Isaiah 40:28-31; Hebrews 12:1-2
I had a plan for my Friday. I had pages of notes from my conversations during the week with five athletes from our congregation, ranging in age from 13 to 70. I knew there were jewels of wisdom in those notes, and I was looking forward to turning them into a sermon. First, though, I planned to spend an hour amongst the boxes in our attic, searching for a big red M–my athletic letter from James Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia. I had encouraged the athletes who spoke this morning to wear their uniforms; I figured it would be fun to wear my letter.
Then on Friday morning I learned the extent of the horror that had unfolded in Christchurch, New Zealand. Fifty people killed while they were worshipping God in peace. An island nation that has worked so hard to build multi-cultural community invaded by hate. The epidemic of white supremacist ideology gone global. A world-wide religious community with millions of adherents stunned, yet again, into high alert. A world plunged into mourning.
I quickly abandoned my plan to go up to the attic. Somehow the search for a 40-year-old token of athletic success seemed absurd. I wondered about my plan to write a sermon based on the wisdom of our resident athletes. In the wake of such a horrific act of hate, how could I talk about sports?
I spent the morning writing emails and making phone calls–with colleagues in ministry and Muslim friends and even the mayor. We were trying to figure out how to respond to this act of hatred. There were lots of good ideas; I trust some of them will soon take shape. As the morning progressed, I began to realize how much the insights I had gleaned from our five athletes apply to the challenges we face today.
“Therefore,” our epistle lesson reads, “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” The race we are running is our attempt to live faithfully in this broken world. The race is our calling to be God’s instruments of healing and peace in this violent world. The race is Jesus’ challenge to be part of realm of God’s love in a world where there is so much hate.
This weekend, the race feels like an Iron Man triathlon with an obstacle courses added into it. The race feels impossible, and the stakes feel impossibly high. We are racing for our very souls, for the well-being of our neighbors, for the healing of our world. We are human beings, not iron men or women. How do we keep running? How do we keep trying?
The race metaphor leads me back to my conversations with our athletes. Though each of them plays a different sport–soccer, basketball, softball, baseball and crew–I was struck by the common themes that emerged, and by the way those themes offer guidance for us as we seek to respond faithfully to Friday’s horror.
The first theme is the importance of practice. Robert, our basketball star, told me that what enables him to do his best in a game is the confidence that comes from practicing. When he has practiced hard, he believes in himself, and he knows other people believe in him. Conor Taylor, whose favorite sport is baseball, plays his best when he has practiced with his sister Meghan.
We talk in church circles about faith practices–saying grace, coming to church, meditating, offering hospitality, giving to charity. Our athletes help me claim how these practices prepare us to face the challenging times in our lives and our world. When we have made a habit of praying before meals, we can more naturally ask God for strength when we are called to respond to acts of hate. When we give regularly to charity, we know we are capable of the generosity needed to help a neighbor in crisis. When we are accustomed to offering hospitality, we are not afraid to enter our neighbor’s mosque to stand in solidarity with them.
Robert’s words apply not just to basketball but to the life of faith: when we practice our faith regularly, we can have confidence for when when we are called to take courageous action. We can believe in ourselves; we can trust God believes in us.
The second theme that emerged is perseverance. Meghan, whose main sport is softball, told me about the tough psychology of the game. In softball a really good batting average is 350 or 400. That means even the best players fail to get a hit more than half the time. In the outfield, if you make an error, it may be a long time before you get another chance. You have to have your minute of frustration, she said, and then get over it. She admitted it took her a long time to learn to do that. Her mom helped, she said, encouraging her to claim what she did well and also to learn from each mistake.
Perseverance in the face of what seems like failure–that skill is as important to the life of faith as it is to softball. At a personal level, we are acutely aware of the times we fall short: when our own fear leads us to prejudice. At a community level, we know there are times we meant to reach out to a neighbor in distress but got distracted; we know that our good intentions are sometimes thwarted by carelessness and ignorance. At a national and global level, we readily despair that our efforts to fight hate are too little, too late. It’s easy to focus so much on our strike-outs that we stop even trying to swing.
And yet we are called to keep swinging, to keep trying, to claim what we have done well and learn from our mistakes. While a softball player may have a wise coach to help her figure out the mental game, we have someone even better: Jesus who assures us of God’s forgiveness, Jesus who understands how hard this race is and how human we are, Jesus who walks and runs beside us and picks us up when we fall. Jesus calls us to get up, to write a letter to our local mosque, to show up at a vigil, to keep acting on our faith that love is stronger than hate.
The third theme from our wise athletes is about teamwork. Noah loves rowing crew because it is all about the team. “You really can’t do anything by yourself,” he said. “You have to be on the same wavelength.” “How do you get there?” I asked. Some of it, he said, happens during warm-ups. Some of it, though, is just about talking together, understanding each other’s needs. Rowing crew, I began to see, is all about relationships.
For Chuck, the best thing about coaching is watching his team start to play as a unit. “They are born as individuals,” he said, “and here they are cooperating….. I believe God’s hand is in it,” he continued. “It is the Spirit of God coming through.”
Chuck’s words point me to the poetry of Isaiah 40. “Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for God shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
On our own, whether we are 13 or 70, athletes or couch potatoes, we will fall exhausted. We will give up and allow hate to win. When we rely on God, we renew our strength. Chuck reminds us that one of the ways God helps is by giving us a team, a community. When we accept this gift, when we purposely seek to align our efforts, we find strength for even the most challenging Iron Man triathlon obstacle course, strength to proclaim the power of love in the face of hate.
This church is a team. In the face of a global resurgence of hate, we are called to expand our definition of team–to partner with other churches, with synagogues and mosques and viharas, with all people of good will. We are called, as Noah reminds us, to talk together and begin to understand each other, so we can get on the same wave length and work as a unit.
Our calling as Christians in this pain-filled time is a daunting one. We are called to offer comfort to our Muslim siblings, joining with them in grief and hope. We are called to examine our own hidden prejudices and fears. We are called to stand up for those who are most vulnerable. We are called to speak up when we encounter acts of prejudice, whether small or large. We are called to join together in a loud, clear NO to hate.
It is an arduous race, a daunting calling. And we have everything we need to rise to this calling, to run this race. We have the confidence that comes from our everyday practice of faith. We have the assurance of God’s grace that enables us to keep trying when we make mistakes. We have a team, a community, through which God works to renew our strength.
“Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” Amen.