Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on May 5, 2024. Based on John 15:9-17. I deviated from my script more than usual this week, so you may notice some differences with the podcast or video.
The first time I went elk hunting, I did what I thought was a lot of preparation to get in shape. It turned out to be woefully inadequate. Over the following few years, I set about getting in better shape, primarily focusing on improving my endurance by running. In addition, I realized that I needed to lose weight. Trimming down the weight you carry in gear is good, but trimming down the weight you carry in fat is much better. So, I joined Weight Watchers. I’m sure there are many other current or former Weight Watchers members among us.
Why is Weight Watchers so successful? To my mind, there are three main aspects. First is awareness and intentionality. The cornerstone of the program is tracking what you eat. Each year, they change the formula a little bit, in part to get you to renew your membership but in part to trigger you to pay attention again for a little while. Truthfully, if all you do is track your points, even if you don’t pay much attention to how many points you’re allowed to consume, you’ll start developing a healthier relationship with food. Instead of mindlessly consuming a whole bag of chips, you’ll start thinking about how many chips you really want to eat. Or perhaps you’ll decide that actually, chips have a lot of points in them, and you would be better off eating carrots or grapes or something.
The second pillar is habits. The foundational habit is tracking, but Weight Watchers helps you to develop other habits, too. Habits like planning your grocery shopping ahead of time, or reading restaurant menus before you go so that you have a plan, or grabbing fruit when you’re hungry. They also encourage you to develop habits related to exercise and mindfulness.
The third pillar is community. Back in the “before” times, I went to meetings every week. At a typical meeting, everyone had to weigh in, and then we had a somewhat freeform discussion about progress and challenges in the past week. We would acknowledge milestones and sometimes talk about stuff coming up in the following week. Finally, there was a lesson of some sort. Often, the lesson would be about habits—either how to develop them or which ones would be good.
Intentionality, habits, and community. Honestly, this is a good model of the church. Community is essential to what we do. It’s possible to read the Bible or pursue other spiritual practices on your own, but a community helps you to learn and grow. The community supports you when you need it, and in return, you support others when they need you. Community is why we worship in person, why we have First Friday Out or game night or other gatherings, and why we have deacons to visit people who are sick or grieving or shut-in. Community is why we attend memorial services.
Habits. Habits control our lives. Now, it’s easy for a habit to become a rut, something you do for no good reason except that it’s what you always do. That’s a risk for an individual, and a serious risk for an organization. So, it’s important to shake up your habits once in a while, just like Weight Watchers changes their program almost every year.
Which is to say, intentionality is important. Habits enable you to act without thinking, and so they make life easier. But periodically, it’s important to bring your habits out to the forefront and decide if they are serving you or if you are serving them. Once in a while, we need to ask, Are we doing XYZ because it’s the right thing to do, or because we’ve always done it? Whatever the answer, just asking the question is important.
I’d like you to think for a moment about your morning routine. Everyone has one. Here’s mine. My first alarm goes off at 5:45, at which point I usually lay in bed and check Facebook and such. At 6:00, I get my daily alert from the Washington Post and read the most critical news stories. By 6:15, I’m up and I’ve made coffee. I check my email and read my daily comics while I bathe my brain in caffeine. When I’m awake enough, I do my daily devotion from Common Prayer that I think I’ve mentioned before. Then I go run, usually three or four miles, at least on days when I have time.
Last weekend, Rhonda and I were gone because Jesse graduated from Pitt. It was a great trip. We got to see Jesse and Sam, and Jesse’s boyfriend Howard, and Howard’s parents. On our way east, we visited my old high school friend Sharon and her family, and then on our way west, we met my mom, sister, and brother. Going both directions, we stayed with Rhonda’s parents. It was great seeing everyone, seeing Jesse and Howard graduate, meeting Howard’s parents, everything.
But you know what wasn’t great? My morning routine. Most days, I didn’t get a chance to just be when I got up, but instead had to get moving right away. If I did my devotion, I was just going through the motions instead of taking it seriously. I didn’t run. I wasn’t able to do the habits that recharge me. They refill my spiritual and emotional reserves so that I have love to give others.
As much as possible, I try to follow the Great Commandment. When Jesus was asked which commandment in the Law was the greatest, he said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” My morning routine, especially my morning devotion, is a way I can love the Lord my God and prepare myself to love my neighbor.
Several years ago, I read Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a phenomenal book that I highly recommend. Basically, the book teaches you how to harness one of the most powerful forces available: the power of compound interest. Except instead of money, he applies it to life. If you do push-ups on one day, you’ll mostly just tire yourself out, but maybe you’ll become a tiny bit stronger. If you do push-ups every day, you’ll become that little bit stronger every day, and by improving on your improvements, by the end of the year, you’ll be much stronger. Small changes made on their own have small effects, but small changes made in the same direction repeatedly can change your life.
Many times, people say that the key to success is setting goals. In fact, when you sign up for Weight Watchers, one of the first things you do is to set your target weight. Setting goals is a good thing, I suppose, but it is clearly insufficient. When I became department chair, we did some strategic planning and identified some goals. I have been measuring our progress against them, but they aren’t directly tied to actions. For example, one goal is to increase enrollment. But what will we actually do to achieve that goal?
That’s where Atomic Habits come in. The key to success isn’t having a goal, but having a good system. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results. Every coach has the same goal: to win a championship. Which team wins? The one with the best system to recruit and develop and exploit their talent. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
Good systems are composed of good habits. Find a habit that achieves, say, a 1% improvement, and do it every day. Then find another. And another. And eventually, they all add up, and the power of compound interest changes your life.
So, why am I talking about habits and systems and performance improvements? Let me return to today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” He says to abide. He doesn’t say that we should visit his love once in a while. He says we should abide in it. That means being immersed in a loving system. That means having a set of habits that all revolve around doing as Jesus commanded: acting on a self-sacrificing love for everyone that God loves, which is everyone.
A habit has three main components: a cue, a routine, and a reward. For example, let’s say you want to develop a habit of going to the gym every day. As a cue, perhaps you set your gym bag by your car, so that whenever you see it, you remember to drive to the gym and do your workout. The reward, then, isn’t getting a donut afterwards. It’s the feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment you get from the workout itself.
Here’s a habit I’m developing for love. I’m an engineer, which means my natural inclination is to solve problems. That’s great if I’m confronted with a technical problem, but often, that’s the wrong instinct for people problems. So, here’s my habit. The cue is when someone opens up a little and expresses a problem they are having in their life, like something that is causing them sorrow or anxiety. My routine is to attempt to see things through their eyes and seek understanding first, and then affirm the validity of their emotions. If things veer too negative, I gently nudge them back towards the positive, for example, trying to help them avoid comparisons. The reward, then, is a deeper, more meaningful conversation than I might have otherwise had.
As an example, I was talking to someone who said they had seen me on the street while they were going to a grief support group. Rather than take over the conversation and try to “solve” their grief—which is totally impossible—I let them talk about their situation and what’s going on in their heart right now. They started to veer into comparisons with other people’s grief and how their situation is worse, and I gently counseled them that such comparisons are fruitless, because every grief is different. I expressed my opinion on the Kubler-Ross stages of grief—that they are better understood as modes of grief, with no sequence and no timeline—and affirmed that where they are right now is perfectly understandable and a step along the path to healing. When I left them, I prayed for their comfort. Overall, it was a deeply meaningful encounter that I probably wouldn’t have had a few years ago.
So that’s one habit I’m trying to develop. I need to think of another habit to add, something to do with initiating meaningful conversations. I’m not sure how I’ll do that exactly, but a workshop I attended a couple of weeks ago gave me some ideas.
Here’s a habit that we have as a congregation: When someone experiences loss or is in crisis, we feed them. This is great “spiritual first aid.” Everyone needs to eat, and often, preparing food is challenging when you are grieving or under stress. Both the giving and receiving of meals reminds people that we are a loving community, one that will help lift each other up.
My challenge for you all today is this: Find a way to abide in God’s love by adding loving habits to your life and our congregation’s life together. I have seen how much love you all have for one another and for others in the community and the world. Let’s find ways, individually and as a congregation, to put that love into action by developing habits that will let God’s love flow through us and into the community. And I am certain that if we do that, we will experience the flourishing that comes from living into the kingdom of God. Amen.
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