Sermon 5: change your habits, change your life
March 21,2020
First UMC Carroll
Michael Phelps is probably the greatest swimmer who ever lived. With 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold, he is certainly the most decorated.
He tells about a race at the Beijing Olympics where his goggles leaked.
As soon as he hit the water, he knew something was wrong, but it was the Olympics so he pushed ahead hoping things would not get too bad. By the second turn, everything was getting blurry. By the third turn, headed into the final lap, the goggles were completely filled with water and he was blind. He couldn’t see the black line on the bottom of the pool. He didn’t know how many strokes were left because he couldn’t see the T on the wall ahead. So his habits took over.
He had done this a zillion times. He knew in his basil ganglia how it felt to swim in the middle of the lane. He knew how long the pool was and it felt like 18 maybe 19 strokes to the finish. At 18 he started to prepare to hit the wall. At 19 he was ready it took one more stroke and he was there. The crowd was going wild, but he couldn’t see if it was for him or someone else. As he ripped off the goggles he saw “WR” next to his time. Swimming blind Phelps had broken another world’s record and won another medal.
How did he do it? Habit. Years and years of habit built up in his basal ganglia. In addition to the hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times he swam that race in the pool, he swam it in his head many more times. Part of his training was imagining every detail of the race going perfectly. When getting up the morning of a race he had a very specific plan for the day that ended in standing in the center step during the medals presentation. It was like a tape playing over and over in his head. It was so deeply ingrained that all his coach had to say was, “Michael, start the tape.” And he could play it back.
When his goggles failed, he relied on the tape in his head; the habits he had developed. He had the vision of a perfect race in his head with no option for failure. In the crisis Michael didn’t have to think, his habits took control and it worked.
Remember what the habit cycle looks like. The cue was his exacting behavior before the race up to the starting whistle. The behavior was swimming like the fastest man in the world. The reward was a gold medal.
A habit saved the day when things went wrong for Michael Phelps in Beijing.
Do you know that organizations have habits too? Organizations like… oh I don’t know churches.
Let me give you an example. The cue is a death in the congregation. Everyone goes into automatic. I go to the funeral home, the kitchen crew starts their preparations, Michelle makes the place sparkle, the musicians go to work, Sherri does her thing, and the funeral happens. Do I have to supervise all of that? No. Does Sherri or anyone else? No. When there is a crisis, (and a death in the congregation is a crisis.) The habits take over and the job gets done.
It was fascinating to watch your habits spring into action during the pandemic. When the rug was pulled from under our feet none of us knew what to do. Our goggles were flooded, and we were running blind. Then the habits stored in the innermost parts of our collective basal ganglia took over.
We kept worshipping every Sunday morning. There were some rough places, but habits served us well.
Then our habit of serving one another kicked in. You were picking up groceries, prescriptions, and helping each other wherever you could.
Then the habit of caring for others kicked in. Remember, for example, the parades that were held for various people, whether they were sick, had a birthday, or were graduating from Highschool. We always found a way to serve, even under strange circumstances.
Then the habit of generosity kicked in. As unemployment skyrocketed, our local mission giving did too. I’m grateful and proud of the generosity of the congregation.
I didn’t DO any of those things. You didn’t DO any of those things, it was as though the church as a body was run by a single set of shared habits. Charles Duhig calls those “Keystone habits” the “Keystone” is the stone at the center of the arch that keeps the sides from caving in on one another. These habits hold us up when everything is shaking around us. And those habits served us well, because we are coming through this pandemic just fine.
These are our communal keystone habits. Worship, serving, caring, giving. To some degree, since we are part of the community, those may reflect our keystone habits too. Think back. What was your priority when we couldn’t have in-person worship and everyone went into hiding?
For some it was worship, that is great.
For others prayer or scripture reading that’s great.
But I want to suggest today that the habits of loving, serving, and giving seemed to come to the forefront for many of us. Now I want to wrap up all of those in the word “serving.” Loving one another means we serve one another. Giving generously to others is a way of serving them. So, we will call it all service.
In todays’ scripture, Jesus lifts up the value of serving.
In John, this scene takes place in the middle of the gospel rather than the end. Chapter 13 out of 21. And it takes place shortly after Mary of Bethany washed Jesus’ feet with expensive oil and dried them with her hair.
Jesus would take a more traditional approach, washing the disciples’ feet with water. It was customary when someone came into the house for a slave to wash their feet. The speculative interpretation is that the disciples thought they were too good to wash each other’s feet. I don’t know if that was true or not, but I do know that Jesus didn’t think he was too good to wash their feet.
This was scandalous. But Jesus was not afraid of scandal. Being born in human likeness and taking on the form of a slave, he changed his clothes to go to work.
He bent down at their dirty, dusty calloused feet. He didn’t stand over them or make them put their feet up for him. I can see Jesus sitting Indian-style on the floor washing feet.
Peter gives voice to the scandal saying, “No, Not my feet.” Maybe he was embarrassed that they hadn’t done it yet, but the other possibility is that it is just hard to accept help. There is something I have observed It seems we can’t serve effectively until we know what it means to be served. If we are not humble enough to allow someone to serve us, we certainly will not be humble enough to serve others.
And Jesus said. “If I don’t wash your feet you have no part in me.” Serving and being served are two sides of the same coin. That’s what community does. There is a rhythm between serving and being served.
And then the scandal deepens as Jesus says, “And you are clean, though not all of you,” and the narrator explains, “For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean” (13:11).
Jesus raises the stakes when we realize he is washing the feet of Peter who would deny him, and Judas who would betray him, and knowing all the others would scatter like sheep in his moment of greatest need. It raises the question of how we decide whom to serve. Jesus didn’t discriminate against any disciples even knowing what would happen. I think there is a lesson there.
Then there is the debriefing. Jesus asks, “Do you know what I have done to you? Do as I have done.”
Couple that with “love your neighbor” and “if you have done it to the least of these, you have done it unto me.” And you have a picture of the habit of Christin service.
Our congregation has a wonderful history of serving. Through missions; through local services like food pantries and New Opportunities and Family Resource Center; and then add in the pastor’s discretionary fund we do a lot! I mean a lot. I pat you on the back for that. Well done good and faithful church.
But let me push you a little.
Our congregation as a whole does all of these things.
How invested are YOU in serving others? Although I am grateful for all the money you give, there is no substitute for serving face to face.
I wonder how invested you are in serving others beyond money… with your time, your energy, your mind, your love, your compassion, your wisdom.
Rick Warren writes, “We serve God by serving others. The world defines greatness in terms of power, possessions, prestige, and position. If you can demand service from others, you’ve arrived. In our self-serving culture with its me-first mentality, acting like a servant is not a popular concept”.
Let’s change that. To make serving as Jesus served a spiritual habit in our lives takes more than money.
Jesus didn’t hand each one a $10 bill and say, go find someone to wash your feet. He invested himself.
Do you find time to invest in serving people face to face, one on one just because Jesus said, “Do as I have done.”
Do you find ways to invest your mind, teaching others some of the skills or knowledge you have enriching their lives?
Do you have the heart of a mentor? Many people need a mentor, a guide, from children, to single moms, to newly unemployed or newly disabled persons, to seniors facing the challenges and changes of aging. Are you mentoring anyone?
Do you have the ears to listen in love? Just listen. Listen to their problems, their joys, their hopes, and dreams. Sometimes that is the greatest service we can provide is being a listening ear.
Do you give your hands and back and legs all your strength to generously serve and love others?
All of you… your face, your mind, your heart, your ears, and of course your hands are built for serving and loving.
Mother Teresa said it well, “Give your hands to serve and your hearts to love.”
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