St. Andrew’s Pictou, September 4^th 2005

 

How Rituals Become Habits

Exodus 12:1-14

Matthew 18:15-20

 

“What is man, save ceremony?” said William Shakespeare.

 

From the coronation of the monarch in Westminster Abbey, to putting on the new team sweater by the multi-million dollar draft choice in front of the TV camera, to doing the wash every Monday, to visiting your grandmother, to going to your favourite pub, to Friday-night pizza, saying grace before a meal, doing the daily crossword puzzle, to setting the alarm, to coming the church here today, we all have our ritualistic ceremonies.

 

As Shakespeare said, take away those ceremonies, and there is absolutely nothing left.

 

“What is man save ceremony?”

 

But we can take this a step farther. We could say that as human beings, our rituals define who we are as the rituals become part of our nature.

 

If we are the sum total of our ceremonies, then we could say that our daily and weekly rituals tell a lot about who we are.

 

For example: thirty five years ago, gambling was thought of as a sin, an evil, something to be avoided. Gambling was on the fringe: every once in awhile, you would hear that someone had bought a ticket for the Irish Sweepstakes. There was also Bingo and horse races, but they weren’t at the centre of life.

 

Gambling has now invaded every single area of society. Everything is a raffle, a door prize, and the lucky winner is…

 

Think of a parent bringing their child to church to learn about God and to make friends. Contrast that picture with the parent who has their child on their arm at the mall lottery ticket both, just after they have played the video arcade.

 

What kind of ritual is the child learning who has their parent breaking off little pieces of fast food French fries and feeding them to an infant who can’t speak yet?

 

The bottom line here is that our rituals determine who we are because they set our boundaries and our boundaries determine our civility. The boundaries of our civilization define what is “civil” and then determine what we call our civilization.

 

One of the most powerful and self-determining rituals of the Jewish faith is the Passover meal. The ritual conveyed by this meal is essential to Jewish identity and we still see the consequences of what this meal means in the news today: as Jews claim the land that they believe God gave to them in Israel. The consequences of the Passover are in the news right up until today!

 

For Jews, the Passover shows the power and influence of God. It shows to them that they have favoured nation status with God as God’s chosen people. Passover shows that God redeemed and saved his people from slavery in Egypt. Passover shows the Jewish people that God is with them.

 

The Passover ritual recorded in Exodus is rich with meaning and symbolism. The details are precise and are to followed to the letter:

-a whole lamb must be used and all must be eaten so smaller households would join together,

-the lamb must be without blemish and a year old,

-the blood of the lamb must be smeared over the doorpost of the house to ensure the death passes over that house,

-the meal must be eaten in a hurry as in getting ready to leave on a trip in haste and danger, as they left Egypt in haste.

 

These details are also important for Christians as our theology has Jesus being seen as the lamb that was slain for us, and out whole notion of the death and resurrection of Jesus and the lamb that was slain finds its roots in this ritual. We are saved “by the blood of the lamb,” as were the Jews.

 

The Passover meal was God’s Command as Jesus later followed God’s Command.

The lamb was without blemish as Jesus was without blemish.

The lamb’s blood on the doorpost was later to be Jesus’ blood on the cross.

The lamb’s blood was sacrificial as Jesus blood was sacrificial: the lamb liberating the Jews from slavery, as Jesus liberated us from sin.

 

Jesus met with his disciples during the Passover when he was betrayed and crucified. As the Passover was a meal, we celebrate another meal called Holy Communion.

 

Although God’s intention for us is community and communion in the community, conflict can arise. Obstacles arise that impede the dining of equals in peace and love, without pain or suffering, around the Lord’s Table.

 

In the Matthew reading Jesus gives us ways of dealing with conflict. In a sense he gives us a ritual to follow to deal with conflict; “conflict management” we call it today.

 

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”

 

Very difficult to do isn’t it? Going to someone, face to face and telling them how they offended you takes a certain amount of courage.

 

I have tried it and had it work both ways: sometimes the other person could hear me, other times they couldn’t.

 

It is sublime when it works: Jesus says, “If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.”

 

If that doesn’t work Jesus tells you to bring along two or three witnesses with you.

 

Sometimes that doesn’t work either, then you bring the whole church to the discussion and if that doesn’t work, then Jesus gives what for some must seem rather surprising advice, “…let such a one to you be as a Gentile or a tax collector.”

 

In other words, if the person will not listen to you and the whole church, then you reset the boundaries. You don’t include them any more in your inner circle. Consider that person to be a disrespectful alien.

 

In another place he says something quite similar. In sending out his disciples he says that if a person or community doesn’t accept you: shake the dust off of your sandals as a testimony against them and move on. “…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

 

According to Jesus, people are responsible for their choices! You are not responsible for their choices, they are!

 

But this ceremony from Jesus on how to deal with conflict can become a habit. If you are used to being honest with people and speaking your truth, by constant repetition it becomes a habit. If you and I are habitually honest, people will come to expect it.

 

Imagine a world where we could expect people to be honest!

 

Whatever rituals we choose and practice with ourselves and our children become theirs and our habits and those same rituals we choose will ultimately determine ours and their boundaries.

 

The difference between rituals and habits is that we choose our rituals, but we do our habits we do without thinking.

 

I challenged a sales clerk lately after she said, “That’s $78.21,” by saying back to her, “No it isn’t, it is $78.21 please.” After apologizing, she did exactly the same thing with the next customer: “That’s (and the price.) She was habitually impolite; she does it habitually. Long ago, she decided the customer doesn’t matter, and even if you try to engage her, she refuses to engage. Since it takes the same energy to say “please” at the end or “That’s” at the beginning, it is an insidious dismissal of the customer.

 

We are creatures of habit; we all lives our lives in patterns.

 

Someone, some time ago said the words, “I want my child to fit in.” Now it is a habit and all of the parents everywhere are spending huge amounts of money and energy, trying to get their children to “fit in,” to be “the same as their friends,” to be accepted, thereby being controlled by what the other kids think, to not be better or worse than others, but to “fit in.”

 

They have to have the right shoes, backpack and an expensive ipod.

 

What if the child is a genius? All the kids can’t be geniuses.

What if the child is supposed to be a concert pianist? All the kids can’t do that.

What if the child is supposed to be a world leader? All the kids can’t do that.

What if the child is supposed to be a master architect? All the kids can’t do that.

 

If we could just succeed at making all of the kids fit in, we would have succeeded at making them all mediocre, we would have constricted their God-given potential for greatness, and our world would be a mess.

 

Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

 

I look for the day when parents say that they want their children to be the best they can be, that the world is their oyster, that they must discover what special gifts and abilities that God has given them.

 

Remember, we choose the rituals in the beginning, and then the choices become habits: “fitting in” was never part of God’s plan.

 

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house.”

AMEN                            Rev. Alan Stewart