Running The Race
Sermon
Sermons on the Second Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
Every week in our country millions of people go to stadiums and arenas to participate in the thrills and chills of athletic competition. Athletic competition attracts people as participants and spectators for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most universal reason for the appeal of sports is the similarity between what goes on in the arena of athletic competition and the arena of life. Athletic competition is a microcosm of life, because we all love to compete and win.
In our second lesson for today, Saint Paul uses an image from the arena of athletic competition to describe the nature of the Christian life. Paul compares the Christian life to running a race. In a series of very carefully chosen verbs Paul dramatically describes the Christian life like a race as he "presses on" toward victory. He "strains forward" to the finish line. He "presses on" to reach "the goal" to capture "the prize."
However, if we take a close look at what Paul is saying here, it becomes less and less clear as to why Paul would ever want to choose this kind of an image to describe his life. He hardly looks like an Olympic track star about to capture the gold medal. He hardly looks like a champion about to seize another victory. He is writing this letter from prison. He is accused of being a criminal. He is in grave danger of losing his life. He looks more like a loser than a winner, more like a weakling than a champion. Nevertheless, he is confident and certain of victory. He is not the least bit worried or fearful of defeat.
Athletic competition appeals to so many because after the final gun has sounded and some have enjoyed "the thrill of victory" and others have suffered "the agony of defeat," we can always walk away from it. Unlike the rest of life, it is "only a game." It was only "just for the fun of it." It was not a matter of life and death.
Once the contest moves out of the contrived "make believe" world of the gymnasium or the gridiron, the stakes increase dramatically. It is no longer "just a game." Instead of taking our positions on the court or on the field, we take our positions in the office, the factory, the classroom, the lab, the family. Suddenly we are "playing for keeps." Suddenly whether we win or lose does matter. It matters to our family, our friends, our coworkers, our colleagues, our customers, and all those who depend on us and our success. It even matters to God. As we contend with the pressures and demands of living, we are not only contending with the marketplace, quotas, profit margins, peer reviews, and crabby children, but with the demands of God.
Vince Lombardi supposedly said it: "Winning isn't every thing. It's the only thing!" It could just as easily have been said by God who insists that unless our "righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."
Whew! That ups the stakes significantly. Life is tough enough without having God breathing down our necks.
We all seek to cope with these demands in different ways. Sometimes we make excuses and "pass the buck." Sometimes it is easier to blame our poor finish on someone else than to accept responsibility for ourselves. Sometimes it's easier to blame our poor grade on a poor night's sleep or the distraction of a television show than to admit that we just didn't study. Sometimes it is easier to blame our failure to get promoted on work place politics rather than to admit that we just didn't do a good job. We think we have run the race well but the reality is that we are not track stars. We are more like molasses in January than a jack rabbit in June.
Some of us wouldn't think of making excuses. We are competitors. We like winning. We are willing to make sacrifices. But while running down the backstretch, we feel our legs getting heavy. Our lungs are short of breath. We start falling behind. We start to panic. The thought of not winning terrifies us. So, we bend the rules a little. We cut off an opponent. We "accidentally" trip the runner beside us. We reason that we had no choice because, when winning isn't just everything but the only thing, all is legal. "All is fair in love and war" -- a little lie, a slight overstatement, a wee bit of exaggeration, the carefully placed rumor, an unfortunate slip of the tongue, a timely deletion on the computer -- all become a way of life. Suddenly the race that we loved to run has become the burden we cannot bear. The innocent bending of the rules has become a cancer destroying not only the joy of competition but our relationships with our friends, our neighbors, and our fellow competitors. Infected with distrust, suspicion, jealousy, and even hatred, friendly competition has become a war.
Some of us like to compete because we like to win. We are proud of the fact that we do it fair and square. We can point to our great successes and manifold victories. We have a fine collection of trophies and medals to show for it: a big house in the right neighborhood, the perfect family with children all above average, a successful career and lifestyle that suits our lofty status. But all good things must come to an end. The glory of victory is always passing. The recent teary-eyed retirement announcement of Brett Favre, one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, reminds us that "all things must pass." There is no mistaking the fact that "from dust we came and to dust we shall return." Brett Favre even acknowledged that his retirement was like dying. We spend more and more energy holding on to our fragile victories. But sooner or later they all fade into oblivion.
Years ago, when I used to jog in the cemetery, to pass the time as I ran I would carefully look at the names, dates, and sculptures that adorned graves there. Some of them were magnificent, large, ornate, and probably very expensive for their day. I used to think that the people buried here must have been big shots who wanted to be remembered. Now, most of them are forgotten, their names no longer remembered by anyone, their lives swept away by the seas of time. They must have worked so hard to be able to afford these magnificent monuments, but ultimately it all counted for nothing.
The thought of this can make us angry and bitter. It is enough to make us scream, "Foul!" This is no way for a winner to be treated! But such bitterness only further reveals the fact that we have trusted more in our blue ribbons and shiny medals than the promises of God. Such a trust will always be in vain and will always be disappointed.
If any one should have had a reason to cry, "Foul!" it was Paul. He had certainly been a success, a winner, a righteous man. Paul says that if anyone had a reason to be confident and proud of himself, it was he. He was the consummate Jew, "circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." In other words, he had a closet full of trophies and gold medals. He was admired by his peers. And he was sure that God was proud of him, too.
But he found himself in prison, in danger of losing his life. What kind of justice was this? Bitterness and anger could have poured from his lips. Yet, with an amazing sense of grace and peace, Paul felt no need to lament his fate. He felt no need to parade his trophies and ribbons for all to see and demand better treatment. What many of us would cling to at any cost, Paul simply dismissed as worthless, only so much garbage. In fact, the Greek word he used is quite a bit more graphic than that. Skibulla is the Greek word for "excrement." You can substitute in your own mind our popular four-letter equivalents that all too frequently pollute speech today. In other words, Paul minces no words when it comes to jettisoning the things that many of us would see as the things that really matter in life.
It might seem that Paul felt this way because he had lost everything. Of course, he regarded all of his accomplishments as so much skibulla. We would, too, if we had lost everything. I imagine that is exactly the way many felt along the gulf coast after experiencing the devastation of hurricane Katrina several years ago. All those possessions, those gorgeous homes, automobiles, hotels, resorts, and beautiful cities with their manicured neighborhoods were turned into rubble and ruin, so much skibulla. If you had lived there, you would have counted it garbage, too, just like Paul did who found himself in prison.
That is not the reason why Paul felt this way about his accomplishments. In fact, what many of us would see as the mark of defeat (being in prison), Paul regarded as a badge of honor. In spite of being behind bars, in spite of having lost everything, he thought of himself as a star athlete, running his race on his way to victory.
Paul certainly seemed to have some rather strange ideas about winning and losing. He talked like a winner when he looked like a loser. Paul wasn't just rationalizing away his defeat. He believed that he actually was a winner, even though he appeared to be running dead last. Why? Because he believed that he had already won the race!
Listen carefully, people. Now is when you get to see what a strange and wonderful race it is that we Christians get to run. In every other kind of race we couldn't dare to claim victory for ourselves because someone else won! Former Indiana coach, Bob Knight, already has his critics and those who think he is a little crazy. But can you imagine what everyone would have thought of him last year while he was still at Texas Tech if he had claimed to be the champion of the NCAA Tournament even before it started because Florida had won the year before? That sounds ludicrous! Even loyal Bob Knight fans might have wondered if he hadn't gone a little off the deep end. Yet, that is precisely the kind of claim Paul, and we, can make for ourselves while we are running the race of life.
In any other kind of race, it is our performance that really matters and counts for everything. How fast we run, how much money we put in the bank, how much power we command, how many gold medals we have in the closet are what really matter. We can't claim victory on the basis of some one else's performance. Even God won't let us get away with that one. As we are often reminded, it is the Ten Commandments not the ten suggestions. God is holding us accountable for our performance. We are judged on the basis of our performance. Every day we see people suffer because they think they can thumb their nose at God's commandments and get away with it. God will not be mocked. We might think we have accumulated a lot of trophies. We might be frantically trying to think of ways that we can explain away our lack of trophies. But the bottom line is that no one gets out alive. No one is able to finally win the big race of life and go on forever. I have yet to see a person who has escaped the cemetery.
Except for one! Someone has already crossed the finish line and won the race. And he did it for us! Of course, that winner is Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus, the Christ. God in Christ defeated the powers of sin and death. Christ carried the sins of the world to his grave and suffered their consequences, even God's own judgment, for us so that we might be free. Ever since that day he rose from the dead, he stands at the finish line, at the end of history, promising to share with us the consequences of his victory. When water was poured on us at the font in his name, we not only died and rose with Christ, we crossed the finish line as victors even before we got there. When we eat and drink at the table, we eat and drink the body and blood of the one who has already crossed the finish line ahead of us. We receive a foretaste of the victory to come. When we hear those glorious words, as we did today at the start of this service, announcing that all of our sins have been forgiven, we have been declared winners before we ever cross the finish line.
Trusting this promise makes all the difference in the world as we run the race. All the victories and accomplishments along the way are nice, but finally they are so much garbage, so much skibulla. They simply don't matter because of the surpassing value of knowing that Jesus Christ is our Lord. He has already won the race for us. Our eyes are focused on the prize that Jesus holds for us standing there at the finish line. We press on toward the goal looking forward to that day when we finally can claim what has already been promised to us.
I can assure you that when we start to live our lives like this, eyes will roll. Our neighbors will snicker. The critics will shake their heads. Many will wonder if we haven't gone off the deep end. But as they watch us run our race and the way we are free from all the stuff that weighs everyone else down, they might also begin to wonder why we don't care about the gold medals and blue ribbons. Under their breath we can hear them mutter, "They must think that they have already won the race." The truth of the matter is that we have!
We may not find ourselves behind bars and in prison like Paul. But when we do find ourselves losing ground and falling behind, when it seems that we not only will lose but come in last, we don't need to break the rules. We don't need to resort to making excuses. Why? Because coming in second or third or fourth or even dead last doesn't matter. We have already won. We have nothing to lose, everything to gain, and nothing to hide.
The fourth-century desert monk, Agathon, tells a story about what it is like to live your life and run your race when you have nothing to lose.
Some thieves came one day to the dwelling of an old man and said to him, "We have come to take everything that is in your house."
He said to them, "My children, take what seems good to you."
So they took what they found in the house and went away. Now they forgot a purse which happened to be hanging there. The old man picked it up and ran out after them, calling out, "Take this which you have forgotten from my house."
Filled with wonder at the old man's long suffering, they put back everything in its place in the house and begged for forgiveness from the old man, saying to one another, "Truly this is a man of God."1
Let us run the race. Let us press on to the prize that awaits us. We have nothing to lose. We have the world to gain, because in Christ we have already won. Amen.
____________
1. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG (Cistercian, copyright 1975 by Benedicta Ward), p. 55.
In our second lesson for today, Saint Paul uses an image from the arena of athletic competition to describe the nature of the Christian life. Paul compares the Christian life to running a race. In a series of very carefully chosen verbs Paul dramatically describes the Christian life like a race as he "presses on" toward victory. He "strains forward" to the finish line. He "presses on" to reach "the goal" to capture "the prize."
However, if we take a close look at what Paul is saying here, it becomes less and less clear as to why Paul would ever want to choose this kind of an image to describe his life. He hardly looks like an Olympic track star about to capture the gold medal. He hardly looks like a champion about to seize another victory. He is writing this letter from prison. He is accused of being a criminal. He is in grave danger of losing his life. He looks more like a loser than a winner, more like a weakling than a champion. Nevertheless, he is confident and certain of victory. He is not the least bit worried or fearful of defeat.
Athletic competition appeals to so many because after the final gun has sounded and some have enjoyed "the thrill of victory" and others have suffered "the agony of defeat," we can always walk away from it. Unlike the rest of life, it is "only a game." It was only "just for the fun of it." It was not a matter of life and death.
Once the contest moves out of the contrived "make believe" world of the gymnasium or the gridiron, the stakes increase dramatically. It is no longer "just a game." Instead of taking our positions on the court or on the field, we take our positions in the office, the factory, the classroom, the lab, the family. Suddenly we are "playing for keeps." Suddenly whether we win or lose does matter. It matters to our family, our friends, our coworkers, our colleagues, our customers, and all those who depend on us and our success. It even matters to God. As we contend with the pressures and demands of living, we are not only contending with the marketplace, quotas, profit margins, peer reviews, and crabby children, but with the demands of God.
Vince Lombardi supposedly said it: "Winning isn't every thing. It's the only thing!" It could just as easily have been said by God who insists that unless our "righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."
Whew! That ups the stakes significantly. Life is tough enough without having God breathing down our necks.
We all seek to cope with these demands in different ways. Sometimes we make excuses and "pass the buck." Sometimes it is easier to blame our poor finish on someone else than to accept responsibility for ourselves. Sometimes it's easier to blame our poor grade on a poor night's sleep or the distraction of a television show than to admit that we just didn't study. Sometimes it is easier to blame our failure to get promoted on work place politics rather than to admit that we just didn't do a good job. We think we have run the race well but the reality is that we are not track stars. We are more like molasses in January than a jack rabbit in June.
Some of us wouldn't think of making excuses. We are competitors. We like winning. We are willing to make sacrifices. But while running down the backstretch, we feel our legs getting heavy. Our lungs are short of breath. We start falling behind. We start to panic. The thought of not winning terrifies us. So, we bend the rules a little. We cut off an opponent. We "accidentally" trip the runner beside us. We reason that we had no choice because, when winning isn't just everything but the only thing, all is legal. "All is fair in love and war" -- a little lie, a slight overstatement, a wee bit of exaggeration, the carefully placed rumor, an unfortunate slip of the tongue, a timely deletion on the computer -- all become a way of life. Suddenly the race that we loved to run has become the burden we cannot bear. The innocent bending of the rules has become a cancer destroying not only the joy of competition but our relationships with our friends, our neighbors, and our fellow competitors. Infected with distrust, suspicion, jealousy, and even hatred, friendly competition has become a war.
Some of us like to compete because we like to win. We are proud of the fact that we do it fair and square. We can point to our great successes and manifold victories. We have a fine collection of trophies and medals to show for it: a big house in the right neighborhood, the perfect family with children all above average, a successful career and lifestyle that suits our lofty status. But all good things must come to an end. The glory of victory is always passing. The recent teary-eyed retirement announcement of Brett Favre, one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, reminds us that "all things must pass." There is no mistaking the fact that "from dust we came and to dust we shall return." Brett Favre even acknowledged that his retirement was like dying. We spend more and more energy holding on to our fragile victories. But sooner or later they all fade into oblivion.
Years ago, when I used to jog in the cemetery, to pass the time as I ran I would carefully look at the names, dates, and sculptures that adorned graves there. Some of them were magnificent, large, ornate, and probably very expensive for their day. I used to think that the people buried here must have been big shots who wanted to be remembered. Now, most of them are forgotten, their names no longer remembered by anyone, their lives swept away by the seas of time. They must have worked so hard to be able to afford these magnificent monuments, but ultimately it all counted for nothing.
The thought of this can make us angry and bitter. It is enough to make us scream, "Foul!" This is no way for a winner to be treated! But such bitterness only further reveals the fact that we have trusted more in our blue ribbons and shiny medals than the promises of God. Such a trust will always be in vain and will always be disappointed.
If any one should have had a reason to cry, "Foul!" it was Paul. He had certainly been a success, a winner, a righteous man. Paul says that if anyone had a reason to be confident and proud of himself, it was he. He was the consummate Jew, "circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." In other words, he had a closet full of trophies and gold medals. He was admired by his peers. And he was sure that God was proud of him, too.
But he found himself in prison, in danger of losing his life. What kind of justice was this? Bitterness and anger could have poured from his lips. Yet, with an amazing sense of grace and peace, Paul felt no need to lament his fate. He felt no need to parade his trophies and ribbons for all to see and demand better treatment. What many of us would cling to at any cost, Paul simply dismissed as worthless, only so much garbage. In fact, the Greek word he used is quite a bit more graphic than that. Skibulla is the Greek word for "excrement." You can substitute in your own mind our popular four-letter equivalents that all too frequently pollute speech today. In other words, Paul minces no words when it comes to jettisoning the things that many of us would see as the things that really matter in life.
It might seem that Paul felt this way because he had lost everything. Of course, he regarded all of his accomplishments as so much skibulla. We would, too, if we had lost everything. I imagine that is exactly the way many felt along the gulf coast after experiencing the devastation of hurricane Katrina several years ago. All those possessions, those gorgeous homes, automobiles, hotels, resorts, and beautiful cities with their manicured neighborhoods were turned into rubble and ruin, so much skibulla. If you had lived there, you would have counted it garbage, too, just like Paul did who found himself in prison.
That is not the reason why Paul felt this way about his accomplishments. In fact, what many of us would see as the mark of defeat (being in prison), Paul regarded as a badge of honor. In spite of being behind bars, in spite of having lost everything, he thought of himself as a star athlete, running his race on his way to victory.
Paul certainly seemed to have some rather strange ideas about winning and losing. He talked like a winner when he looked like a loser. Paul wasn't just rationalizing away his defeat. He believed that he actually was a winner, even though he appeared to be running dead last. Why? Because he believed that he had already won the race!
Listen carefully, people. Now is when you get to see what a strange and wonderful race it is that we Christians get to run. In every other kind of race we couldn't dare to claim victory for ourselves because someone else won! Former Indiana coach, Bob Knight, already has his critics and those who think he is a little crazy. But can you imagine what everyone would have thought of him last year while he was still at Texas Tech if he had claimed to be the champion of the NCAA Tournament even before it started because Florida had won the year before? That sounds ludicrous! Even loyal Bob Knight fans might have wondered if he hadn't gone a little off the deep end. Yet, that is precisely the kind of claim Paul, and we, can make for ourselves while we are running the race of life.
In any other kind of race, it is our performance that really matters and counts for everything. How fast we run, how much money we put in the bank, how much power we command, how many gold medals we have in the closet are what really matter. We can't claim victory on the basis of some one else's performance. Even God won't let us get away with that one. As we are often reminded, it is the Ten Commandments not the ten suggestions. God is holding us accountable for our performance. We are judged on the basis of our performance. Every day we see people suffer because they think they can thumb their nose at God's commandments and get away with it. God will not be mocked. We might think we have accumulated a lot of trophies. We might be frantically trying to think of ways that we can explain away our lack of trophies. But the bottom line is that no one gets out alive. No one is able to finally win the big race of life and go on forever. I have yet to see a person who has escaped the cemetery.
Except for one! Someone has already crossed the finish line and won the race. And he did it for us! Of course, that winner is Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus, the Christ. God in Christ defeated the powers of sin and death. Christ carried the sins of the world to his grave and suffered their consequences, even God's own judgment, for us so that we might be free. Ever since that day he rose from the dead, he stands at the finish line, at the end of history, promising to share with us the consequences of his victory. When water was poured on us at the font in his name, we not only died and rose with Christ, we crossed the finish line as victors even before we got there. When we eat and drink at the table, we eat and drink the body and blood of the one who has already crossed the finish line ahead of us. We receive a foretaste of the victory to come. When we hear those glorious words, as we did today at the start of this service, announcing that all of our sins have been forgiven, we have been declared winners before we ever cross the finish line.
Trusting this promise makes all the difference in the world as we run the race. All the victories and accomplishments along the way are nice, but finally they are so much garbage, so much skibulla. They simply don't matter because of the surpassing value of knowing that Jesus Christ is our Lord. He has already won the race for us. Our eyes are focused on the prize that Jesus holds for us standing there at the finish line. We press on toward the goal looking forward to that day when we finally can claim what has already been promised to us.
I can assure you that when we start to live our lives like this, eyes will roll. Our neighbors will snicker. The critics will shake their heads. Many will wonder if we haven't gone off the deep end. But as they watch us run our race and the way we are free from all the stuff that weighs everyone else down, they might also begin to wonder why we don't care about the gold medals and blue ribbons. Under their breath we can hear them mutter, "They must think that they have already won the race." The truth of the matter is that we have!
We may not find ourselves behind bars and in prison like Paul. But when we do find ourselves losing ground and falling behind, when it seems that we not only will lose but come in last, we don't need to break the rules. We don't need to resort to making excuses. Why? Because coming in second or third or fourth or even dead last doesn't matter. We have already won. We have nothing to lose, everything to gain, and nothing to hide.
The fourth-century desert monk, Agathon, tells a story about what it is like to live your life and run your race when you have nothing to lose.
Some thieves came one day to the dwelling of an old man and said to him, "We have come to take everything that is in your house."
He said to them, "My children, take what seems good to you."
So they took what they found in the house and went away. Now they forgot a purse which happened to be hanging there. The old man picked it up and ran out after them, calling out, "Take this which you have forgotten from my house."
Filled with wonder at the old man's long suffering, they put back everything in its place in the house and begged for forgiveness from the old man, saying to one another, "Truly this is a man of God."1
Let us run the race. Let us press on to the prize that awaits us. We have nothing to lose. We have the world to gain, because in Christ we have already won. Amen.
____________
1. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG (Cistercian, copyright 1975 by Benedicta Ward), p. 55.
