Text: Matthew 5:21-37. Theme: Worship Weekly
Our lives follow along certain rhythms and patterns, and these rhythms keep us in harmony with one another and with creation. There are the four seasons, which although subtle in Southern California, are still present and necessary. We move along monthly rhythms in our calendar, just as there are monthly patterns to our planets and the moon. We also follow along a weekly rhythm, seven days with a God-ordained day of rest each week. Our days too follow daily patterns of waking, eating, and sleeping, along with the earth’s turning to face the sun and away again, light and dark, day and night. Our liturgical calendar follows annual patterns and rhythms that are in harmony with the seasons and days. And gathering at least once weekly for communal worship is an ancient tradition that has carried humanity through the millennia.
I grew up in a home where on Sundays we went to worship. It’s just what we did, it was a family pattern. As a child it became a habit and I looked forward to it. When I was a teenager, I wanted nothing more than to sleep in on Sundays and my parents eventually let me make that choice. I stopped going to church for several years, as so many teens and young adults do. But still, I felt as if I was missing something…my week was just “off.” Eventually that pattern and habit of weekly worship caught up with me again in young adulthood and I found it sustained me.
When we take a broad look at our lives, we see many patterns of living, and the habits we take on ultimately define us. Socrates said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” What is it that you repeatedly do?
One of the most common habits that we all engage in occurs in the way we think. Those things we fill our minds with…images, thoughts, self-talk… and with repetition those are the very things we become. The Christian psychologist David Stoop wrote an entire book about this entitled, “You Are What You Think.” What do you think about? What do you say to yourself about yourself? About others? About God? You are what you think. You are what you repeatedly do.
If, for example, you tell yourself every day that you are worthless, you will begin to believe that and then you will, in fact, become worthless…your actions will bear this out and actually become reality. On the other hand, if you tell yourself every day that you are valuable, you will eventually believe it and then you, in fact, will do, be and act in ways that are of great value. Someone once said, “Thought is action in rehearsal.”
I think Jesus is telling us the same thing in today’s Gospel…that our thoughts are actions in rehearsal, and that’s why they’re so important. If we get familiar, habituated, and comfortable with having angry and hateful thoughts towards someone day in and day out, it can eventually become absolutely murderous and we, perhaps, don’t even know it or feel it, or we may even excuse ourselves by saying we did not “do” anything. No, we didn’t do anything, but our thoughts are actions in rehearsal and they do alter reality, particularly when they become habit.
Jesus says we do the same when it comes to sexual immorality, we can be guilty of it just by our thoughts. So, just as our thoughts about ourselves over time can become self-fulfilling prophecies, so can our thoughts about others. And the fact is, we cannot claim to be totally innocent when we sin in our thoughts, even if our actions seem otherwise blameless. This is why the Book of Common Prayer leads us in confession by saying, ““we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”
What’s interesting about what Jesus is saying, is that on some level, his words totally level the playing field. Because if we apply righteousness to that which goes beyond action and extend it to what we think, then none of us can boast about being righteous, because all of us are guilty for something we’ve thought. Forget distinctions between the righteous and sinners! We’re all in the same boat.
Jesus goes on to say that we ultimately have to “blind” our eyes to that which causes us to sin. Jesus uses hyperbole here to get our attention and to drive home the seriousness of it. And it rattles us. But it really is better to go without a limb than to allow it to beat and hurt another person day and day out. And, frankly, “hell” can be experienced in the here and now, as those caught up in domestic violence or other forms of abuse know.
What we must do with this difficult passage then, is to ask where these words of warning from Jesus lead us? Jesus and Scriptures themselves use a number of different tactics to lead us all to the same place…and they are all leading us to the throne of grace. Once we see our sin, we realize that only the gift of grace can make us whole. And what better place to enter into grace than in communal worship?
Worship does something invaluable in transforming our hearts and minds. In confession together we find forgiveness and renewal. In communal prayer we find Christ present to us as a body. In Communion and in the Sacraments we find abundant blessings and the indwelling of Christ and God’s Spirit in our hearts, minds, and bodies. Worship reminds us that we are loved, we that we are of inestimable worth, it reminds us who we are in God, a precious child of God, loved so much that Jesus died to demonstrate it.
In worship we also recognize God for who God is: worthy of praise, adoration, and our devotion. Our lives take on a new meaning and perspective when we worship and praise the holy and almighty God of the universe who is greater than anything this world can throw at us. In worship we experience the transcendent and are lifted up beyond our present circumstances and into the One much greater than ourselves. Ultimately, a habit of weekly worship helps us to form new habits of thought and to replace the old, erroneous ones. Worship and the Sacraments have a truly sanctifying effect, and I don’t know about you, but I need that at least once a week. Sanctification is a grace and gift from God in making us holy. If we desire to be people of God, living a life of faith and growing in holiness, then weekly worship will be one of the habits that defines our lives. We are what we repeatedly do; may we choose habits of holiness.
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