March 23, 2005

by | Mar 23, 2025 | Sermons

Scriptures: Genesis 2:7-8
The Creator took some soil from the ground and made a human. God breathed life into the human, and the human started breathing. 8 The Creator made a garden in a place called Eden, which was in the east, and put the human there.

Epistle Readings: I Cor. 6:19-20
You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own. 20 God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God.

I Cor. 12:12-13, 19-20
12 The body of Christ has many different parts, just as any other body does. 13 Some of us are Jews, and others are Gentiles. Some of us are slaves, and others are free. But God’s Spirit baptized each of us and made us part of the body of Christ. Now we each drink from that same Spirit… 19 A body isn’t really a body, unless there is more than one part. 20 It takes many parts to make a single body.

Sermon

  • Raise your hand if you’ve found yourself more anxious than usual lately;
  • Raise your hand if some part of you was a little achy when you got up today. Maybe a body part, or your brain, or your heart…
  • Raise your hand if there is a part of your body you are, honestly, a little annoyed with, because of the way it feels or looks or behaves
  • Raise your hand if there is a part of your body you’re grateful for today: which part?
  • Now everybody– raise both your hands and stretch upward far enough so you feel some sensation—not pain …let’s stretch our bodies!
    • Close your eyes and circle your shoulders; breathe in and out
    • Let your head fall gently to the right and left, stretching your neck
    • Remember to breathe
    • For Seated Cat Cow, reach up and make a goal post with your arms; open your heart; breath in; then curl forward, rounding your upper back; breathe out
  • You brought your body with you today!
  • And your body is carrying a lot of stuff that has the potential to weigh you down:
    • An illness or injury you’re still getting over
    • In your stomach, emotions that churn
    • In your shoulders, holding onto some toxic encounter with someone this week
    • Your jaw may be clenched against loud noises or cold wind
    • the hangover from some unhealthy food you ate last night
    • Your back hunched over, reading all the bad news on your phone
    • And then there are all those complicated feelings your head has about your body!
      • The fears and judgments and questions about the body God gave you
  • But think about this also: your body is full of amazing capacity:
    • tools for strength and resilience
    • mobility and balance,
    • sight and hearing, it can smell and taste,
    • it receives emotional cues, makes decisions in a split second,
    • the creativity in your brain; the compassionate feelings in the heart
  • Our bodies are carrying so much; let’s give them some gratitude for all they do for us! Give your body a hug! 
    • Psalm 139: You knit me together in my mother’s womb; I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!
  • How many of you have practiced yoga before?
  • I want to share a few basic principles I’ve learned in yoga that I’ve found helpful, especially at stressful times, as we reflect on spiritual resilience.
  • In yoga practice, we usually start on the mat:
    • It’s a special place where we go to practice breathing, stretching, challenging ourselves and restoring our resilience.
    • like a moving sanctuary, or like the Muslim prayer rug
    • You might imagine your chair or this sanctuary is your mat today
    • In order to be resilient, you need to make space and time for centering:
  • Howard Thurman: We must find sources of strength and renewal for our own spirits, lest we perish…First we must learn to be quiet, to settle down in one spot for a spell.
  • Another principle is that we are to stay in the present: mindfulness
    • To let go of the past and future and ground ourselves in the here and now;
      • and I would add, awareness that God is present with us right now
    • Mindfulness also means being aware of your body’s sensations:
      • We usually try to tune out our body’s sensations through the day, because we don’t want to be distracted by them
      • but on the mat, we are to listen to the body, including our emotions, and all they are teaching us
      • Muscle tightness, physical pain, emotions felt in the body
    • Resilience requires awareness of what’s happening in the present: around you and within you, so you can be centered and responsive to whatever challenges you.
  • And challenge is another principle of yoga.
    • Despite what it may look like to the outsider, yoga is not a glorified nap!
    • You are here to stretch a little farther toward higher goals
    • To become more flexible for changing circumstances
    • to balance a little more steadily,
    • because something or someone may rock you off your center!
    • You practice becoming stronger without becoming more tense, anxious or breathless

Let’s try a standing or sitting Forward Fold:

  • For best results, take off your shoes (but shoes are ok)
  • If standing, find a place to stand with space in front of you
  • If seated, sit up tall first, then slowly fold head/neck, up and over, curve spine drop hands, as far as is comfortable
  • If standing, slowly roll down head and neck, curling forward as far as is comfortable, starting with neck and shoulders; then let your arms hang; feel a stretch in the back body; Exhale; then inhale to come slowly back up
  • Do it again
  • Now we’ve connected with the breath and done some stretching;
  • Let’s try a Standing or Sitting Mountain Pose
    • Focus on grounding both feet on the floor with weight evenly distributed as far apart as needed to maintain your balance;
    • Then raise your arms up to the sky, but don’t let shoulders rise up:
    • Make yourself large; take up space!
    • This is what animals do when they’re threatened by a predator: make themselves look bigger!
    • Sometimes we have to just be as big as we can be! Take up space!
  • From here, let’s try a balance pose: Tree Pose.
    • You may want to stand behind a chair or go to a wall OR stay seated
    • If you’re confident about your balance, just stand away from others;
      • Now hold onto a chair or wall or freestanding
      • focus on a drishti (focal point); chin up; Don’t close your eyes;
      • ground your left foot and pull your right toe up beside your ankle;
      • you can keep weight on the right if you want, or hold onto something;
      • or try moving your foot higher up your leg
      • OR letting go of the wall for a second to balance
      • when you feel unsteady, put your foot down; try again
  • Balance is not a static state of perfection; it’s a constant process of small adjustments
    • You practice being thrown off center and then realigning
    • This is such an important lesson for resilience in the midst of chaos! (probably also in non-violence training)
    • We’re all going to get thrown off: emotionally, physically, or questioning our convictions; We’re all going to fall sometimes!
    • Learning to balance and fall and recover means falling will be safer! Recovery will be easier;
    • So we build resilience, and recover from challenge or trauma;
  • Some of you older activists in this room have seen many setbacks in history;
    • You would not have made it this far if you didn’t find ways to restore balance after a setback.
  • Finally, we need opportunities for Rest:
    • Savasana is the final pose in yoga; (laying on ground: corpse pose) we allow the body to rest after being challenged;
    • to absorb the practice as my teacher says;
    • to reflect on our experiences and re-connect with the breath of H.S.
  • From Christian tradition we call this Sabbath rest:
    • It might mean nurturing the body by being outdoors; eating healthy foods or fasting;
    • Giving your body pleasant sensations like dancing, exercise, sleep
    • Allowing for deep feeling in laughter and tears,
  • Restorative practices
  • We know Jesus took opportunities for rest, savasana; we should too!
  • To close I want to mention a missing piece in most yoga classes:
    • we usually are alone on our mats.
    • It’s about ME and MY body
    • That’s a good place to start, but not enough
    • Resilience, health and well-being are not just about ME as a personal responsibility and choice;
    • It’s also the shared value of well-being that extends to all people
  • The Creator made one body, and then realized the one needed another and turned one into two, for relationships to flourish
  • Jesus was a community healer, not just healing individuals
  • Health and wellness are Christian values and community values
  • One of our challenges ahead is defending the values of public health initiatives like medical research, vaccines and accessible health care
  • we have a long history of providing health care to people as a public policy
    • But we’ve seen this societal value being eroded
      • Our public health structures are not perfect, but they have saved many lives and should be preserved and strengthened for the future.
    • Health care is a human right, not a commodity only for those who can afford it.
  • So, it’s important to maintain our own bodies and resilience so we can be vessels of God’s purpose; that is what we were made by God for
    • But it’s also important to advocate for others to have access to well-being: the breath, the balance, the rest and recovery that they need.

I Cor. 12:24-27

God put our bodies together in such a way that even the parts that seem the least important are valuable. 25{God} did this to make all parts of the body work together smoothly, with each part caring about the others.. 26 If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.  27 Together you are the body of Christ.