Run the Race?   Press On?   Can't We Just Sit Down?

 Philippians 3:4b - 14                 
October 26, 2008
Rev. Carol DiBiasio-Snyder

Introduction to the scripture:

            Today's portion of Paul's letter to the young church in the city ofPhilippi contains several parts.  First there is a set up for a comparison.  Paul gives us a resume of his accomplishments.  Quite a resume it is.  But he quickly tells us that these outward expressions of accomplishment have become meaningless to him in light of knowing Christ.  He tells us he would give it all up, and in actuality he has given up all things for the value of having Christ in his life.

            His losses he counts as "rubbish" as this translation puts it, that word is apparently much more colorful in the original Greek, closer in English to garbage or even excrement.

            And then he turns to the image I want to explore today . . . an image that filled the song we just learned.   Paul invites us to see our spiritual journey as a race in which we forget the past, press on in the present, and move toward our call.

            Let us listen to these ancient words and seek meaning for our lives today.

 

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ 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; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.

             ⁸ More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

            ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

 

            It's an old "Get Acquainted" game.  You know, you're at a retreat or in a new group of folks getting together for a book or Bible study and you need some little trick to break the ice and get to know each other.  There are a million of them.

            The one I am thinking of goes like this.  Imagine you are living in a hurricane prone area of the country.  If you knew you had to evacuate your home and you could only grab what you could carry in your arms, what would you take?    What would you take?  How would you decide?  Would you grab your jewelry?  A precious heirloom from a dear family member? Your check book?   Would you grab photos you couldn't replace?  Maybe your computer for all that is stored there, including photos.

            When Paul, on his missionary journeys, arrived in town and gathered some folks together to tell them about his faith experiences, I wonder if he had them play any get acquainted games first.  There they'd be, first century Greeks, sitting in a circle in the public square and Paul says, "Let's start with a little ice breaker before I tell you about Jesus the Christ."

            Based on the scripture we just heard, he might not ask what you would chose from your belongings in your house, he might put a little different spin on the old game.  I can hear Paul asking, "If you could only bring one thing from your old life into your new one, what would it be?  What are you willing to leave behind?  Not sure what I mean?  Well, let me start by telling you what I left behind . . ."  And off he'd go, reading from his Curriculum Vitea and in the end ripping the paper up and saying the past is past and he sees his worth coming not from his list of accomplishments, but rather from his relationship with God.

            It seems that the Get to Know You games are over and he's preaching now, saying that the point of a life following in the way of Christ is about moving ahead.  Moving ahead so clearing and powerfully, it's like being a runner in a race.

            Fred Craddock says it this way, "Paul portrays himself in the least relaxed, most demanding posture he knows: as a runner in a race.  His language is vivid, tense, repetitious: pressing, stretching, pushing, straining.  In those words the lungs burn, the temples pound, the muscles ache, the heart pumps, the perspiration rolls."   I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

            Maybe you runners among us are inspired by this kind of talk, but I admit to being just a bit discouraged by it.  Run?  Press?  Strain?  Stretch?  Can't I just sit down for a bit?  The world is exhausting right now, isn't it?  With financial crisis around the globe, presidential campaigning reaching a fevered "last days" pitch, our nation deeply divided, two wars that drag on and on, not to mention all the personal, individual and family crisis in your life and mine.  Anxiety is running high and to hear Paul invite me to run even harder just sounds impossible.

            On the other hand, some of us really love a life of running. The demands of our jobs, our commitments to family, church, sports, clubs, volunteering, leave us almost no time to sit and that is just fine with us because stopping and sitting and thinking clearly may mean examining our lives and that might lead to changes or it might mean facing some hurts we'd rather not deal with, thank you very much, and so we dash off to the next thing.

            So, Paul, do we run or do we sit?  Well, I think he'd say a little of both.  Time sitting, praying, meditating, considering, listening for God's call will mean that our striving and pressing and running will not just be empty activity, or running in circles, it will be running toward something, running with purpose, running toward the call God has given you.   Guide my feet, Lord, while I run this race, ?cause I don't want to run this race in vain.  We all sang a bit ago.

            And if we are going to run the race well, Paul invites us to leave some things behind.   It's a twist on that Get to Know You game.  Now the question is not, what will you take?  But, what will you leave behind?  What holds you or me back from being all that God has gifted and called us to be?   Is it the security we used to feel in our mutual funds or our 401Ks?  What weighs us down?  Is it failures we can't forget?  Is it grudges

hold and resentments we nurture?  Is it someone you need forgive?  Is it the expectations others have of you?  Is it an addiction?  Is it your diplomas and promotions and awards and accomplishments?

            Paul invites us to let it go.  Leave it behind.  "Forget it," he says.  Move on and move ahead.  Toward God.  Toward the prize.  Interestingly the prize doesn't seem to be some heavenly crown which you might expect from a letter in the New Testament.   As one person cleverly put it, "It's not that we're being called to a prize. The prize is the call". The prize is the call.

            Call.  Churchy language. You are called.  What does that mean?  Ralph and I had a chance to attend a seminar led by James Forbes, the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City and one of the best preachers of our day.  He proposed a helpful idea for considering your call, your life.  He asks himself, "What is my Life Project?."  He asked us, "What is your Life Project?"

            What is something you feel that God wants you be or to do in the big picture of your life?  He wasn't talking about lists in your Blackberry or calendar.  He didn't mean goals for this week or this month.  Beyond the short term goals, what is your Life Project?  A Life Project (maybe for you there is more than one) is more overarching, more encompassing.  Forbes asked, "What is it that you believe God is wanting you to be or become?"

            It's individual, of course.  You need to listen to your heart, pay attention to your soul, wait for God to open your spirit to know what yours might be.  Someone might have a Life Project of facing hidden prejudice and learning to become more and more extravagant in welcoming others.   Your Project might be to develop the courage to take a stand, take some action, take a risk on an issue or cause about which you feel passionate.  Or it might be to deepen your commitment to your role as parent or partner or friend.  I can imagine that for someone who suffered abuse or other trauma earlier in life, a Life Project might be learning how to live so that the pains of the past do not determine who you are or how you treat others today and into the future.  Life Projects may have to do with how you do your job - paid or not.

            A Project for those of you in school might be to care about your classmates, all your classmates, even the ones everyone makes fun of or rejects.  Your Project might be to respond to violence with non-violence.  Maybe your Project is to find your deepest spiritual center and live daily from that place.  Perhaps it is to learn finally and really to live in the present, live in the now, live with vitality and joy.   The list of possible Projects is endless.  If you don't already know what your Life Project is, what your call is, Paul and I invite you to seek it out!  Grab it like a prize.  Pursue it with all your heart.

            So here we are, back at the races!  Running, straining, stretching, pressing.  Exhausted again?  How do we find the energy to seek our call, our Life Project, and move toward it?  Naturally we look to God for help.  We pray as the choirs did today, Order my Steps Lord, in your word.  Order my steps.

            And then, we remember that we are not running this race alone.  We are part of a community of folks running with us, encouraging us, drawing us forward.  We are also part of a community of folks who, though they cannot run anymore, stand along the course of life and cheer us on.

            Marilyn Wojahn told a great story this week.  She has a friend whose daughter got tired of being out of shape and over weight.  She set a goal to run a marathon and trained and worked to do it.  She then ran in the San Francisco Marathon.  As she and the other runners were getting ready to start the race, someone told her to write her first name on the front of her t-shirt with a marker people were passing around.  So she did.

            She didn't realize why until about mile 13 when she began to really feel the effects of the race, started to waver and wonder if she would make it.  It was then that she heard the shouts of encouragement from folks along the route, "Go, Cindy!"  "Keep it up, Cindy!"   "You can do it, Cindy!"    "Good going, Cindy!"

            Carried along by the encouraging words of our supporters around us in our family, friends, this faith community and the God of the universe who knows your name, let us forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.  Let us press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.  Go for it!  You can do it!  Amen.