{"id":2963,"date":"2023-08-27T22:12:34","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T05:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=2963"},"modified":"2023-09-06T15:55:09","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T22:55:09","slug":"the-heat-is-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=2963","title":{"rendered":"The Heat is On"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When it\u2019s hot outside I feel like doing nothing. But igniting an internal flame gets us going; at least that\u2019s the metaphor. Rest is an important part of renewing energy, but when it\u2019s time for action, how do we turn on the power? What lights your fire?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I was feeling lazy last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Not too, surprising.  It\u2019s summer.  The weather is warm.  It\u2019s the season for feeling lazy after all.  And I had just turned 61.  I\u2019m in pretty good health, but I admit I don\u2019t have the energy I did twenty years ago, or thirty, or forty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I had a late night on Tuesday because I had a meeting here at church with the local UU ministers.  There were ten of us.  It was great to check-in with each other and hear how our various ministries are going.  But we didn\u2019t get finished until after nine.  And then with cleaning up and closing up and waiting for the train, I didn\u2019t get home until well after ten o\u2019clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            And Thursday evening I stayed into the evening again as I led a session of the preaching class I\u2019ve been teaching.  The class is fun.  And I\u2019m very excited about the sermon ideas the participants have come up with.  Hopefully, you\u2019ll get to hear them later this year.  But the class finished at 7:30 and with cleaning up and the walk and the bus and the train, I didn\u2019t reach home until after 9 o\u2019clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            So when I got to Friday, the day that I usually set aside to write my sermons, I was pretty wiped out.  I did a little work, Friday, I answered emails and wrote my column for the weekly newsletter.  But I didn\u2019t do too much, and instead of writing my sermon I took a long nap.  And then, in the evening, Jim and I went out to dinner with a couple of friends, a meal together that we had rescheduled from our previous date because of the big storm last weekend.  So I didn\u2019t write my sermon Friday evening, either, and I came home from the meal a little over fed, which meant I didn\u2019t sleep super well Friday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Of course a day off and an evening with friends is all good.  And everybody needs to attend to self-care.  But what I did by giving myself a day off on Friday, was that I obligated myself to write my sermon on Saturday.  And that\u2019s fine, too, except that Jim and I had planned a dinner party for Saturday evening, because a friend is in from out of town.  Jim handles the cooking in our household, but that meant on Saturday I had to clean the apartment and set the table, and do some other projects to get ready for the party, as well as write this sermon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Saturday morning, as I lay in bed thinking about getting up, it seemed like a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            We\u2019re at that point in the church year where we are almost finished with the previous church year.  This is week 51 of 52.  After our summer rest and the work we\u2019ve been doing the last few weeks of getting ready for the new church year, now we\u2019re ready to go.  The bags are packed, the car is loaded up, the kids are in the back seat.  We\u2019ve backed out of the driveway.  Now there\u2019s nothing left to do but put the car in gear, put our foot on the accelerator, and drive off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            We\u2019re looking forward to a big year, the way I was looking forward on Saturday morning to a big day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            It\u2019s the summer.  We\u2019re feeling lazy.  The weather\u2019s warm.  After a big year last year, we\u2019ve been in vacation mode for a couple of months.  How do we now put ourselves in gear and step on the gas?  How do we get ourselves going again, in order to do the work we\u2019ve planned for the coming church year?  The work we want to do, of growing an RE program, growing our membership, planning the parties and dinners we look forward to, offering the adult religious education classes and small group ministries and caring for each other and planning worship?  As well as raising the money, and managing the finances and keeping the building in good repair, and so on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            How do we start again to do the work, in David C. Pohl\u2019s lovely phrase from our Call to Worship, \u201cTo reclaim the vision of an earth made fair, with all her people one.\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            It\u2019s exhausting just to think of it.  It\u2019s both a physical kind of work and spiritual work we\u2019re looking to do.  So it\u2019s a spiritual question:  \u201cWhere will we find the energy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            As I lay in bed Saturday morning, not feeling completely rested after a Friday night when I didn\u2019t sleep particularly well, and looking ahead to a busy day with both my work responsibility of preparing for Sunday worship, and a social responsibility of preparing the house for friends to come over for dinner, I wondered to myself.  How am I going to do this work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            And then, I realized the question that needed to be answered wasn\u2019t, \u201cHow am I going to do this?\u201d because I knew I would.  But \u201cWhy am I going to do this?\u201d because answering that question would give me the motivation I needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            And I realized I had two answers to that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            One, I was going to do it for myself.  I pictured myself having fun at the dinner party that evening, knowing I had contributed to making the event a success.  I pictured myself at worship Sunday morning, proud of what I had to offer.  I like having friends over for dinner parties.  I like preaching and leading worship.  I knew I would enjoy the party, if the apartment was clean.  I knew I would enjoy preaching, if my sermon was finished.  I did it for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            And two, I was going to get out of bed and get to work because other people expected me to.  When I agreed to be your minister and when Jim and I arranged a dinner party for our friends Saturday evening, I made myself responsible to others.  I will do my work because people I care about are depending on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            And both of those answers, I do it for myself, and I do it for others, can be summarized in a single word.  I do the important work in my life, and I get the motivation I need to do that work, because I\u2019m in relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Leading worship and hosting dinner parties allow me to live in community with people I love, and people I want to serve and support, and people who love me.\u00a0\u00a0My friends and this congregation are people who I want to know better, and be intimate with, and who I can be open with, and who help me learn and grow into the fullest sense of myself.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m in relationship with people who will help me when I\u2019m down, and make me laugh.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m in relationship with people who keep me connected to ideas and experiences and moments of beauty and joy beyond what I can make for myself or have on my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I do it for them, because I want to give back to those who give so much to me.  I care about them, so I joyfully obligate myself to them.  It\u2019s a joy to sign up for responsibilities that allow me to take a valued place in a beloved community and when the time comes to get to work I find the energy to follow through on my responsibilities, because I\u2019m in relationship with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            But I also do it for myself.  And this entails a different kind of relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The me who was feeling lazy on Friday, took a day off because that\u2019s what the Friday me needed to do.  I did it for me.  But the lazy Friday me, obligated the Saturday me to do work, because I\u2019m in relationship with the me of the future.  It\u2019s a kind of community of me, extending across time.  My choices now, affect the life of the me I will become, just as my choices now affect the relationships I have with other people today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            So, having been obligated by the Friday me, the me on Saturday morning got myself out of bed and started to work, because I wanted the me of Saturday evening to have the fun of a dinner party.  And the Saturday morning me loved the future Sunday morning me, enough to not condemn that guy (this guy) to showing up to church without having a sermon finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            So I got out of bed and got to work.  I saw myself, Saturday morning, in a kind of relationship with the me that I was going to become later that day and the next day, and that relationship, plus my relationship with my friends and with you all, gave me the energy required to put myself in gear and step on the gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            That is the answer to how we find the energy we need, here in the lazy days of late August, to power the work we need to do for the coming year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            When we join a church community, we put ourselves in relationship with other folks.  Folks we care about.  Folks whose lives are important to us, and a church whose goals are important to us.  That relationship makes us responsible, to the people and the institution.  We joyfully take on the responsibility for being in community, because the community gives us so much back to us.  The responsibility itself, though it sometimes feels like a burden, is also part of the gift we receive, the gift of feeling needed, of feeling necessary, of feeling worthy and valued.  That\u2019s worth the obligation to show up and do the work, even when we would sometimes rather sleep in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            And, we are in relationship not just with the people here today, but also with the future of this community.  We do the work now, because we want to enjoy the future church we will create.  We want to ease the burden of the people in the future church by doing our share of the work now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            We are in relationship with a future version of ourselves, too.  And we want that future person to enjoy the gift of a community that is healthy and thriving, and we want the future person we will be to have enjoyed all the programs of fun and learning and spiritual growth that this church will have offered throughout this year, because we did our work to make those programs happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The lazy me who put off my work on Friday, obligated the Saturday me to have a busier day then I really wanted.  In that relationship I was a little selfish on Friday.  Saturday me felt a little annoyed with Friday me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Better on Friday to have been a little kinder to my future self.  Better for Friday me to have taken up more of my share of the work rather than giving it all to Saturday me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Let us be gentle, and generous, and kind now, so that our future church will look back on us with gratitude and praise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it\u2019s hot outside I feel like doing nothing. But igniting an internal flame gets us going; at least that\u2019s… Read more The Heat is On<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","category-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2963"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2981,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2963\/revisions\/2981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}