Yesterday, I had the honor of preaching (this word makes me very nervous--I have never seen myself as a preacher, so as I write it, I cringe a little. Don't ask me why, it is one of my hang-ups. HA!)...er....speaking at both the 8 am and 10 am service at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Alexandria, VA. I was speaking on Christ Walk as a part of the kick-off to our six-week Lenten series.
I would like to share with you those words I gave to my church with the hope that you all will also take a Christ Walk journey with me:
Good morning! The last 3 months, I have been critiquing our
seminarian's sermons as a part of the seminarian committee. Scott assures me there will be payback as I
stand at the pulpit myself for a change.
:)
Let me tell you a
little bit about myself.
My name is Anna and
I am here to talk to you about my program, "Christ Walk: a 40 Day
spiritual fitness program." I hope
you will use Christ Walk as a part of your Lenten discipline or as a part of a
future spiritual journey. Christ Walk is all about dedicating your daily
practice to God: mind, body and spirit.
I am a registered
nurse by training. Through my job and my
ministry, I have been working in the healthcare field for over 18 years
now. I developed the Christ Walk program
in 2008 out of a strong call to combine my physical health with my spiritual
health and share this with others.
I have often felt
people separate their mind, body and spiritual health into silos. We allocate time for church life separate
from our home and work life. Similarly,
we allocate time for physical health, separate from our spiritual
development. We cannot reach an optimum
level of health when we segregate our mental, spiritual and physical sides. This lent, I invite you on a journey that
will integrate your mind, body and spiritual health.
Lent is not like
Christmas. People drag their feet towards lent rather than the eager countdown
to Christ's birth, Santa Claus and many presents. The Easter bunny does not hold a candle to
Santa Claus. I think deep down we know
that we may have focused a little too much on the secular side of Christmas,
focusing on gifts and parties and indulgences rather than the coming of Christ. When Lent rolls around, following the
Christmas rush, we feel a little guilty.
We feel a little out of step with our Christian practice.
Lent reminds us
that our Christian practice is more than gifts and Christmas trees. Lent
intrudes upon our Christian practice. I
find it ironic, because Lent is a period of preparation for the greatest gift
of them all: Christ's death and
resurrection. Lent is a time where we
need to prepare ourselves for the gift of Christ's sacrifice.
Lent reminds people
that they need to change. While the gift of Christ is freely given, it comes at
a cost: The cost of Jesus' crucifixion. The crucifixion is also freely given,
yet it reminds us that we need to be better people to honor the gift of death
in order that we might have life
everlasting. The gift of the
resurrection reminds us all that God has the power to transform. God will
transform you spiritually, physically, and mentally if we allow God into our
daily practice.
God transformed
me. When I was 12, I lost my hearing to
an auto-immune disease. At the time, the
doctors did not know what was going on with me.
My blood work was very abnormal and I was put on many experimental
therapies to try and stop my hearing loss.
Three years later, many drug therapies later, I still lost all my
hearing. I stand before you today,
legally deaf. I wear cochlear implants
that allow me to hear, but for a period of time, I did not hear at all.
During this time, I
have a very vivid memory of being at church.
We had all stood to say the Nicene Creed. I could not hear at all. At this point, in my journey, I was deaf and
without any hearing aids. I became very,
very angry. I felt abandoned by God, and
I thought it was very pointless to be at church when I felt that I could not participate
in the liturgy. I remember to this day,
the furious tears, and the hot feeling under my skin as I sat down and refused
to participate in the rest of the service. You know that feeling. Your skin tingles, you feel hot, and red, and
your hair feels like it is standing on end.
My mind was
screaming, "How can I do this and not hear?" "How can I be fully
participatory in the church experience when I am so broken?" As a willful teenager, I felt like screaming
in my head, "What's the point?"
I dearly wanted to walk out of that church and never come back. I felt there was no place for me. Illness and Disease have a way of making you
feel that you are something less.
Disease and illness have this tendency to take away your identity, even
as a Christian.
During this moment in the service where I felt
less than, I felt more than alone. I
felt abandoned as an individual. I was
paralyzed by being unable to hear and participate in the communion with other
people.
And then the
Eucharist began. I felt a sudden peace come over me. My tears stopped. My heart rate slowed. I felt like I was being hugged. I distinctly remember the presence of the
Holy Spirit. And it spoke to me. And I heard God tell me that I did not have
to HEAR to participate. My Christ Walk
had little to do with what I was HEARING and everything to do with what I was doing in my life. We are not only called to HEAR the gospel,
but we are called to LIVE it. My hearing
may be broken, but I can still live the gospel.
I still have a purpose. For 35
years I worked at "Christ Walking" with what I have, with how God
made me. I developed this program and I
wrote this book, I felt like I was living a Christ-centered life.
And then, In
October of 2014, at the same time my
book was being published, I was diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma. Once again, my identity as a healthy member
of the church of God, as a pillar of health and fitness was being challenged by
my personal thoughts on who I was as an individual. I had gotten wrapped up in a perception of
what I thought was and how healthy should be portrayed. I dearly wondered how I could publish a book
on health and fitness when I was ill. Once
again, disease and illness was trying to threaten who I was and make me less
than what God intended for me.
I have come to
realize that God gave me other gifts besides my hearing. God has made me more than my cancer. I have learned that I can manage my disease
through exercise, good nutrition and managing my mind, body and spiritual
health. My cancer does not change that I need to Christ Walk each day.
So, I invite you to join me in the Christ Walk
program to see how the Holy Spirit can transform your life, mind, body and
spirit. You are more than your disease,
illness, anxieties, pains, and problems.
God can also use you in the midst of your brokenness. God uses me daily, and I am very, very broken
individual.
Christ Walk is a 40
day program designed to prepare yourself mind, body and spirit to lead a
Christ-filled life that is also healthy.
We need to learn to treat our broken bodies with care because as St.
Paul tells us: "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy
Spirit, who is in you?"
Our bodies house
the gift of the Holy Spirit. Genesis tells us that we are made in the image of
God. Very few of us treat our bodies
like temples or as though God loved us so much to be made in God's image.
Rather, we make
choices that treat our bodies in a careless fashion. We punish our bodies for our thoughts,
feelings, and anxieties. We blame our
bodies for being broken. We eat too
much, drink too much, fail to exercise, misuse medications, stress too much and
make choices that do not care for this body that has the Holy Spirit within us. We do not treat ourselves like temples.
Lent is an
opportunity for us to relook at our everyday habits, not only spiritually, but
also physically and mentally so that we can turn to Christ in all of our
choices, not just in our prayer life. A
Christ-like life, is something that we should chose to try and live each
day. Not just on church holidays.
This Lent, choose
the Christ Walk program. What does this
mean? Instead of giving up chocolate, or sweets or other temptation, I ask you
to take a walk with me. Christ Walk is a
devotional that uses walking different biblical routes to symbolize the journey
we take with Christ in our everyday life. You will choose a biblical route to walk.
These routes are
listed in the Christ Walk book. You will
choose one of the routes that appeals to you. And you will dedicate yourself to this route
over 40 days.
You can earn miles
to your route in many different ways.
You can walk, bike, swim, volunteer or pray in order to earn miles
towards your route. By the end of your
discipline, you will have collected enough miles towards your chosen route and
completed your journey. Christ Walk is about being intentional in our choices. We look at everyday choices and ensure that
God is a part of those everyday choices.
Some examples of
the different routes you can walk include the following: One route is the distance between Bethlehem
and Jerusalem; signifying the journey between Christ's beginning and his end. Another route is the "Via Delarosa, or
the Way of Sorrows. This route is the
journey Jesus made as he walked through Jerusalem towards the cross. There are several routes from Paul's
missionary journeys. There are many different
routes to choose from. You will choose a
route that calls to you.
If you are unable
to exercise, each 15 minute block of prayer, volunteerism, or outreach
opportunity you take on will count as a "mile" towards your goal. Christ Walk is designed for anyone at any
level of fitness to participate. In
fact, I have had Christ Walk participants in wheelchairs and walkers that have
found ways to earn miles during their Christ Walk journey.
Your miles, however
you walk, run, bike, swim, volunteer, or pray through are steps you can use on
your walk with Christ. I encourage you
to challenge your kids, or grandkids to see if they can get more miles than you
on this journey. Get the whole family
involved near and far.
The goal of Christ
Walk is to build a strong temple so that we all can continue to do the work
that Christ calls us to do in the world.
The Christ Walk program
comes with a book you will have the opportunity to purchase today. The book
includes pages for you to journal about your journey and spiritual
experience. The book also includes a
mileage tracker for you to write down the miles you complete each day towards
your journey. However you choose to
collect your miles, you need to write them down. This way, you will know how far you have come
on your journey over the next 40 days.
Each chapter of the
book corresponds with a day during the 40 day journey with reflections on
different things we can do each day to make healthier choices. Over the next 40 days you will meet weekly with
your Christ Walk team, pray together and reflect together on the meditations in
the books and discuss ways that you as a church can support each other towards
healthier living. Each chapter includes
questions for discussions and thought.
Christ Walk groups meet to discuss the chapters and participate in
different activities each week. Christ Walk can be done as an individual
devotional, but the best journeys in life are those we take with our families
and communities together. I really encourage you to participate with your
church.
God does call us to
change. We are called in our baptismal
covenant. We are called when we confirm
that we are members of the body of Christ during confirmation. We are called daily to represent God's love
here on earth. This is not just a call
of prayer, but also a call of action.
Being a Christian is all about everything we DO and every way we ACT and
the CHOICES we make not only with one another, but also with ourselves.
When I was growing up, I used to say Christmas was
my favorite holiday. My father, a priest, would always say that Good Friday and
Easter were his. This always made me scratch my head as a child as I could not
understand how Santa Clause and Christmas were not someone's favorite holiday.
As I have grown older, the gift of Easter grows
each year and I have come to think of it as my favorite holiday. As I have grown, I have learned that the gift
of the resurrection is the greatest gift of them all.
Now, I get excited
for Lent. I use the Lenten period to
prepare myself mind, body and spirit to receive the gift of God and strengthen
my skills to use myself in God's calling in my life. Lent is a time that we can
spring clean our lives mind, body and spirit so we are prepared for the
springing of Easter. Lent is my time
to rededicate myself to God's calling in my life. Despite being broken, I still have a purpose
in God's kingdom. You do too.
Lent is not something to drag one's heels. Rather,
look with anticipation the coming journey and the change God can make within
you. At the End of this forty days, You WILL be a changed person.
In closing, I would
like to share with you the Christ Walk prayer:
The Lord be with you:
I will try this day to walk the path set
before me
I will try to walk a little longer, a little stronger
I will walk with my mind, body and spirit
I will walk with others, I will walk for others
I will walk when others cannot
I will be still and know that you are God on the days I cannot walk
I will walk with you Lord, on the path you set before me
When my own feet fail, I know you will help me get up and walk again
I will imagine what it would be like to walk in Christ's shoes
And try to live my life as though I was on Christ's path
I will pray that I walk the path I am called to and not turn down paths I am not
Today, Lord, on my journey I will Christ Walk
And I am thankful that you Christ Walk with me too.
Amen
Come, Christ Walk with me.
Tomorrow, I'll share with you what we did for our first Christ Walk evening.
Keep walking! ~~Anna
