Getting Ready for the Race

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Don’t you know that in the stadium the runners all exert themselves in the race in order to seize the prize? All athletes exercise self-control in all things and they do this to seize a perishable wreath, but we do it for an imperishable one. So, you see, I run, but not aimlessly. Nor do I box as if beating the air. But I beat up my body, so to speak, and make it a servant, so that having preached to others I should not be found unworthy.

It is my task every week to stand in this place and to try and speak a word and I pray that the words I use to speak this word may reflect God’s word and what God would say to us today. It’s a great responsibility and one that I undertake each week with a bit of trepidation. I am listening for that word, too, and I’m hoping I’ve done the things I need to do to put myself in the place to hear God’s voice. But on those occasions when I feel absolutely stuck and wonder what on earth I have to offer you and I ponder the sermon for hours, I often experience God’s voice saying, “Just do it already!” Maybe that’s Suzanne’s voice. They often sound a lot alike.

But today that message that prompts me to speak even when I am uncertain of what I have to offer is exactly the message that I want to say to you. The message of the day is: Just do it already! Now there’s sound theology behind that. We could spend many, many hours parsing exactly what this message means. What is the ‘it’ that we need to do? How should we do the ‘it’ we’re supposed to do? What is the deep meaning of my reluctance to do the ‘it’ I’m supposed to do? When shall I know when I have done all the ‘it’ that I need to do? These are all great questions, but I hope at the end of this sermon you won’t be left wanting to ponder them…I hope you’ll be inspired to just do it already.

Now this is a very Methodist message that I have for you today. Yes, it’s there in the letter to the Corinthians from the Apostle Paul, but it’s certainly a big feature of our Methodist heritage as well. We are a people who became known as the people who went out and did it. Methodists today may be famous for their “methods” - hence the name - but those methods were developed in the 1700s to evangelize the world - to set people in motion toward seeking God in their lives and in their communities. We didn’t just perfect the committee structure to have great committees - we have the structure we have because it helped us proclaim the good news of Jesus. When John Wesley, the first Methodist decided to go out and do it, he went out and did it.

But I get the sense that we don’t feel about our committees today the way Wesley did then.

One of my favorite book series is by Douglas Adams who wrote The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, an absurd little book that is bound to make you laugh if you like quirky humor. In one of the sequels to that book the main character, Ford Prefect, comes upon a planet that is being colonized by a group of television producers, marketing consultants and hairdressers who have been exiled by their home planet, even though they believe that they are really the advance team for the rest of their culture. It’s obvious why they have been sent away very quickly because the only thing they seem to be able to successfully do is to have committee meetings.

When Ford arrives they are having the 573rd meeting of the colonization committee of Fintlewoodlewix. Prefect is struck by the futility of this when he realizes that they have had 573 meetings and have not yet discovered how to make fire. When he protests, the group says, “Well, if you’d look at the agenda, we do have a report from the hairdressers’ Fire Development Subcommittee.” But that is equally futile because, even though the hairdressers were given two sticks to work with, they have turned them into curling tongs. It’s equally bad with the wheel development group because they can’t agree on what color the wheel should be. [The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, pp. 227-229]

This is how we view many of our committees these days. We have lost confidence that what they really ought to be about is what they really are about. Do we think that our committees are advancing the kingdom of God? Do we believe that they are spreading good news? Or do we view them as places where we got lost on endless tangents and where the process overwhelms the goal.

When we gathered together a little over a week ago for our dinner and retreat as a church community, there was that danger that we could start talking about the color of the wheel instead of the character of our church, but it didn’t happen. What happened instead was that we talked about the things we valued about Franktown Church and where we have come from. There were lots of stories about how welcome people felt here and how much they appreciated the relationships they developed here. When we looked at the church profile that we had done through the Natural Church Development program we saw that the characteristic of “loving relationships” was the strongest of the eight they measured.

But we also talked about how important our youth and children are to our congregation. We talked about the missions and outreach programs of the church. We shared how music and drama have been important parts of our history and our present. We celebrated the energy, the gifts, and the giving that made possible the expansion of our church facilities and the landscaping that is now taking place.

When we looked at where we wanted to grow, though, we saw that one of the areas that was identified for us was passionate spirituality. Now this may seem surprising to you. It was to me. We have had experiences in worship here, especially over the last two months, where I have felt a powerful movement of the Holy Spirit. But passionate spirituality is not just about the quality of what takes place when we are gathered together in worship. It is also about the practices we take on that help us to welcome the Spirit into our lives. One of those is worship, but our individual devotional lives are also ways that we seek God’s voice. Prayer, fasting, Bible study, meeting in small groups: these are practices that draw us closer to God. As are works of justice and mercy and compassion. Our recent cottage meetings to address the crisis in our schools are ways that we move out to engage the world around us with God’s love.

There was a period in John Wesley’s life when he struggled with the kind of life God was calling him to lead. We often hear about his experience in the meetinghouse on Aldersgate Lane in London in 1738 when he was listening to Luther’s Commentary on Romans and felt his heart strangely warmed. Though he was already a priest in the Anglican Church at that point, he was deeply troubled and this was when he began to feel that the message he had been preaching to others was meant for him as well.

But what followed for him in the year after that was perhaps even more important. For a time he met with the Moravians in a meetinghouse on Fetter Lane in London. The Moravians were a quietist group who believed in silence and stillness and being open to God. They believed that since God was the giver of all grace, the role of the believer was to wait on that grace. The Moravians were a warm group with a strong fellowship and Wesley found a home among them for awhile, but eventually he knew that he would have to leave them.

Wesley left because he couldn’t accept that all God intended for us to do was to patiently wait for grace to appear. God had not only given us the ability to receive grace, God had also given us the capacity to cooperate with that grace and to seek it out in spiritual practices. So Wesley, who by nature was not a patient man, pointed to the value of frequent communion and the spiritual disciplines because they could train a person in the way of holiness. They could make a person predisposed toward God’s grace freely given. This was not works righteousness, something that Wesley was often accused of. He wasn’t earning his way to salvation - he was seeking it and using every way that God had given him to get there. [Lord Leslie Griffiths, “The Spirit of the Foundery,” Healthy Church Event, January 2005, http://www.gbod.org/healthychurches/presentations/griffiths-foundery.pdf]

He knew the value of training. When you first learn a sport, like ice skating or skiing, as we’re seeing in the Olympics coverage on TV right now, it can seem very awkward. Your body feels unnatural as you learn new moves and skills and techniques. You wonder if you’ll ever get it. But skilled athletes know that thrill when you realize that you have broken through from being a novice to a real skier or skater. They become infused with something more and what had seemed awkward and unnatural suddenly becomes fluid and beautiful.

Wesley experienced that with his preaching. When he had returned from a disastrous tenure in colonial Georgia to take up preaching again in England he wondered if he had the faith necessary to tell anyone about God. A Moravian friend, Peter Bohler, told him not to worry. “Preach faith until you have it,” the Moravian said, “And then, because you have it, you will preach faith.” Sometimes you have to put on the uniform first before you realize that God has made you a player.

Paul knew this, too. In the Bible passage we read this morning he uses the athlete imagery to encourage the Corinthian Christians not to be complacent in their faith or to merely talk about it in abstract ways. He knew that they lived in an environment where there were many different religious options and many people who could easily ignore the unique message they had to offer. Their time, like our time, was a time when Christians felt a lot of pressure to merely look like the world around them and to downplay the practices that made Christians look distinctive.
Paul reminds them of the runners who often competed in races near Corinth. The Isthmian games were held very close to the city and his hearers would have known the spectacles that pitted contestants against one another. Paul says, “If you’re going to run in one of these races, you’re going to need to be single-minded. You’re going to need to train and to show self-control. If athletes will do all of this to win a prize that is merely a wreath on their heads that will wither away, how much more should we train for a race in which the prize will not fade away, but last forever?”

Then Paul, who was not really the athletic type from what we know, gives them some humorous images of himself. “You see,” Paul says, “I run, but with a purpose. I’m up early every morning whipping myself into shape. Like Rocky in the meat locker preparing for a boxing match, I’m in heavy training. Because I don’t want to be found talking about the race and not being prepared to run it. I don’t want to be preaching the gospel and not living it.” If you’re going to be an athlete, you’ve just gotta do it already!

One more example and then the inspiring conclusion. An interesting thing is happening as we have more professional athletes and more professional singers and musicians. People who normally would not be hesitant about playing sports or singing or playing an instrument are more hesitant to take these things up. Fewer students are becoming athletes. Fewer people learn how to play musical instruments. At least that’s how it is on the other side of the bay. We may be a bit better off here.

But if we feel like we have to sound polished and professional before we ever take up a cause, we never take the necessary risk to become more proficient. We’re afraid of looking foolish.

Let me tell you how to get over this. I have not had a more powerful experience of God’s presence this year than when I visited the Archangels Sunday School class this year. Mark McNair has been leading them in music as they begin each class and it is the best singing because they sing like Methodists! There is absolutely no holding back. John Wesley advised his Methodists to sing lustily (it’s right there in the front of our hymnal!) and that’s what happens in this class. It’s loud and joyful and there is no doubt that people are seeking God. Plus it’s interspersed with testimonies to what God is doing in their lives. It is amazing! We’re looking forward to when they lead us in music at the 8:30 service next month.

That’s what I wish for you and for me in all that we do here at this place. Yes, we’re fearful and doubtful at times but you know the first thing real angels says when they appear in the Bible - Do not be afraid! Yes, our lives sometimes seem so distressed and we seem so distraught that it is hard for us to see what we should do, but that doesn’t excuse us from doing what God has called us to do. Put it into practice. Preach faith til you have faith and then because you have it you will preach it.

Yes, we are tired and heavy laden, but somebody said he’d give us rest. Yes, we are shackled by heavy burdens, but somebody said he’d share our load. Yes, we don’t want to look like fools, but somebody said that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of the world. Yes, we aren’t sure of the path, but somebody said he was the Way. Yes, we get lost, but somebody said he’d seek us out and welcome us home. Yes, we stumble and fall, but somebody said he’d lift us up. Yes, we do a lot of sitting on the premises, but it’s time for us to do some standing on the promises.

Are you getting ready for the race? Because you’re in it. Are you getting in shape? Are your running with purpose? Or are you still wondering what to do? You know what to do. God is calling you. God is reaching out to you. God is urging you. Just do it already. Thanks be to God.