March 12, 2017 Matthew 6.1-6

‘Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
6But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

***
It is easier to show up here for an hour, than it is to walk into our bedrooms, shut the door on our things to do, and just look out window, or close our eyes, and settle into a prayerful place, listening for God. It is easier to say grace for a meal before us and the hands that made it, than it is to take a walk through the field and give thanks for the bounty and the farmer. It is it easier to list off the people and desires on our prayer list than it is to ask, “God, what should I be asking You, how do You want me to view this situation, what do You want me to do right now, and wait for an answer.” It is easier to put our offerings in the plate than it is to ask God where our time and tithes and talents should be spent. Unfortunately, letting God lead us has never been easy.

We, and those in the scripture, to whom Jesus is talking, want God to show up in the time we have put God in, be it before bed, be it before meals, be it at our rising, be it at our sermon writing, be it in this hour, be it when we give alms, or serve others, but that’s our timeline, not God’s. God is asking us for more than an hour once a week, more than our public displays of faith, more than our volunteering, or even our callings. God is asking for a relationship with us, and while some of that in enhanced by doing, it begins with being. And being with God, beings with setting aside time to be with God.

If we were to look at time with God like a math problem, there are 24 hours in a day (except for this last one - ugg). If the Biblical mandate is to return to God one-tenth of our gifts then we should return to God 2.4 hours of our day. Lets say half of that we are sleeping which God also created us to do (even if the national time change disagrees). So what remains is 1.2 hours a day which should be returned to God. There are many ways to do this, and we as a congregation are really good at the serving God part, so lets keep that. If half of our offering of 1.2 hours of time is serving God, that leaves 40 minutes a day to spend with God. We know how we serve but do we know how you spend time with God? What would that look like? What does it look like for us to spend time with God. Listening, praying, just being?

I remember as kid laying on my back watching the clouds and thinking about things, wondering if there was a God, what my birth-mom might look like, whom I might marry when I grew up, would it be Collin Son my second grade crush, what would be my job, President, author? I couldn’t have guessed any of it, but I felt the divine presence surrounding me there on my back. Today, in adulthood, that divine presence looks like a drive with my phone off and my music on and lots of time to think and talk to God and listen. It looks like sitting on the couch with herbal tea and a friend who will pray with me and help me think about God. It looks like walking into my room and kneeling under the window and sighing, attempting to let go of my to-do-list and just listen, perhaps hearing the words, “just rest in me.” and before I get up, telling me wait, to settle in just a little longer, just a little deeper.” But in the past week, I as your pastor, who is supposed to be good at spending time with God, have maybe spent an hour and a half of those four weekly hours with God and this was a really good week. I am trying to be intentional, for goodness sakes this was scripture with which I was charged, but it’s hard to carve out time from other things, to be with God. I have so many other priorities that I put in front, and I think you understand this too. Because how would you measure your time with God? How many times have you gone into your room and closed the door and just listened, and asked, “God, what questions should I be asking, how should I spend today?”

If we were to use the same math problem, to return to God a tithe of one-tenth of our gifts of time, that would mean that 36.5 days a year should be dedicated to God, in Biblical times, it was every Sabbath, like we have every Sunday. Let’s split it again, into half spent serving God, and half spent being with God. That means about eighteen days would be spent Serving God, and I have no doubt that we First Presbyterian, each do far more than this. We are really good at serving God. I think we are too good at serving God though, because we have ignored being with God. “Love the Lord your God with your heart and soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself,” is the Golden Rule right? Half of that sentence is loving God, half is serving God, but notice which comes first, love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your strength.

If you had eighteen days to spend with God, where would you go, what would it look like, what would you look like, how would it feel, how might it change you as a person, how might your deepened relationship with God seep into all of your life? What would that eighteen days look like? Would you write cards, would you sit on horseback in the highest mountains, would you ski with your spouse, would you be someplace warm, would you hole up in a cabin with a fire and books, would you quilt, or craft, or cook, or build, or sing, or watch kids, or hike, or paint, would you sit on your porch or at your front window and watch the clouds move from grey to the pastel blue of sky, and in those moments would you give thanks and listen for God’s voice? And why, why aren’t we doing it?


We, myself included, have put too many things, in front of that relationship. The first thing in our life should be our relationship with God, the second thing our health - mental and physical, the third our relationship with our family and those we love, and lastly our occupation, even if it is a pastor, even if we are a teacher helping so many students, even if we are retired spending time with friends and serving others, none it is the same as our own personal relationship with God. This should be the number one priority in our life, but so many things get in the way. It isn’t easy, and I am not scolding, I am talking to us all. So what needs to change? What needs become less so our relationship with God can become more?

Personally, I think I can spend less time on social media, less time planning, less time obtaining stuff. I think I can take a hard long look at my to-do list and ask God what really needs to be done, and what is a meaningless chore or activity? I think firstly, I have to schedule time with God, but I need your help too. I need to work less, instead of the twenty-something weekend days I over-worked last year. I need to stick to my already full job description and focus on visiting and preaching which I love, teaching and studying which is essential, and do far fewer administrative tasks, but I also need your help, I need us as a church to not be busy for busy sake. I need us to ask ourselves, honestly, what our church calendar would look like if half of it was spending time with God and then half serving. I need us to ask ourselves are the gazillion programs and service opportunities we are planning, making ourselves and others so busy that we are cutting into our congregation’s time with God? One way to tell is to ask, Do things like Vacation Bible School, Church Mission Trip, Greening/Decorating the Church at Christmas Time, Newsletter Articles, God’s Gift Shop, and Open Door four days a week feel like a burden or a blessing? Those feelings either way are telling us something. I need us to ask ourselves, how many hours those events take for each person? If we are spending more than 40 minutes a day, or more than four hours a week, serving God, than I have to guess that it might be cutting into our time being with God. I think this because, I regularly hear the word, “burnout,” and I rarely hear the word, “fulfilled,” unless one of us have gotten back from a trip. That too is telling us something First Presbyterian. We are doing a really good job practicing our piety before others, giving alms to those in need, praying out loud, but it is at the expense of going into our rooms and closing the door, and nurturing our relationship with God. We have to commit and promise to ourselves and one another that the piety of busyness, and the idol of control, are not going to bring God’s kingdom here any faster or any stronger, if we are not even allowing God to BE in our lives. We need to nurture that relationship with God.

This relationship is something we can do as individuals, but we as a church can also nurture our relationship with God together: we can worship in meaningful ways that stretch and deepen beyond rote and tradition, we can sit by one another and pray in times of need, we can laugh and play together in celebration, we can sit at a meal together, we can love one another as truly our sister or brother in Christ, and you know, part of that is what will happen naturally if we allow time to be with God. We don't need to calendar it up. We just need to sit and pray, “God, what questions should I be asking You, how do You want me to view this situation, how should I spend today?” and then we listen for an answer, but to do this, we have to put time with God first. May it be so.