Fun@Church

In celebration of Summer Solstice, my message for church this morning.

Fun@Church
When was the last time you came to church on Sunday morning to have fun? I know we expect to be fed spiritually at church. We expect to be intellectually challenged. We might even expect to be made guilty or to have our guilt assuaged for our shortcomings.
And when you come to church for a pagan ritual, like for Litha today, you expect to have some grounding and ritual that will mark the season’s changing. Today, that ritual is laughter. Yes, there are traditional bonfires to be leaped and stories of the greenman to be told, but summer solstice is the time when we celebrate summer. Even though we call it midsummer night, our western calendar marks it as the beginning of summer, and summer means fun.
How could we better mark the end of school, the coming vacation, the rising of the sun, and the opening of boating season, than by having fun? It is summer!
Open all the windows in your house and let the air blow through.
Have breakfast on your deck.
Go to Wild Waves, or if you can’t, run through the sprinkler in your yard.
Light the barbecue grill and invite the neighbors to bring something over to grill with you.
Put on a T-shirt and go for a walk in the rain. If, when you are done, you can’t wring at least a cup of water out of the shirt, you didn’t walk long enough or it wasn’t raining hard enough!
Play ball! Baseball, soccer, basketball, or even golf.
Wake up with the sun and go to bed with the sun.
Join the chapel crew for lunch on Saturday. Or just join the chapel crew.
Clean out the attic and give everything to charity. To paraphrase Jesus, “The poor you have with you always. Summer only lasts two months.”
Make every weed you pull in the garden a celebration of life.
Sleep outside.
Swim, hike, bike, swing, run, play, laugh. It is time to have fun! Welcome to Litha. Welcome to summer!