTBky_1NTg

Length: 24min 45sec (1485 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021