Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
Rev. Dean Snyder
Isaiah 40:28-31 & Acts 17:24-28
All this Lent we have been talking about daily aspects of life that are sacramental …. They are expressions and vehicles of grace. They are physical activities like breathing, eating sleeping, but they are also spiritual. God ministers to us in the midst of them. And our spiritual lives can be enriched if we offer ourselves to God through them.
This morning we want to begin by talking about another life essential –moving, exercising—and then work our way to Jesus and Palm Sunday.
Isaiah says: “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
The Book of Acts says that nobody is far from God, for in God all of us “live, move and have our being.”
We have a psychiatrist who is a member of Foundry who tells me that, after many years of treating persons suffering from depression, his number one prescription for depression is 30 minutes of some activity that will cause them to sweat at least 3 or 4 days a week.
It might be his prescription for each and every one of us.
Our body’s automatic response to exercise is to release a kind of biochemical into our systems called endorphins. Endorphins elevate our mood. They trigger positive feelings. They cause a natural high.
Endorphins are also natural analgesics and sedatives. They diminish our perception of pain and relax us.
Our bodies actually minister to us and heal us through exercise, through movement. Our Creator ministers to us and heals us through movement. God ministers to us and heals us through movement.
As opposed to most of humanity who have ever lived and most of humanity who are alive today, we of the economically privileged world find ourselves in the strange position of having to schedule exercise into our lives.
For much of the rest of the world it just happens in the course of daily living.
During Jane and my trips to Zimbabwe, Africa, I used to sometimes try to run early in the morning. The streets would already be full of people walking at a brisk pace that was sometimes faster than my running. Sometimes people would gather around me to run with me and they would talk and laugh while I was huffing and puffing.
For most of history and in many places still today moving, exercise, was a normal and necessary part of life.
Part of the reason that people we think of as economically disadvantaged in other parts of the world seem happier than we are is because their bodies are consistently producing endorphins because they are consistently moving.
One scholar studied the Gospels and kept track of all of the walking journeys that Jesus and his disciples took. Then he calculated the distance of each trip reported in the Gospels and added up the miles. He calculated that, during the approximately three years of their ministry together, Jesus and the disciples walked 21,500 miles, roughly the distance of the equator. During his ministry Jesus walked the equivalent of a journey around the world.
We are creatures who are meant to move our bodies. Moving our bodies is a way that God releases grace into our lives.
Most mornings when I head to the gym I don’t feel like it, but I know I will feel better the rest of the day if I do. Most days when I head out to walk the three miles from home to church I don’t feel like it. I feel like driving instead. But I know if I walk my head will be clearer and my soul will be calmer and ready for whatever the day may bring.
I want to encourage us to understand the exercise we do as a godly thing that allows God to release grace into our lives. When we exercise we can offer it to God … it can be a prayer, inviting the grace of God into our lives.
Moving is a powerful biblical metaphor for the life of faith. God is always calling people to move their bodies in the Bible.
The biblical story begins with God calling Abraham and Sarah to move to a new place. When they moved Abraham and Sarah did not pack up their belongings into boxes and hire a moving truck. They carried what they took with them and walked day after day until they reached the place God had chosen for them to go.
Then God called the Israelites to move out of slavery to the Promised Land. They walked for 40 years in the wilderness.
Jesus’ entire ministry –the 21,500 miles he walked—was moving in one direction … toward Jerusalem and the cross. Jesus never stopped moving.
There is a story in the Gospel of Mark. (Mark 1:35-39) The first place that Jesus ministered in was the city of Capernaum. He was very successful there. He preached in the synagogue. He healed and cast demons out of people’s lives. Every morning there was a crowd of people waiting for him to minister to them.
One morning the disciples couldn’t find Jesus. A crowd was on the porch of Peter’s mother-in-law’s house waiting for Jesus and he was nowhere to be found. Jesus had left in the middle of the night to find a quiet place to pray. When Peter and the others finally located Jesus, they said to him: “Everybody is searching for you.” They were scolding him: What are you doing Jesus? There are all these people wanting you to minister to them. Why aren’t you doing your job?
Jesus said to his disciples: “Let’s go on to the neighboring towns so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came to do.” Let’s keep moving. That’s my job.
Jesus always kept moving. Even when his ministry was the most successful, he refused to get stuck in Capernaum. He always kept moving. He was always headed toward Jerusalem and the cross.
Jesus was always moving towards today Palm Sunday. And then he kept moving towards Friday.
And then he even kept moving after Friday. And he is moving still today.
I am very aware these days that I am celebrating my last Palm Sunday and my last Maundy Thursday and my last Good Friday and my last Easter as Foundry’s pastor … your pastor.
During my years here you are a congregation that has never gotten stuck. You have never stopped moving. You have always done the hard things. You’ve always gotten up in the morning and gone to the gym even when you haven’t felt like it.
I just want to say this morning, keep moving.
Ginger Gaines-Cirelli will become your new senior pastor in July. She is going to ask you to organize gatherings in neighborhoods throughout the region where she can come and listen to you … to as many of you as will come and share.
And out of that time of listening and praying together, God will open your eyes to the path ahead. As you celebrate 200 years of Foundry’s history beginning this coming August, God will open your eyes to history yet to be made. Celebrating an anniversary isn’t about patting ourselves on the back. It is about studying our past in order to catch a glimpse of our future.
My prayer for Foundry is that you will keep moving. Do not get stuck. Always get up in the morning and –even when you don’t feel like it—go to the gym. Keep moving.
The promise is that, if you keep moving, the Lord will renew your strength, you will mount up with wings like eagles, you will run and not be weary, you will walk and not faint .
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free