Someone funny once said, “There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who divide people into two groups and those who don’t.” But the fact is that making the bed is definitely one of those kinds of things that splits groups of people down the middle, and it makes me laugh that Tish Warren, in her book, Liturgy of the Ordinary, has a chapter about making the bed. I’m not going to ask who makes their bed, but I just have to read what Tish says about it. She writes, “What was the point [of making the bed]? You’d mess it up again that evening…Make the bed, unmake it, make it again, over and over. And for what? The dishes must be washed so you can reuse them; the laundry must be done so you have clean clothes….But the bed functions just as well with the sheets messy as it does with them pulled tight and tucked in, neatly…” So Tish took an informal survey, and discovered “Some made it daily, first thing, zealously. Some never made it. Some thought it was preposterous to even consider making it, while others thought not making the bed was akin to not brushing your teeth or not paying your taxes—something meriting disgust, if not jail time. Many made their bed erratically, maybe three out of seven days. A shocking number made their bed at night. Some promised me that bed-making would change my life—that I’d be more successful, happy, and productive with a made bed.” Making the bed—really how and when we make the bed—are matters of habit, aren’t they? And most of us are creatures of habit, right?
For example, let’s think about what are the first things we do in our day. What are the first two or three things that you touch or do?
[Take responses from the congregation.]
For me, I reach for my glasses first—I have to be able to see. Then I reach for my smartphone, and sometimes my iPad if I brought that upstairs. Then I begin my hunt for breakfast, and a place to sit down while I eat it. As I spent time with God’s Word this week, I was curious how habits and worship are connected.
First, habits are a way that we say what matters to us. If I have a habit of spending time with my smartphone—reading the news or playing a game or checking my email or whatever—that smartphone slowly becomes something I must have, that defines my life. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act[ion] and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”[1] God gets this, that’s why through Moses, God tells us, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Then Moses gives people some ideas for habits to bring God into their day—talking about them with our kids, with our friends, while we are walking and doing things, even writing them on the doorframes of your houses and gates. Many Jews have a little box on the right side of their door frame, called a mezuzah, and in it they place a tiny scroll with the words from the first part of our Deuteronomy passage. Once I watched a Jewish man, apparently heading home after a long day. His steps were slow and dragging as he stepped up to the door of his house, and before he went into his own home at the end of the day, he reached out and laid a hand on that little box and under his breath I heard him pray briefly in Hebrew. It was a habit for him, a way to make God present in his life, before he went in and saw his family, before he shared what happened in his day, before he heard from them about theirs, he took a moment to hear from God. In a small way, this man had made a habit that said God mattered. Do we have any habits that remind us that God matters?
Second, how we do our habits shapes us. Growing up, my family, even my extended family, always waited until the food was there and everyone was present, and then we took a moment and thanked God. Often it was simple. My mom’s family prayer went like this: “In Jesus’ Name to the table we go to give God thanks for the food we have.” When I was a kid, I used to come to the table starving, and so I wanted to race through the prayer, “Mumble mumble Amen!” Accent on the AMEN! The first time I did this I must have been 4 or 5, and my parents laughed. The next time I did it, my parents stopped me and we started over, and they explained that this wasn’t just a prayer to get through, but that the words and the spirit mattered. What a curious idea! I had treated the prayer as if it didn’t matter, only me eating mattered—and so I had unintentionally communicated my need to eat was more important than thanking God. When it comes to our habits connected with God—listening to God’s Word, going to church, saying grace—are we really doing them, with our hearts engaged? Or are we just going through the motions, just trying to get through them to what really matters to us? Does God really matter to us?
So what are some habits that might help God define our lives? One of the things I love about our passage from the Gospel of Luke is that we get some insight into how Jesus made God matter in His life.
1. Jesus took time to be alone with God. I know we are all crazy busy, and many of us have kids, pets or other family members who are always trying to get our attention. But we each need time with just us and God. Can you find a quiet corner during your coffee break to read a little from the Bible or a book that helps you think about God? When you are in the car, can you listen to the Bible or Christian music, or spend time listening for how God might want you to understand what just happened, or what is going to happen next? Can you go for a walk, laying before God the things that are the most joyful or the most anxiety-creating? Jesus found time to be alone with God, and it could really help us too.
2. Find a way to show God, “You are most important in my life.” Like Jesus going on to teach and heal, do something for no other reason than it’s something you know would make God smile. I have a confession to make—I’m one of those people who rarely makes his own bed. “What is the point?” I argue…BUT I know that Cynthia loves it! It makes her heart glad when she comes into the room later in the day, and it’s done. So I am usually the one who makes the bed in the morning. In the same way, perhaps we could each find something regular to do that would make God smile—something to be a blessing to people, and something else to be a blessing to God’s efforts through this fellowship. Mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow for your neighbor. Picking up trash while you’re walking. Teaching or helping with Sunday School for a month. Running the technology for worship. Checking in on someone you haven’t seen for a while. Find ways to show that God matters in your life.
When I was first a Christian, I wanted to change the world, and God couldn’t change it fast enough for me. Make my bed? Be serious! My passion was good, but I sometimes ignored or left undone the simple things that would have really touched other people’s lives in transforming ways. Tish Warren points out that there’s “a sign on the wall in a New Monastic Christian community house: ‘Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.’” She continues, “I was, and remain a Christian who longs for revolution, for things to be made new and whole in beautiful and big ways. But what I am slowly seeing is that you can’t get to the revolution without doing the dishes. The kind of spiritual life and disciplines needed to sustain the Christian life are quiet, repetitive and ordinary. I often want to skip the boring, daily stuff to get to the thrill of an edgy faith. But it’s in the dailiness of the Christian faith —the making the bed, the doing the dishes, the praying for our enemies, the reading the Bible, the quiet, the small—that God’s transformation takes root and grows.”[2] How do we live every moment for God? Let us begin…small…finding a way this week to know in our hearts that God matters more than anything else, finding a way to show with our lives that God is the Lord of all and us too.
[1]https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/416934-sow-a-thought-and-you-reap-an-action-sow-an
[2]Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices for Everyday Life (Downer’s Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016), pp. 35–36.