John 3: 16, 17, Ephesians 2:8,9,10

Relax and focus

Last week I was looking for the scores of the European champions league in soccer on the sports channel. I know you are just as concerned about those as I am.  I saw people engaged in a whole new sport. I think it is called ‘ice crashing.’  It was almost as if I was witness to a scene from a science fiction movie in the future.  Hockey players from different countries where it snows a lot are waiting at four horse racing gates for the buzzer and they take off down an icy slope, up hills and around curves.  So much for the idea that ice skating is supposed to be on flat surfaces.  And obviously there is a whole culture built around these feisty men already.  It’s a quick, physical race that over in a minute or so.  Friends, it makes me think that golf may not be the game of the future.  It takes upwards of three hours to complete, it involves a lot of waiting for players who are even slower than you.  The more of them are ahead of you the longer it takes.  And then no matter what you do, you never really get good at it.  Not something younger people are likely to take up.  Ice crashing would be more their thing.  But every sport or game yields some lessons about life.  One general type of learning is the insight that the moment you have some aspects of a game, or the game of life for that matter, mastered a bit, you mess up on others.  In ice crashing it’s probably something like: “you may be ahead one moment, but fall on your behind the next. “  In golf the best lesson is that there are two things you should do at the same time: “relax and focus.” This may make a lot of sense, but we human beings are not very good at that: “we can focus if a certain task or topic really interests us.” We can relax if we have finished all the tasks we had planned for the day.  But can we relax and focus at the same time? 

In today’s fast moving society being wound up and distracted are more common modes for us.

Nothing distracts us more than our emotions, especially fear and worry and anger or even worse or the three rolled into one.  So that’s the worst scenario. But sometimes we are relaxed and distracted.  Men are really good at being in that mode I m told.  I have heard it said about wives” nothing bothers women more than having their husband sit around and do absolutely nothing.”  Men can have a real skill for that.  So there is being relaxed and distracted, but there is also being tightly wound and focused.  We all know that one really well too.  Like when you miss paying a bill or you find a parking ticket on your wind shield.  But “relaxed and focused” that’s rare.  And that’s the mode you need in golf more than anything.  And I think that’s one mode we need a lot more in life.

James Levine is the conductor for the New York Metropolitan Opera and has been for decades.  He had a bad fall a number of years ago and was not able to conduct. All his musicians were distraught.  They were distraught not only because he is just a great musician, but because of the way he made them feel. He combined focus on perfection with encouragement and praise for the in the singers. He was relaxed and focused and as a result they were confident and at the top of their game.

Friends, when we examine the well known texts for today, if we are tight and distracted, what we may experience is a fear of perishing or of not being saved.  When we examine them relaxed and distracted we may not notice much of anything.  We may be thinking about coffee hour instead.  When we examine them tight and focused, we may notice there is a lot of complexity in these verses. There is love and salvation and grace and gift and faith.  There is a whole Christian theology imbedded in just these few verses.  We touch on that just a little bit earlier. But if we examine them relaxed and focused, we will discover that faith is really a gift of love from God and when we accept that gift we will be fine.  The relaxed and focused approach allows us to see that God has it covered.  And this is true of many things in our life.  We will be easiest on our body if we do our chores relaxed and focused.  Our emotional well being will be greater if we are relaxed and focus.  In psychotherapy a counselor really helps us relax and focus, calm our frantic mind and see things more for what they are.  Zen philosophy is really about focusing and being relaxed in the actual moment.

This attitude is important for a congregation also.  A frantic and focused congregation will see problems where they aren’t and create mountains out of molehills.  A relaxed and distracted congregation will just shoot the breeze and not think about a vision.  A frantic and distracted congregation will jump from one thing to another and forget what it is about: worshipping and serving a loving and forgiving God and serving others.    So, who do want to be?   And as congregation who do you want to be?  There are a lot of things happening this small congregation right now, which when examined are really not much of our own making.  I think it is important not to be frantic and crucial not be distracted. Also just to be focused is not enough.  I think we should be relaxed and focused.  Let’s have some faith in the grace of God our texts today are gushing about. It is because of the suffering of Jesus on which we focus at Lent that we are able to do so. Thanks be to God.