September 13, 2026
• Rev. Mindie Moore
Rhythms Week 1: Rosh Hashana
September 13
Leviticus 23:23-25
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Today is our Back to Church Sunday, we're back with our two worship hours which is so exciting! Make sure you stick around a bit after for fun for the kids, a chance to connect with some of our ministries—including a BRAND NEW opportunity for a Kids' Choir—and time to hang out together.
And it's an exciting day too because we're kicking off a new sermon series called Rhythms. One of the reasons I'm so excited for this series is that it's pretty different than anything we've done before. We're going to spend the next three weeks learning about the Jewish High Holidays—Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot—to see what these ancient practices teach us about creating a life that is based around rhythms of connecting with God and each other. Our services will have a little bit more experiential components to them. And I hope that we will all walk away from these three weeks having grown in our own spiritual lives as we've learned about another faith.
One of the cool things that I get to do as clergy is connect regularly with a group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian faith leaders over breakfast. This is the same group that puts on the Interfaith Thanksgiving service that we got to host here at Midtown a couple of years ago. And that's such a gift to me because I think there's a lot of narrative about being divided, about keeping things that are unfamiliar or new to us at arms length.
But every time I get together with this group, I don't see that. We might have different beliefs and practices, but there's this beautiful support between us as faith leaders that is such a gift. I'm reminded of a panel I was on years ago, when I was still considered a "young adult representative of my faith tradition." Those were the days! And one of the things we talked about on that panel is that research actually shows that people who engage in interfaith relationships and connections grow STRONGER in their own faith of origin. Being connected to each other beyond what we're innately familiar with makes us better, all around. In faith, in life, in all of it.
So we're starting today by looking at (SLIDE) Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Today, the second day of the festival, marks the beginning of year 5787 in the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah is a celebration of creation and God’s creative power, of our need for turning and returning to God, and our hope for renewal and God’s power to restore all that is broken in our world. This is a very celebratory holiday. There are big dinners, almost like you'd think of for Thanksgiving, and people focus on what they are looking forward to in the year ahead.
One of the distinct things that happens in worship at Rosh Hashana is the blowing of a ram's horn, known as a shofar. And this morning I'm excited that we have some special guests with us, Elizabeth and Jack Friedland. They attend a local synagogue and live in Midtown. Elizabeth and I had the BEST coffee the other day where she was so kind to let me ask all kinds of questions about what it's like for a Jewish family to observe these holidays. So you're going to hear me reference Elizabeth during this series multiple times. And I wanted to invite them to share this tradition with us and say a few words about Rosh Hashana.
Elizabeth and Jack (3 minutes) (VIDEO AT 11am)
Rosh Hashana is one example of how Jews practice spiritual rhythms in their faith. Another one is the keeping of Sabbath, or Shabbat, which happens every week. And one of the things I think we can really learn from our Jewish siblings is that (SLIDE) rituals and rhythms matter for our spiritual life. That feels like such a crucial thing that I know I at least often miss. It's easy to just go, go, go...and we don't always know where we're going or why we're going there. It's easy miss God in the middle of all the things.
If you think about your typical week, I'm curious how much of a role spiritual rhythms play vs. How much just sort of happens. There are lots of things I do every single day, but most of those things don't require a lot of thought. And that's great, it's efficient, but it's not the same thing as having an on purpose spiritual rhythm.
Because spiritual rhythms are highly intentional. They take time, planning, making space in our calendars and in our souls. And I think sometimes we can get a little intimidated by that, or honestly, maybe that just makes us feel tired. Like you might be hearing this and think—I am really just trying to get myself or my people from point A to point B with as little drama as possible, I'm not doing a lot of preparing my calendar and my soul.
Fair...and heard. AND. Spiritual rhythms are one of those things that I really think are worth the time and effort they take to make part of our lives. They just anchor us to some things that are really important and they remind us of a few important things: (SLIDE)
Sacred rhythms help us remember:
What God has done.
What God is doing.
What we are to do.
So let's start with that first one, remembering what God has done. During this series, we're going to be spending the majority of our time in the book of Leviticus, which I KNOW is a real page turner. This book gets such a bad rap because, first of all, this is where your Bible in a year reading plan goes to die (how many of you have given up when you get to Leviticus?) and also, we take two extreme views. We either fall into the camp of "oh, this is just a long list of antiquated rules that don't apply to me." OR random parts get taken out of context and plopped into our cotemporary world, typically to harm vulnerable groups of people.
I think both of those kinds of readings of this book are missing the bigger picture. Because Leviticus IS full of instruction and laws...and it's for a really important purpose. The messages in this book show the way to what it means to live a life that reflects who God is. It teaches people living in a VERY specific time how to worship. It teaches them how to be a blessing to their neighbor and care about justice. It teaches them how to have a relationship with their Creator.
And this section of Leviticus is all about the different festivals that God is instructing the people to intentionally put into their rhythm so that they CAN be connected to God. So that they CAN have spiritual practices that guide their lives.
So that they CAN (SLIDE) Remember what God has done.
One of the things Elizabeth noted when we had coffee was that the sounding of the shofar is like a symbolic spiritual wake up call. And as that sound fills the air on Rosh Hashana, as people reflect on what they would like the year ahead to look like and what it means to be dependent on God IN the new year, there's an invitation to really evaluate how one spends their time.
And by remembering what God has done in our lives, we're also reminded that God is the one who holds that time. That it's not all up to us and that when we make space to remember God's faithfulness, that can set the stage for the ways we move forward.
A couple weeks ago, Jim Ozier from Church Difference Makers was with us for the weekend, leading us through something called the Changeover Zone Workshop as we prepare for our senior pastor, Rob Fuquay, to retire next year.
Jim came to Midtown on Sunday afternoon to share a few ways that multisite locations can be engaged in a Senior Pastor Transition, because it's a bit of a unique dynamic. Jim started his time with our group—and there were probably 20 of us—by asking everyone to go around and share how they came to Midtown.
I have to tell you, I came to that gathering prepared to receive practical information. I did not come to that gathering to have an intense reminder of God's goodness and faithfulness. But that's exactly what I got. Hearing story after story of people healing from church hurt, finding a community where they could be affirmed and loved for exactly who they are...it will not surprise some of you that I was a whole puddle of emotion by then end. It was just beautiful! And I was SO THANKFUL that Jim took the time, on purpose, to create space where we could remember what God has done here. We need to do that more. Because it's remembering that faithfulness that helps lead us into the places that God will continue to take us. It helps us appreciate what's going on around us in a new and powerful way.
Remembering what God HAS done helps us be present enough to (SLIDE) Remember what God is doing. It makes me think of that scene from The Office where Andy says, "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them."
The good news is...I think there IS. Like I don't think we're predetermined to miss the good that's happening around us. For some of us, that might be the biggest spiritual wake up call of all—to just know and then practice seeing what God is up to in the moment we're in. To be present in a way that lets us pay attention and be filled with gratitude.
Several years ago, David Brooks wrote a piece for the New York Times called "There Should Be More Rituals!". And it really speaks to this longing to experience what is happening right in front of us in a way that feels special and is able to mark time. I'm going to read you just a bit of the article:
Because as we see that work happening, what I think will naturally happen in us...is that we will
(SLIDE) Remember what we are to do.
The God of creation is still creating through us...and we play a crucial part in the work God is doing in this world.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (SLIDE) was a famous voice not only in Judaism but far beyond. He was deeply engaged in Civil Rights, marching with Martin Luther King Jr, and protesting the Vietnam War. In his autobiography, he tells a story of a profound moment in his spiritual life where he remembered what God was calling him to do.
He had heard the story of the Binding of Isaac from Genesis 22, which is a common text used for Rosh Hashana. In this story, Abraham, whom God had promised that his son Isaac would create this long lineage from, brings this very son, who is supposed to be the hope of the world, to be sacrificed. BUT! An angel intervenes at the last minute and his son is spared. Heshel found himself weeping at the story. His rabbi came over to check on him and see why he was crying—after all, he knew the story; he knew that Isaac was not killed.
Heschel continued to weep and asked, "But Rabbi, suppose the angel had come just a second too late?" The rabbi comforted him and said that an angel cannot come late.
When he reflected on this later in his life, Heschel said that while that was a nice thought, he later came to the realization that, "While an angel cannot be late, man, made of flesh and blood, may be." It became a driving force of his life to show up in places where there was justice work to be done, because he believed it was the collective call of people of God to do that work.
Cultivating spiritual rhythms is more than just creating peace and faith in our inner selves. Spiritual rhythms help wake us up to how we can create a world that is more like God would intend it to be. They help us reject the poles of cynicism or helplessness and instead empower us to be present, to take action, and to do that with the deep understanding of who our God is.
In your bulletins, you have this half sheet of paper that gives you some ways to assess the rhythms that make up your life and to put these three things into practice this week. I want to encourage you to do that—there will actually be an insert each week of this series. Take these things home, let what we talk about in here shape your life beyond this room. And see what kind of spiritual wake up call God might have for you in this next season.
Let's pray.