Sermon “Doing Without Doing” The Rev. Rali Weaver

As we approach the busy Autumn and recognize the change in the season I thought it might do us some good to reflect upon not doing and ponder what would happen if we just all stopped.

“Do without Doing and Everything Gets Done” is an ancient proverb dating back as far as the development of The Book of Changes, which, is one of the oldest Chinese texts dated from the Han Dynasty that began approximately 50 BCE. The Book of Changes and the I-Ching (which is the divination system associated with it are both centered upon the concept of the dynamic balance of opposites and the inevitability of change.

So my question today is what if amidst all the change of season we could find ways to “do without doing” how might that open us up and shift the energy around us?

Lets begin by imagining if we all stopped doing the things we didn’t want to do?

Personally I would find that difficult.

I carry a deep sense of ingrained “should” and “should have” that keep me focused on what I need to be doing at all times.

So I imagine doing without actually doing anything I don’t want to do could be uncomfortable.

Yesterday we had a wedding here with a couple who are not members of our church. They were nice people and yet their idea of how to respect our space and mine were very different. There were all kinds of communication difficulties in the planning stages and around the start time of the service, and then between the visiting organist and myself as to the length of the prelude and processional and bridal march. The effect was that the groomsman showed up and hour early to smoke cigarettes and drink beer on the green and the bride showed up late and ended up marching down in silence to be standing for some time at the chancel with her future husband crying his eyes out while the bridal march played.

This is where I became bogged down by a great deal of “should haves”. This was my first wedding at First Church. And I didn’t think about the fact that I should tell the groomsman how to behave or that a visiting organist wouldn’t be able to see over the top of the clock or read my signals or watch the wedding party to know what to do. The result was a less than perfect service and all of my feeling of “shoulds’ stared kicking me. You should have spoken to Ricky about the way to behave at a church, You should have gotten a mirror for the organist and worked out hand signals before the start of the service.

The effect of the wedding itself was positive for the couple who gushed to me after it was over “oh that was so Ricky and Eileen” and for the guests who hunted me down when I was hiding in the back trying to avoid eye contact, to tell me how wonderful they thought it was.

Do without doing.

I would have never ever in a million years planned a service in that way.

But because it wasn’t perfectly orchestrated, in its imperfectness, the formerly catholic couple felt affirmed in their more casual way of being in the world.

My not doing did something I had not and would never have planned.

Because I did not talk to Ricky about how to behave at a church I did have to clean up a bit after him and his 12 groomsman but for the most part the men had picked up after themselves all along and my additional clean up only had to do with picking up their trash can and sweeping up a few rose petals.

I could not have been happy leaving that mess.

And couldn’t have not cleaned up.

Not explaining to the Groom there could be no drinking on the property created the problem.

Sometimes our Doing without doing will lead to some issue that will require our doing. But the way I see it the picking up of trash and rose petals is a different sort of clean up than I usually do around here and in truth I enjoyed doing. It felt effortless. And when the wedding was through and everything put aright I felt a sense of completion I rarely have in my work.

Some doing is effortless and some is not. Find the things that feel effortless is one key to doing with out doing.

Not doing or not having something to do can leave me felling very disconcerted.

A constant feeling of agitation can come over me if I don’t have a task at hand.

How can I be of use if I am not Doing Anything?

Last summer I encountered this phenomenon when visiting my friend in the Adirondacks. I worked hard for nearly ten days straight moving rock walls and scraping and buildings and weeding her garden. At first some of this doing felt silly. Who weeds in the wilderness? But after days of effort I had a rhythm to my work and it all felt effortless. About that time my friend said to me “its time to stop. I want you to do nothing for the rest of the trip” and these words created in me a sense of unrest.

What would I do with myself?

My first reaction was to criticize and to evaluate everything that was going on around me. After a period of time I was able to simply accept the state I was in and use that time to reflect and soak in all the beauty and magic that surrounded me.

By allowing ourselves to “not do” in the ordinary way we open up new ways of seeing things and provide space for new possibilities.

What do you refuse to allow space for when you are in a mode of constant doing?

What do you refuse to allow space for when you are in a mode of constant doing?

In my previous career as a teacher for children with behavioral and emotional impairments I also served as a consultant assisting students with transitions back to public school.

When the children I worked with would transition I noticed it created in the new teachers a sense of anxiety as evidenced by the urgent phone calls I would receive several times a day.

At first I would respond to each crisis in an immediate fashion in order to set their minds at ease.

This won me many points with them. They never had to worry too much about things because they knew I would come to their rescue. I had about 12 students I was transitioning to various school districts in a 100-mile radius of our school. The effect of this type of response left me running in a million directions every day.

It was only a short amount of time before I realized that this was burning me out.

It was then that I realized that just because it was a crisis for them did not mean it had to create a crisis for me and so I started doing without doing.

When a teacher would call in crisis about a student, I would let it go to voicemail. About 30 minutes to an hour later I would call back and you know what? By the time I called back they had almost always figured out how to solve the problem – without me.

Doing without doing.

All of the world’s religions have some element of not doing or waiting for the spring to fill up or preparing our hearts.

My favorite concept of this is that of the “jubilee year” as presented in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the book of Leviticus God ordained that every seventh year was to be a year of rest for the land of Israel. The biblical requirement is that the Jubilee year was to be treated like a Sabbatical year, with the land lying fallow, and also required the compulsory return of all property to its original owners or their heirs in addition to the release of all slaves. The idea was that everything was on loan from God and every seven years it would return to God.

I wonder what would be required if we were to consider a Jubilee Year in our context?

What would we need to let lie fallow?

And what might enter in if we did?

What room would be required for the divine to lead us?

How could we recognize by our actions that nothing that happens here is ours- but belongs to our whole community and to the divine presence within our community?

Our readings this morning primarily focused on doing nothing as in meditation. But I believe that some of these same truths are also here if we consider our entire lives a meditation.

There are countless things we miss by rushing to our to do list each day. The relaxed moments of nothing escape us. Conversations full of havering are lost to us. When we always sing to the sound of the organ we miss the sound of our voices.

If we slow down, don’t step in immediately, allow room without expectation, walk meditatively into every action, approach every activity in blankness as though we were starting anew what might have room to grow?

If we can allow ourselves to pause in our response and to wait who or what might we make room for?

Life can at times appear to be an endless to do list. What if we threw that list out and just waited?

What tasks would just fall away?

Without leaving spaces in our doing we never allow room to figure out what is important.

It would be silly for me to stand up here and say to you “Do Nothing” of course. It takes all of us to make this a church. And there is always doing to be done here.

What I am encouraging all of us to do is to allow time each day for some not doing, and to live some of our moments together within the ambiguity of that same emptiness. Perhaps we will see an empty chancel when nobody signs up for flowers or no food at social hour when nobody signs up as host.

What I wish for us is that our not doing would feel as familiar to each of us as our doing. When the emptiness comes that we would embrace it and recognize its teaching and when we are called upon to do something it would be done with a sense of effortlessness. I hope that we would know when to let go and wait and when to step in with joy. And that nothing that happened in this place would ever feel burdensome.

May the blankness be our guide and may the emptiness open our hearts to the gifts that surround us. And may we do without a sense of doing and let everything get done.