First Church in Cambridge, Congregational UCC
29 May 2005
First Impressions
After my first year at divinity school, I was able to do some traveling in Israel. I was in my early twenties at the time and still just beginning to discern my commitments both to Christianity and to the ministry. I knew from my days as a religion major in college that I loved the study of religion, but the practice was still a different thing. In any case, I went to Israel more a tourist than a pilgrim, more from a place of academic curiosity than as one who wanted to walk where Jesus walked. With that intro, I'd like to share with you two of my first impressions of the Holy Land. On my first night in Jerusalem, I ventured out to a bar hoping to strike up some conversation with some locals. About ten minutes after I pulled up my stool, four young Israeli women wearing jeans and tank tops walked into the bar. I noticed they all had thin straps across their chests. Purses, I figured....until they turned around. To my shock, they each had Uzi's strapped to their backs! They were, of couse, Israeli soldiers, off duty and out for a night on the town. I soon learned that soldiers serve jail time if they ever lose their gun. As one of the young women told me, in an exaggerated American accent, "they don't leave home without 'em." As I was leaving the bar that night, I looked up and saw the strangest sight. That same young woman was dancing atop a table pumping her gun in the air to the beat of the music. Fortunately, the guns weren't loaded. I wish I could say the same for some of the soldiers who were there.
My other first impression involves something similarly strapped to a person's body. This time though it was two small black boxes, one strapped to the head and the other to the arm of a man who was standing outside my hostel that next morning. He was observing the Jewish mitzvah, or commandment, of wearing Tefillin. Depending on the sect of Judaism, Jewish men and sometimes women are encouraged or even required to bind these little black boxes to their bodies for their weekday morning prayers. Inside each black box are tiny pieces of parchment upon which is written the text from Deuteronomy we just heard along with its virtually identical partner from a few chapters before, known as the Sh'ma: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might . . . Impress these my words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead and teach them to your children—reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates..."
Apparently one Jewish group, the Lubavitcher Hasidim, takes the tefillin ritual so seriously that they set up vans, known as Mitzvah Mobiles, in neighborhoods frequented by Jews. They ask men who pass by: "Are you Jewish?" If the answer is yes, they continue: "Did you put on Tefillin today?" If the person says, "No," they invite him inside the van and wrap the leather bands and boxes around his head and arms. The boxes and words are positioned on the bicep so as to be close to the person's heart, and that's just one of the many instructions that accompany this ancient practice. One more tefillin tidbit: The American Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donim describes Teffilin "as part of the religious uniform worn by adult(s)" and that "to engage in morning weekday prayers without them ... is to approach the Lord, as a soldier in the army of God, improperly attired. No private would appear before a commanding officer... wearing only half a uniform."1 I bet the Israeli soldiers in the bar that night could relate! And, I bet the Lubavitcher Hasidim could related to the "we don't leave home without 'em" sentiment.
Forgive me for going on so much about the Tefillin, but for some reason this practice impresses me deeply. Along with its counterpart mitzvah, the placing on doorposts of what are called mezuzahs which also contain tiny scrolls of these texts, I find myself enamored of these and other Jewish rituals. When I saw that man on the street in Jerusalem, I even felt a little envious of his Jewish tradition so steeped as it is in Sabbath observance and ritual practices many of which are conducted in the home and with family. I wondered why we as Protestant Christians don't have such rich practices. Well...the fact that I'm increasingly coming to appreciate is that we do!
This past lent, Mary and I invited you all to read both your Bibles and also a book by Marcus Borg called "The Heart of Christianity". In this book, Borg asks a, if not the, fundamental religious question: "What does it mean to love God?" He writes: "We all know that both the Hebrew Bible and Jesus commend and command us 'to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your life force and with all your mind and with all your strength[sound familiar?]. "But what does it mean to do this?" Borg's answer: "In a word, it means "practice". Practice is about the living of the Christian way. Practice is about paying attention to God. Practice is less about whether and how we believe in God but whether and how we "belove" God. Practice is about the formation of Christian identity and character. Its about nourishment, compassion and justice.2
Now granted, we Christians may not steadfastly observe the 613 clearly enumerated Mitzvot as many Jews do. We don't have the "eightfold path" of Buddhism, nor do we have the "five pillars" of Islam. But I think Borg is onto some similar gifts from our own tradition that most Protestant churches have failed to appreciate, at least until recently. Since the days of Martin Luther, Protestants have generally tended to emphasize faith and belief over works and practices. Now though, we Protestants are beginning to explore what Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians have known for a long time, namely, that distinctly Christian spiritual practices can play an instrumental role in deepening our daily relationship with God and Christ. Mainline parishioners and congregations like ours are beginning to learn how to center our lives in both individual and collective Christian practices. Some would even call this newfound emphasis on practices the most significant sign of vitality and life in the those mainline communities that are thriving despite fewer members than a decade or two ago.
According to the researcher Diana Butler Bass, we are reinventing ourselves as something like an "open monastic community—a place of spiritual practices, hospitality, worship and justice" a place where a distinction is drawn between the so often self-centered and market-driven practices of "the world" and the God centered, spiritually driven practices of Christian community. This description of church life marks a departure from mainline "Protestant establishment" churches of the 50's, 60's and 70's many of which came to look like more social clubs with their own bureaucracies of committees to boot. Bass further defines practices as such: "Christian practices are the constituent parts of a larger Christian way of life, as revealed, modeled and taught by Jesus Christ. Christian practices necessarily involve reflection, imagination, tension... Practices imply...repetition, craft, habit, and art." They are "engaged for their own sake—because they are good and worthy and beautiful—not because they are instruments to some other end (like increasing membership or marketing the congregation). Practices posses standards of maturity and excellence to which practitioners can aspire."3
Now...if you're still not sure what I'm talking about, please look over to my right for Exhibit A. Whether they know it or not, and I know most of them do, our choir participates week after week in the Christian practice of singing their hearts out to God. The practice of prayerful singing extends back to long before the Psalms were composed, originally as songs to be sung in worship. If there are any of you choir members who come out on Thursday thinking you're just coming because you like Peter's conducting or because you just love to use your voice, think again! Imagine, if you don't already, that each and every time you pipe up, there is as an opportunity for prayer and intimacy with God, even when you're going over lines in the shower. You don't have to explain how it happens, or write any papers about it. When you are singing about and to God, you are participating in a deeply traditional and beautiful spiritual practice, one that has the potential to shape your character as Christians and to nourish your souls. Now, I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, literally. Its clear to me and to the rest of us that singing is a wonderfully soulful activity for all of you. It comes through, really, but I invite you, and I invite us all to be more reflective and self aware about the ways that our singing is a spiritual practice, and one among many.
To offer another example, our congregation has recently chosen and will continue to focus on the Christian practice of hospitality. The next time you are asked to make cookies for a church function, consider it an opportunity to practice the age-old spiritual art of welcoming the stranger or as our vision statements puts it, of "welcoming strangers as guests and guests as friends and friends as family". Still another example, many of you have been meeting bi-weekly here at First Church in "spiritual formation groups" to learn more about how to practice different forms of Christian prayer and meditation, practices that have been handed down through the centuries from the likes of St. Benedict and St. Ignatius, and Hildegard of Bingen. Meanwhile, our own Stephanie Paulsell wrote the book on the Christian practice of "Honoring the Body". And I know many of you have been inspired to take more seriously the practice of observing the Sabbath while others of you have begun to appreciate and to devote substantial time to the prayerful art of walking Labyrinths. To some of you, all of this talk of practices may sound obvious. To others of you, it may still sound like something for which there is no time. To others of you however, especially those of you who may be new to the church or who haven't been in a long time, these practices may be precisely what you are looking for when you come to church. Perhaps you find yourself hungering for some particular and even regimented guidance in how to move from being a wandering tourist who is searching for deeper fulfillment and balance to being an eager pilgrim who is willing to walk the well-trodden though still fresh path of Jesus. The only way to stay on this path, along with the Jesus' early disciples, and Julian of Norwich and St. Benedict and Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero, is to commit to some particular forms of practice.
Why practice? If you're a musician, you practice to get better at your instrument. If you're an athlete, you practice to fine tune your body for whatever sport. As Christians, we practice to become better disciples of Christ, to fine tune our bodies, minds and soul in the kind of spiritual exercise that will add muscle and virtuosity to our faith, and that will bring us into close and more intimate relationship with God, the very source of our being. If you're still not sure what Christian practices can or would help you in this way, besides coming to worship on Sunday morning, our scripture for today may be the perfect invitation for you to begin to explore the rich and varied and historical traditions of Christian spiritual practices.
Today's passage from Deuteronomy does more than point to the Jewish practice of wearing Tefillin. More importantly, it instructs us in how we might consider all of our spiritual practices. Did you catch the translation I used before when I mentioned the Sh'ma? Its from the Jewish Publication Society's translation of the Hebrew Bible. "Therefore, impress these My words on your heart: bind them as a sign on your hand!" First, the binding. Taken figuratively, this can be a measure of our practice. What are we doing in our daily lives that can bind us more deeply to God's love and to one another? The very word "religion", comes from the Latin word religare which means "to bind." Our practices should have a binding effect on our lives. They should be that form of discipline that Augustine calls "the medicine of the soul", the kind of discipline that leads us to healing and that leads us to freedom from the constraints of our egos. Again, the tefillin is a great illustration. The leather straps are wrapped seven times around a person's forearm as binding reminder of a person's relationship with God and of the joy and freedom available therein.
And secondly, this idea of impressing God's word upon our heart. All practices should have just this effect, of impressing, or pushing God's word down into our hearts. We might imagine our hearts being like wax to God's stamp. When we are intentional about our spiritual practice, when we sing to God or practice the art of discerning God's presence in and direction for our lives, when we are regularly attentive to God on the Sabbath, that stamp presses down harder and harder and we increasingly bear the marks of our true identity as children of God. Forget about the company logos we wear on our sleeve or shirts of our favorite baseball team (even when they utterly trounce the Yankees 17-1)! These are lesser Gods to which we pledge allegiance when we wear those signs. To find ways of impressing God's word upon our heart is to know in the most fundamental of ways who we are and whose we are. When we perform an act of loving kindness or justice and do so not for any credit but because we want to be a Christian, more loving, more holy, more like Jesus in our hearts, we are making those lasting impressions that will shape our identity and transform our lives. The more repetitive and meaningful and elaborate the practice, the deeper the grooves will become. Only by practicing our faith can we make this first and most fundamental impression on our being. In fact, it's only through this kind of practice, wherein our hearts are truly and deeply impressed by God's grace, that we will come to know how perfect and precious we are in God's sight, just as we are.
I close now by sharing with you a story of a Rabbi who once said to his students, "Write the Word of God across your heart." The students firmly replied: "Rabbi, surely you mean, 'Write the Word within your hearts." The Rabbi replied, "No, write the Word across your heart, so that when you heart breaks, the Word of God may fall in."
Now that's what I call a first impression of the highest order! Friends, practice, practice, practice. Practice binding yourselves to God's word. Practicing writing it across your hearts and letting yourselves be impressed by it. There is no better way of loving God with all your heart, mind and strength and no better way to experience God's abiding and perfect love for you. Amen.
1 Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donim, To Be A Jew: Guide To Observance in Contemporary Life (New York: Harper Collins, 1989), p. 147.
2 Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2003), p. 187ff.
3 Diana Butler Bass, The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church (Heardon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2005)p. 136ff.
© 2005, Daniel Smith