Racing. Toward What? Psalm 126; Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:4b-14 March 13, 2016 Mary Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church, Milford, Connecticut The Rev. Dr. Brian R. Bodt, Pastor With St. Patrick s Day just days away, this story: Kevin Murphy goes into a Dublin pub and orders three pints. He does this with enough regularity that soon he and the bartender know each other by name. One evening the bartender says, Murphy, why is it that you always order three pints? Kevin Murphy replies, Ah, me two brothers went to America and promised we d each have a pint for one another until we re together again. More time went by until one evening Murphy comes in and orders only two pints. After a little while the bartender returns and says, Murphy, I m sorry about your brother. Mr. Murphy looks confused, so the bartender continues, Well, I saw ye ordered only two pints this evening. Didn t one of your brothers die? Murphy says, Ah, no, lad, me brothers are still very much alive. It s just that I ve given up drinking for Lent. Whether we give up things for Lent or not, and recognizing that most of what is given up for Lent often should be given up for life, Lent is fundamentally a time for introspection. It is, at least in theory, a quieter, more contemplative time. One of the reasons we offer weekly noon services during Lent is to provide a structure for such quiet time. This past week we began Confirmation with all the Confirmands and mentors in the sanctuary. We took three minutes to pray and reflect on a particular scripture. When I asked about how people experienced that, one of our mentors, also a parent, said, I realize I should do this more often. Indeed! So say most of us.
To that point, I had another recent exchange with someone whom life s race has reached a turning point. Call it stress, overload, over-commitment: whatever one wants to name it, for this adult and their family, a time of analysis and a re-ordering of priorities and resources is essential. Racing is a loaded word with multiple meanings. When stressed by work and cultural expectations we speak of racing about or being stuck in the rat race, about which one sage has remarked that even if you win, you re still a rat. My dad has expressed annoyance about reckless drivers by commenting that they are racing to the grave. The recent movie with the double-meaning title, Race, re-tells the story of Jesse Owens. In the midst of 1930 s segregation in the United States, the Olympian and Black American demolished Hitler s Master Race theory by winning four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Yet Owens was one jump away from failing to qualify for the long jump finals when his German competitor, Luz Long, placed his towel at the spot from where Owens should jump. He did and Owens qualified and went on to win the gold medal with Long winning the silver. Long and Owens remained friends until Long s death in combat in 1943. Satchell Paige, the Negro Leagues baseball star who finally was allowed to play in the American League in 1948 at the age of 42 is reported to have said, Don t look back, something might be gaining on you. In my family, I m married to an All-American and have a step-son who is a state champion and helps pay his college expenses by racing. I console myself by slogging around distance races! So wherever we are in this idea of racing racing madly about, racing away from trouble, racing on a track or trail we need to ask Racing. Toward What? Here s how the apostle
Paul answers that in today s letter to the Philippians This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. This single verse says four life-altering things. This one thing I do Paul is very clear that he is about one thing. One of the reasons the Confirmation mentor I spoke of at the beginning of this message had such a powerful experience of serenity is that they were doing one thing. Multitasking is all the rage, of course. Yet if we truly find ourselves perplexed by complexity, and we truly want to find what Paul later says in this same letter (4:7) the peace which passes all understanding, we must come to appreciate singular purpose. This is not to say we will stop doing many things, but those many things will be weighed and measured against the one thing we want to do or become. Putting it starkly: we all will die. What is the legacy by which you wish to be known? If people were to say one thing about you, what would it be? Since they will say one thing (or more) about you now, what do you want it to be? Forgetting what lies behind Paul is not advocating denial or self-deception. Paul, of all people, knows better. As Saul, he persecuted the Church and stood by holding the coats of those who killed Stephen, the first martyr. As he said at the beginning of today s reading, if anyone has cause to boast, it was him: a Jew s Jew, a legal scholar, zealous and righteous. But Paul experienced God in a new and powerful way unlike anything he d experienced before. He heard Jesus calling him to expand his heart and mind, and he responded. Because of his response, the church grew in leaps and bounds among people far beyond the narrow band the first group of Palestinian Jews. Paul s forgetting what lies behind is like
saying Don t keep second-guessing yourself. Don t keep saying, I woulda I coulda I shoulda. Business people will often say that to be successful you have to constantly re-invent yourself. And students of business know that the seeds of future deterioration are in the very success of the moment. And, of course, we all know the mantra of the stock market: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Isaiah tells us on God s behalf: I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it? Maybe not. Maybe our racing about and the noise in our heads drowns out the quiet and focus we need to hear and see the new thing God is doing in, through and for us. And straining forward to what lies ahead The life of faith, and in particular Christian faith, is fundamentally about hope. Paul anticipates with such enthusiasm what the future holds that he is straining forward to it. Isaiah is so moved by hope that he declares: Thus says the Lord I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? My friend and colleague, Jim Stinson, in a sermon he is preaching today, writes: It is a crazy call. It defies the reality at hand. It defies what they (the Israelites) see and know. But even so this giant of faith dares them to remember and believe it can and will happen again. There are many reasons to lose hope, to think the best is NOT yet to be. A quick review of the newspaper or the evening news is enough to confirm our worst fears. Nearly 40 of us are studying the Gospel of John this Lent in a series written by the Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of the (United Methodist) Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. In the face of hopelessness, Rev. Hamilton loves to remind us, The worst thing is never the last thing. As people of hope, as people of the Resurrection, as people who know that even from a cross
on Calvary God keeps on loving us, we have every reason, every reason, to strain forward to what lies ahead. And what lies ahead is press(ing) on toward for the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Want to race? There s the race to be in! And Paul knows exactly what he s writing. His phrase the goal is an allusion to Greek foot races and their finishing post. And listen carefully! This is not about earning heaven. This is about the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. It is built on the notion that there is a life beyond this life that inspires us to live godly, full, generous, caring lives now. It is built on the notion that there is such a thing as heaven on earth. It is built on the notion that the earth is not an abandoned wasteland in which we are toxic debris, but that the earth is the Lord s and the fullness thereof (Psalm 24) as the Psalmist declares, and that we who are in in are a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8) and that we are of infinite worth and infinitely worth redeeming. Yesterday ten adults and seven Confirmation students visited New York s 9/11 Memorial Museum. My son Adam, a senior guide there, told one story about the fateful September 11 th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Towers was about Rick Rescorla. Mr. Rescorla worked for Dean Witter (later Morgan Stanley Dean Witter) in 1993 when the attack on the towers killed six but left many more injured as a result of long and inefficient evacuation procedures. Rick Rescorla was convinced another attack would happen. He resolved that his company would be prepared when it did. The company had offices between the 74 th and 44 th floors of the South Tower, and Rick Rescorla regularly practiced evacuation drills, to the annoyance of his employees who had to trudge down that many stairs each time. But when the September 11 th attacks came, Rick Rescorla s preparation for his 2,700 employees race against the clock before the collapse of the South Tower
saved all but six of them. And Rick Rescorla continued rescuing others after his employees were saved, until he died in the collapse. If Rick Rescorla knew we were worth saving, how much more does God know and come in Jesus Christ to save us. Let s make sure our race is toward one thing, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus who calls us to serenity, hope and service.