Sometimes when I’m walking through Thompson Hall on a Wednesday night I stop and listen as the choir warms up. So I asked Matt, “why do choirs warm up, what does warming up do for the choir?” This morning I sat and listened as the Nordic Choir, from Luther College, warmed up.

Rev. Dr Matt Webb shared that choirs warm up to strengthen their muscle memory, to warm up their breath, and to remove obstacles to singing. The choir stretches their vocal muscles, gets their posture right, and aligns their bodies so that each singer is properly supported and ready to sing. Warming-up is a progressive discipline that builds upon past skills the singers have already learned and prepares the choir to expand its repertoire. As they recall places where they stretched themselves musically, the choir gets ready to explore new things. The thing I love the most about listening to the choir warming up is that you can hear them actively listening to one another. The singers lean to towards unity blending their voices and tuning their ears to the proper notes.

If you’ve ever sung in a choir, played an instrument, acted, played a sport, or won a spelling bee you know the value of practice. You rehearse to be ready for the concert, performance, audition, spotlight, or just the deep joy of getting better at something you love.

Spiritual practices prepares us to be ready for life. The disciplines build our muscle memory and warm up our souls for whatever comes. They help us find the right notes. Scripture, prayer, worship, and community help tune our ears, remove obstacles, warm us up, and align our postures freeing us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.

We Methodists are an oddball denomination. Our name, Methodist, describes our core commitment to methodology, methods, disciplines and practices. We started with 9 people meeting weekly to “pray together”, encourage each other, “watch over one another in love” and help each other to work out our salvation.” We made a weekly small group meeting guide from 1739 part of our official doctrine. We work out faith questions together, pray together, and watch over each other in love. I think we got that right.
https://www.umc.org/en/content/the-general-rules-of-the-methodist-church

The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ core teachings, like the 10 Commandments, are not particularly theological. In 3 chapters, Jesus does not document a plan of salvation, describe heaven, detail ordination, discuss baptism, or expound on church membership. Jesus does not begin with a creed or a confession of faith. Jesus begins with a list of characteristics, habits, or methodologies the guide us into Christ likeness.

Blessed are the humble, those mourning, the meek, those hungry for justice, the merciful, the purehearted, the peacemakers, the persecuted, and those the powerful denounce.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They will be comforted. They will inherit the earth. They will be filled. They will receive mercy. They will see God. They will be called children of God. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven! They are today’s prophets.

Creeds usually do more excluding than uniting, but what if we wrote a creed rooted in the behaviors or practices in the beatitudes…

I believe in…
Being humble
Hurting with those hurt
A gentle strength
A thirst for justice
Embodying mercy
Keeping pure motives
Making peace
Courageous persistence
Speaking up

The beatitudes invite us to rehearse, work out, practice doing the faith. The Sermon on the Mount goes on to talk about….
Be good and people will see God in you.
Keep the commandments
Avoid anger and slander
Eschew possessive relationships
Keeping your word
Resist retaliating
Love (do right by) enemies
Steer clear of performative piety
Pray The Lord’s Prayer
“You can not serve God and Wealth”
“Do not worry over material possessions”
“Do not judge”
Keep on asking, seeking, knocking on doors
You will now people by the things they do
Saying “Lord, Lord” is not enough- what did you do?
Build your life on these kinds of practices

Jesus tells us things to do. What we do makes us a Christian more than what we say we believe.

Daily and weekly spiritual practices help us rehearse our faith so we are ready to apply it to our lives.

Scripture is a core spiritual discipline. Scripture helps us rehearse life as we read about people’s experiences, parables, poetry, prophetic words and commands. The Bible is not really a legal book, but something more holy, human, and alive. When we hide its truths in our hearts and minds, the Bible becomes the living Word of God for us- it is still speaking today.

On Monday, Lucian Guise, our administrative Board chair, and I sat outside my office Monday contemplating how 230,000 of our neighbors had no electricity, but the church had heat, lights, and Wi-Fi. I was thinking about church management and risk mitigation, but I took a breath, and a loose Bible verse fell into my head, “I was cold, my power was out, and you let me stay in this House you built in my name!” I started laughing and all the decisions got easier. When we hide the word of God in our heart, it can comes to us when we need it.

Prayer is the second practice. If you struggle with knowing how to pray, remember the disciples needed to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. It’s okay. We can help you. Jesus tells us to ask, but prayer is about more than asking. Prayer aligns us with Christ’s
actions, character and actions. “Your kingdom, Your will be done”. Prayer realigns our posture, desires, goals and practices. It teaches us to listen and helps us find the right notes. In Islam the word for prayer is something like “recite, repeat or rehearse.” Their prayers remind them of who God is. Our Jewish siblings have prescribed blessings for almost every situation. They’re wonderful, prayer books, daily devotions, and even your bulletin that can teach you how to pray- how to tune your ear.

Sunday afternoon without electricity, I sat listening as tree branches crashed to the ground around us. I was trying to write a prayer for Minneapolis but kept feeling distracted and anxious. I had 14% battery life and exhausted from a little doom scrolling. I put down my phone and set the timer for seven minutes of silent prayer Philippians 4:6 says “Do not be anxious about anything but in everything with prayer and thanksgiving, make your requests known to God and the peace of God, that surpasses understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”. Breath! When the timer chirped I was just as anxious. However, I was thinking about why I was anxious. “Paul, your mammalian, fight-fight-freeze brain, is telling you that falling tree branches can kill you! Feeling anxious is normal.” I did not experience peace the surpasses understanding but I felt a smidge calmer, and after a few calmer moments I remembered that there were plenty of good preachers with fully charged batteries who could address the immoral actions in Minnesota. The trees falling around me “were enough trouble for today.” (Matt 7)

Worship is an essential spiritual practice. It is our weekly group work-out. We begin removing obstacles for the coming week lifting our eyes into the holy, sharing our burdens, remembering we are not alone and passing the peace of Christ to each other.

Intentional spiritual Community, small groups are an essential spiritual practice. We come together to watch over each other in love, pray together, and work out life and faith’s biggest questions. We tune in our ears and in warm up our breath leaning in to one another, and helping each other hear from God.

Let me confess this morning that everything I know about justice, liberation, radical hospitality, breaking oppressive yokes, forgiveness, patience, peace, belovedness, solidarity, loving enemies, freedom, redemptive justice, jubilee, rejoicing, lamenting, compassion or goodwill to all… I learned in church, not just from words spoken in a pulpit, but from good people doing their best to live like Jesus. Where else do you rehearse such life-giving themes?

Oh come, let us lean into each other, turning our hearts to love, strengthening our hands for justice, training our ears to truth, working out our questions and fears, uniting our spirits in worship, building our muscle memory for good living, and watching over one another in love. Amen