PHOTO PROVIDED Rev. Dr. Mark Boyea

Like many others here and around the world, I paid a fair amount of attention over the last two weeks to the recently concluded Summer Olympic Games from France. But even if you only watched those Olympics for a short time, there’s a good chance you heard a particular word or one of its variations used.

That word is focus.

Throughout the Olympics, athletes, coaches and commentators used it regularly, saying things like, “We just needed to keep our focus” or “I will have to stay focused in order to medal.”

But what does that term mean?

The fields of sport and performance psychology basically understand focus as both understanding and maintaining our attention on what matters most in the moment.

As it is for the athletics Olympics, it is for the spiritual Olympics.

In order to live as much in union with God and God’s ways as possible — in order to become an excellent spiritual athlete, we need to keep our spiritual focus. We need to understand and maintain our attention on what matters most in the moment. And what is it that matters most in the moment when it comes to our spiritual lives? The same thing that matters most in every moment.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment — the most important commandment — the commandment that matters most was, he responds, quoting the Jewish Scriptures, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” But then he adds, also quoting the same Jewish Scriptures, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

When Jesus talks about “love of neighbor” though, he is not speaking of the emotion. As Christian theologians and spiritual leaders have seen it for centuries, “love” is best understood as an act; a behavior; a way of being in the world that treats others as God calls us to, regardless of how we feel about them.

That is the focus we need to be outstanding spiritual athletes. And it is also the focus we need if we hope to “bring down the temperature.”

Over the last four Sundays at the Sanibel Congregational United Church of Christ, we have been exploring the theme “Bringing Down the Temperature,” the phrase that was used repeatedly in the immediate aftermath of the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life in July, and which was a reference to the heated state of our political, social and religious discourse in our nation in these times.

But how do we do that? How do we be the kind of spiritual athletes who keep their focus on “loving our neighbor as ourselves,” especially our neighbor who we disagree with or even dislike? As we have been discussing at SCUCC, there are no grand gestures or habits — only small ones, faithfully repeated. Small gestures or habits like, for example:

– Practice the “5 Second Rule”: Not the one we may have heard as kids that said if we dropped some food item on the floor it was still OK to eat it as long as we got to it within 5 seconds. This “5 Second Rule” calls on us to wait a few seconds before we respond to things that others say, especially regarding difficult or sensitive issues. That time allows for our more emotionally related brain functions to be set aside in favor of our “higher” brain functions, like analysis and reason.

– Ask more questions: When was the last time we asked someone we disagree with questions like, “Why do you see it that way?” or “What do you base that view on?”, rather than immediately looking to rebut or dismiss their position. As the well-known quote which has its origins with Aristotle puts it, “Seek first to understand then be understood.”

– Remember that God is not on our team: The renowned writer Anne Lamott reminds us that, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” And as Abraham Lincoln said, “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side.”

– Ignore the hype: Day by day, moment by moment, we are presented newspaper headlines, email subject lines and bottom of the screen scrolls on news channels that say things like, Republicans — or Democrats — are “outraged” by … The internet is “losing its mind” over… You should be “disgusted” with … Ignore that stuff. It is an attempt at emotional manipulation. Step back and see what exactly the supposed “outrageous,” “mind blowing,” “disgusting” thing is. And then consider, “Is it really?” Most likely, it’s not.

– And lastly, keep a sense of humor: Spiritual leaders from all traditions throughout history have understood that the capacity to laugh with (not at) others and laugh at ourselves is a vital part of being an accomplished spiritual athlete. This does not mean in any way that we are to “laugh off” serious concerns and issues. But in this time our political, social and religious discourse seems to more and more encourage, even expect us to be humorless or make fun of those who we differ with. This is both spiritually and psychologically unhealthy.

The athletics Olympics are now over for another four years. But the spiritual Olympics never end. And right now, one of the most important events facing us is bringing down the temperature. May we become as successful as possible by keeping our focus on God’s call through Jesus, as well as the Jewish Scriptures, to “love our neighbor as ourselves.”

The Rev. Dr. Mark Boyea is senior minister at the Sanibel Congregational United Church of Christ.