(from Pastor Ryan's sermon on 1.4.26; listen to the audio version here)
About October of this past year, people started coming to me and they said, "Preacher, what are we going to do next year? What's our theme going to be next year?" Now, I don't ever feel like we have to have a theme for the year, and I sure didn't want to try to figure out something that would have to try to live up to the success that our year of gratitude had. But it made me start thinking. I started thinking, you know, what would it look like? What would something be that would be important? And I started thinking really twofold. It would have to be something that changes us, that impacts us. Because the year of gratitude did, I think we're forever changed because of it. But it can't ever stop there; if we're only looking internally or being insular, then what good are we as the church? And so it should also impact our community around us. It should also be something that changes the world in which we live in. That's what the church is supposed to do. It should help us to live out our mission.
And so I began praying. God what could we do in 2026 that would have an impact on us and that would have an impact on the world around us, that would help us to better live into our mission, that could help us to change the world in which we live.
The Practice of the Presence of God is a short little book that was written in the 1600s, in the 17th century, by a French Catholic monk named Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence gave his life to the church. Actually, this book was a compilation of letters and conversations that he had that was compiled after his death in 1691. His goal was to find a method for acquiring the presence of God in his life. Now let me tell you friends, there is no formula for acquiring the presence of God in your life. However, there are things that we can incorporate into our lives that help draw us closer to God, that help make us more aware of God's presence with us on a day in and day out basis.
Brother Lawrence had a reputation of experiencing profound peace, And visitors would come from all over to be with him to seek spiritual guidance from him, to find wisdom from what he had gleaned and learned and could pass on with to them. That's the reputation that he had. That's the basis of this book. If you decide you wanna read it, then go in without any preconceived ideas or notions because at first it's gonna seem overly simple. In fact, I found a quote from a modern day Catholic theologian, Henry Nouwen,: "When I was exposed to his thoughts the first time they seemed simple, even somewhat naive and unrealistic." But he added, 'The more I reflected on brother Lawrence's advice, the more I became aware that it's not just a nice idea for a 17th century monk. It's a most important challenge in our present day life and situation as well."
In the book, Lawrence talks about several things. He talked about how his goal in life was to try to find God and to feel like he's as close to God when he's chopping lettuce in the homeless shelter just as closely as when he's experiencing holy communion. That he wanted to be able to find God when he's picking up a piece of straw for the love of God, that it would be just as close to him as when he was searching the scripture or spending time in prayer. That he felt like presence was something that was there if he would just simply focus his mind on it. In the first chapter, in the first letter that we read about Lawrence, he focuses on the image of a tree in winter and how it appears. It looks like it's lost everything, like it has nothing to offer stripped of life, but in a few short months the leaves would be renewed. The flowers and fruit would return, showing God's faithfulness to us in all seasons of life, especially in difficult times. Lawrence once scolded his doctor for doing such a good job of keeping him healthy and alive because it deprived him and delayed him of the happiness of heaven when he could be fully present with God.
So I want our focus this year to be on two things that are captured in the spirit and title of this book, practicing and presence.
First, practicing. Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Tipping Point says that for a person to become an expert in anything, it takes 10,000 hours of practice. Whether it's sports or academia or dance or music, anything that you try to do to become an expert of it, it requires 10,000 hours of practice. In other words, we can't just show up and be good at something. It takes practice. And so it requires practice in us to be good at our faith. I want to tell you that one of the things I've resolved to do in 2026 is to lengthen my sermons so that I get more practice in. And some of you are saying, "Well, you need it, preacher."
We have to practice anything that we want to be good at and that especially pertains to our faith. Lawrence would practice it in common everyday situations. For him, it was chopping lettuce or picking up trash. For us, it may be in the mundane tasks of our work, or driving to school and home, or fixing dinner, or grocery shopping, or emptying the dishwasher, or mowing the yard. It's in the mundane. Lawrence would say that we have the greatest opportunity to practice the presence of God. To practice God in the common themes, to practice the presence of God. To practice God in the common themes, the common themes of life every single day. And so I want to challenge this church to be practicing, to practice having a spiritual life. And we're going to provide opportunities throughout the year to do that. Practice acting like Jesus because to be a Christian means to be a little Christ, it means to emulate Jesus to the world around us, to practice doing the work of the church in our world. And as we practice, we will continuously get better.
The second piece of this is presence. The text that Pastor Steve read is John's account of the birth of Jesus. We're still in the season of Christmas, and so I thought it would be appropriate to read John's understanding the birth of Christ, but he doesn't talk about Mary and Joseph and no room in the end and a manger and a stable. He says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and eventually at just the right time and God's perfect time the word became flesh to dwell among us, to be present with us. The word incarnation, God incarnate, means in the flesh, present in our lives with us, in our neighborhoods, in our homes, in our schools, in our workplaces, in our churches, in our communities, God present with us. So as we think about what it means to be in the presence of God, we want to focus on how through Christmas God came to be present with us. And since God saw it fit to come and be present with us, as we seek to be more Christ-like, as we practice what it means to be more Christ-like than we should with intentionality strive to be present with God. Yes, but that is so much bigger than simply that.
Presence has two directions that I want us to focus on in the year 2026. Of course, there's a vertical piece of that where we seek to be intentional and be present with God in our daily lives. That means to have a spiritual life, to spend time in prayer and devotion and searching and reading the scriptures together to be present with God, to let God be a part of our thoughts in everything that we do in the mundane tasks and in how we live our life. Just as Brother Lawrence constantly practiced being in the presence of God. That was where everything evolved from for him. That's where he found his peace. That's where he found his joy. That's where he found his joy. That's where he found his purpose for living. But what happened is people saw that. They saw something in him that was different, something that they wanted. They came to him searching for it. And what they found is he was more than willing to be present with them. And I can imagine the people who came to him weren't always people that you would want to be present with. Some of you may want to leave the escape. Some were probably hard to love, hard to be in the presence of. They were different than him. Didn't look like him. Didn't smell well. They didn't have the same values he had. And yet he took time to be present with them. And in doing so, it helped him to grow closer to God. So I wanna challenge us to not only work to be present with God in our lives this year, but to be present with everyone, and everyone is the key word, that we come in contact with. To be present with everyone who our paths cross, to be present with others, and just like Lawrence did, to communicate to them that they are a person of worth. We're created by God, loved by God, known by God, and important; this is a message that our world needs to hear. And we can do it without a word being spoken by modeling it and demonstrating with our lives.
Some of you may be thinking now, the challenges that will pose in our busy, over-scheduled world. To have to slow down and be present in the moment with God and with those that come in our path. So for this year I want us to be practicing presence. I want that to be our focus. I want that to be our theme. I want that to be what drives us. To be present in our relationship with God. I also want us to work on the things that help us to be incarnational, to be representatives of Jesus to the world that we've come in contact with. I want us to see people through a different lens than what the world sees them and to go and reach after them and say, "You look like you're having a bad day; let's sit down and talk;" and see how it changes their life and see how it changes our life. I want people to see something different in us like they saw in Brother Lawrence and come to try to figure out what it is that's different. I want them to be drawn to what's happening here at First United Methodist Church. Truthfully, I want them to be drawn to any church in our community so that it can experience the love of God through Jesus Christ. And it happens through our presence.
Church Christmas is over tomorrow, John's already mentioned that. But I have one more gift I want us to be able to receive one more gift for everyone here. We have new church mugs. And as we were talking about this, we think the coffee mug is the perfect symbol of presence. Because when I see it, I imagine in the morning getting up and putting a cup of hot coffee or hot tea or hot chocolate or something in there, and kind of getting in your comfy chair and your quiet space, and spending time and prayer in devotion and reading the scriptures. And so a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is can be a symbol of that presence with God, of spending that time dedicated to God. But a coffee cup also means sitting across the table from a friend sharing a beverage together, enjoying being in the presence of each other. And so I want this coffee cup to be a symbol for us, of what it means to practice presence, to slow down, to enjoy the simple things that take time to be with God, to be with each other, to be present in the moment. So church, I challenge us simply and powerfully to be practicing presence in 2026, vertically with God and horizontally with one another and with our community around us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
