Run the Race
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
February 12, 2012
“Do you know,” Paul asks, “that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize?”
“Do you know,” I ask, “that I have run in a number of races but that, if the prize is for finishing first, I have never received the prize?” Try as I may, I have never yet and likely never will run in such a way as to win.
I went, as I often do, on a run seeking a sermon last week. That’s the only prize I ever get. It was Wednesday – that particularly nasty afternoon of cold rain. I knew what kind of day it was by the look on the face of a suitably bundled woman I passed in Shirlington who was quite clearly thinking, “what an idiot,” when I ran by.
I didn’t disagree. In fact, it was cold and my right hip was not at all happy to join the rest of my body out there. For some reason, that joint was out of sorts and seemed far more interested in a rest than a run. But I kept at it because, as a few of you have heard and now all of you will know, back in December Clark Chesser and I concocted a crazy agreement to run a half marathon together in April so getting in the miles right now is important.
In fact, as I ran through a bit of rain and a bit of pain last week I was thinking about the race that is before us, the idea of it, the preparation for it, the gifts for it.
And, no, I do not mean the 13.1 miles that Clark and I will try to run together. I mean the race that is the life of faith, and, in particular, this section of the race that is right here, right now, and right before us.
The life of faith is certainly not a half-marathon. It’s a full-out, long journey – far more of an ultramarathon than a half. Marathoners I’ve spoken with talk about their races in stages. They don’t start with the intention of running 26.2 miles in a single bound; they start with the intention of taking the first step, running the first hundred meters, the first half mile, finding their rhythm, running the first mile, then the second, then the third, and so on.
We’re at a particular point in our journey together as we live into the visioning process we’ve committed to on the way to becoming the more vibrant congregation we want to be, and we believe God is calling us to be.
Both our individual journeys of faith and our shared journey unfold in stages, in steps along the way. As individuals we experience life and faith differently at different points in our lives, just as a runner experiences the race differently at different points along the route.
We have most of the stages of life represented in this room on any given Sunday. We have toddlers and other young children who experience life with awe and wonder at the mystery of things that we grownups either take completely for granted or don’t even notice. I remember doing a “walk-about” sermon with the children in one of the other congregations I served. We went to the back of that sanctuary and I asked them to look in as if they were walking in for worship and tell me what they noticed. I figured that it would be the cross, which dominated that particular space visually, especially from the point of view I invited the kids to experience. I’ll never forget one little boy whispering to me that what he noticed was “the red light.” I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, and it took a good bit of back and forth before he finally got me to notice the small red light that indicated that one of the lighting or heating or security systems was functioning. I’d walked into that space dozens and dozens of times, and never noticed the light at all. At different stages of life, different things will be important to us and we’ll bring different gifts to those stages.
We have older members who bring the gift of experience, having seen so much of the life of this congregation, and of life in general and so carrying a deep memory and the wisdom of those years. And, obviously, we have lots of folks at most every stage of life in between from young adults just starting out in careers, young parents just starting the great adventure of family, early middle-aged folks living into the fullness of their several callings and the gifts they bear into those callings, older middle-aged folks perhaps living for the first time into the comfort of their own skin, slightly older folks whose professional lives are coming toward conclusions and they begin again the next stage of sorting out call and gift, opportunity and responsibility.
None of this comes as any great surprise, and, on the one hand, may seem incredibly obvious. On the other hand, though, it’s worth pausing to consider what an incredible gift we receive in a multigenerational community when we do, in fact, pause to name and receive and use that gift in all the ways it is offered.
Toward that end, we are going to use the season of Lent this year as time of intentional reflection on the gifts that come with various stages of life and on the callings that come with various stages as well, all in the context of reflecting together on some of the deep needs in the communities that each of us participate in from family, to neighborhood, to school, to work, to congregation, to commonwealth.
Obviously, at first blush and probably well beyond, that’s a pretty complicated matrix, and we’ll come at it in several ways in the weeks ahead tapping as many resources as we can to deepen our understanding and to sharpen our focus during this season of vision casting and clarifying.
Toward that end, this morning I thought it might be helpful to consider some important work on stages of faith. In much the same way that developmental theorists have described stages of life, various theologians have described stages of faith. James Fowler, in the early 80s, was among the first to study this in depth and detail.
Fowler, who taught at the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, described stages of faith in much the same way that Jean Piaget described developmental stages, beginning with the mix of fantasy and reality that marks the faith of young children. As we get a bit older, Fowler observed, most of us begin to understand the world a bit more logically – most of us – but we still tend to understand faith stories quite literally.
As teenagers, most of us adopt some all-encompassing belief system and place authority for those beliefs in either individuals who hold them – sometimes parents, sometimes teachers, sometimes religious leaders – or in a group that shares them. At the same time, at that point, we don’t tend to recognize that we are inside a belief system at all, rather we take it “on faith” that our system is, in fact, an accurate description of reality itself. As you might guess from that description, this is a stage of faith in which many people remain throughout their lives.
On the other hand, lots of folks, especially as young adults, move beyond the faith box of adolescence, and often reject the former faith, sometimes altogether and sometimes for good.
In midlife, though, many of us begin to realize that what we once perceived as black-and-white is really quite grey – whether in our belief or in our unbelief we find the world is full of mystery and paradox. We discover that, as Einstein observed, not everything that counts can be counted and that, in fact, some of what counts most cannot be counted at all. At that stage, sacred stories and symbols become important again, but this time around without being stuck in literalism or within the frame of theological orthodoxies. This stage of fairly mature faith is the end of the line for most of us. But not for all.
Fowler named his final stage of faith development “universalizing faith,” and said that few of us ever actually get to that point. He described it, interestingly enough, way more as a pattern of living than as what we might more typically call a belief system, and as a way of life marked fully by service to others without fear or anxiety and based on a deep conviction in the truth of the universal values of love, justice and compassion.
In other words, a lot like the life of the Jesus of the gospels.
It is a life of running with perseverance the race that is set before us, as the author of the book of Hebrews put it. In that same section of Hebrews we’re also reminded that as we run we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. I understand that cloud to include the saints of the church triumphant who have gone before us and charted a way, and also the saints who run this race alongside us as the church militant – you and me.
That brings us right back where we started: the church – this church, running the race that is set before us and, at this particular stage of the race, taking stock, casting a vision for the path ahead, inviting others to join us, assessing our own gifts – how are we doing, what do we need in order to run better and stronger, is It time to get some new running shoes? Can we see, up ahead, signposts pointing toward a shared universalizing experience of the life of faith, a compelling vision that shapes our lives?
We noted at our congregational meeting last month that the visioning process would include some research, and we named together several groups of likely research targets. This morning, as we gather for coffee and goodies downstairs, you’ll notice a bunch of sheets of paper hanging around the room with names of some of the organizations or institutions we’d like to gather some information from.
I encourage you to do two things as you sip your coffee and talk with friends: write down suggestions for questions we ought to ask or for the kind of input and information we ought to seek; and put your name down on one sheet indicating your willingness to contact the group named on the sheet.
We’re researching so that we do not, as Paul admonished, “run aimlessly,” but, rather run with purpose and direction toward the prize. The prize, as I think Paul understood, is the life that Jesus points us toward: life abundant, life fully realized and fully lived at each and every stage of the race.
So, rather than a final “amen,” I’ll just say, “on your marks, get set … go!”
February 12, 2012
“Do you know,” Paul asks, “that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize?”
“Do you know,” I ask, “that I have run in a number of races but that, if the prize is for finishing first, I have never received the prize?” Try as I may, I have never yet and likely never will run in such a way as to win.
I went, as I often do, on a run seeking a sermon last week. That’s the only prize I ever get. It was Wednesday – that particularly nasty afternoon of cold rain. I knew what kind of day it was by the look on the face of a suitably bundled woman I passed in Shirlington who was quite clearly thinking, “what an idiot,” when I ran by.
I didn’t disagree. In fact, it was cold and my right hip was not at all happy to join the rest of my body out there. For some reason, that joint was out of sorts and seemed far more interested in a rest than a run. But I kept at it because, as a few of you have heard and now all of you will know, back in December Clark Chesser and I concocted a crazy agreement to run a half marathon together in April so getting in the miles right now is important.
In fact, as I ran through a bit of rain and a bit of pain last week I was thinking about the race that is before us, the idea of it, the preparation for it, the gifts for it.
And, no, I do not mean the 13.1 miles that Clark and I will try to run together. I mean the race that is the life of faith, and, in particular, this section of the race that is right here, right now, and right before us.
The life of faith is certainly not a half-marathon. It’s a full-out, long journey – far more of an ultramarathon than a half. Marathoners I’ve spoken with talk about their races in stages. They don’t start with the intention of running 26.2 miles in a single bound; they start with the intention of taking the first step, running the first hundred meters, the first half mile, finding their rhythm, running the first mile, then the second, then the third, and so on.
We’re at a particular point in our journey together as we live into the visioning process we’ve committed to on the way to becoming the more vibrant congregation we want to be, and we believe God is calling us to be.
Both our individual journeys of faith and our shared journey unfold in stages, in steps along the way. As individuals we experience life and faith differently at different points in our lives, just as a runner experiences the race differently at different points along the route.
We have most of the stages of life represented in this room on any given Sunday. We have toddlers and other young children who experience life with awe and wonder at the mystery of things that we grownups either take completely for granted or don’t even notice. I remember doing a “walk-about” sermon with the children in one of the other congregations I served. We went to the back of that sanctuary and I asked them to look in as if they were walking in for worship and tell me what they noticed. I figured that it would be the cross, which dominated that particular space visually, especially from the point of view I invited the kids to experience. I’ll never forget one little boy whispering to me that what he noticed was “the red light.” I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, and it took a good bit of back and forth before he finally got me to notice the small red light that indicated that one of the lighting or heating or security systems was functioning. I’d walked into that space dozens and dozens of times, and never noticed the light at all. At different stages of life, different things will be important to us and we’ll bring different gifts to those stages.
We have older members who bring the gift of experience, having seen so much of the life of this congregation, and of life in general and so carrying a deep memory and the wisdom of those years. And, obviously, we have lots of folks at most every stage of life in between from young adults just starting out in careers, young parents just starting the great adventure of family, early middle-aged folks living into the fullness of their several callings and the gifts they bear into those callings, older middle-aged folks perhaps living for the first time into the comfort of their own skin, slightly older folks whose professional lives are coming toward conclusions and they begin again the next stage of sorting out call and gift, opportunity and responsibility.
None of this comes as any great surprise, and, on the one hand, may seem incredibly obvious. On the other hand, though, it’s worth pausing to consider what an incredible gift we receive in a multigenerational community when we do, in fact, pause to name and receive and use that gift in all the ways it is offered.
Toward that end, we are going to use the season of Lent this year as time of intentional reflection on the gifts that come with various stages of life and on the callings that come with various stages as well, all in the context of reflecting together on some of the deep needs in the communities that each of us participate in from family, to neighborhood, to school, to work, to congregation, to commonwealth.
Obviously, at first blush and probably well beyond, that’s a pretty complicated matrix, and we’ll come at it in several ways in the weeks ahead tapping as many resources as we can to deepen our understanding and to sharpen our focus during this season of vision casting and clarifying.
Toward that end, this morning I thought it might be helpful to consider some important work on stages of faith. In much the same way that developmental theorists have described stages of life, various theologians have described stages of faith. James Fowler, in the early 80s, was among the first to study this in depth and detail.
Fowler, who taught at the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, described stages of faith in much the same way that Jean Piaget described developmental stages, beginning with the mix of fantasy and reality that marks the faith of young children. As we get a bit older, Fowler observed, most of us begin to understand the world a bit more logically – most of us – but we still tend to understand faith stories quite literally.
As teenagers, most of us adopt some all-encompassing belief system and place authority for those beliefs in either individuals who hold them – sometimes parents, sometimes teachers, sometimes religious leaders – or in a group that shares them. At the same time, at that point, we don’t tend to recognize that we are inside a belief system at all, rather we take it “on faith” that our system is, in fact, an accurate description of reality itself. As you might guess from that description, this is a stage of faith in which many people remain throughout their lives.
On the other hand, lots of folks, especially as young adults, move beyond the faith box of adolescence, and often reject the former faith, sometimes altogether and sometimes for good.
In midlife, though, many of us begin to realize that what we once perceived as black-and-white is really quite grey – whether in our belief or in our unbelief we find the world is full of mystery and paradox. We discover that, as Einstein observed, not everything that counts can be counted and that, in fact, some of what counts most cannot be counted at all. At that stage, sacred stories and symbols become important again, but this time around without being stuck in literalism or within the frame of theological orthodoxies. This stage of fairly mature faith is the end of the line for most of us. But not for all.
Fowler named his final stage of faith development “universalizing faith,” and said that few of us ever actually get to that point. He described it, interestingly enough, way more as a pattern of living than as what we might more typically call a belief system, and as a way of life marked fully by service to others without fear or anxiety and based on a deep conviction in the truth of the universal values of love, justice and compassion.
In other words, a lot like the life of the Jesus of the gospels.
It is a life of running with perseverance the race that is set before us, as the author of the book of Hebrews put it. In that same section of Hebrews we’re also reminded that as we run we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. I understand that cloud to include the saints of the church triumphant who have gone before us and charted a way, and also the saints who run this race alongside us as the church militant – you and me.
That brings us right back where we started: the church – this church, running the race that is set before us and, at this particular stage of the race, taking stock, casting a vision for the path ahead, inviting others to join us, assessing our own gifts – how are we doing, what do we need in order to run better and stronger, is It time to get some new running shoes? Can we see, up ahead, signposts pointing toward a shared universalizing experience of the life of faith, a compelling vision that shapes our lives?
We noted at our congregational meeting last month that the visioning process would include some research, and we named together several groups of likely research targets. This morning, as we gather for coffee and goodies downstairs, you’ll notice a bunch of sheets of paper hanging around the room with names of some of the organizations or institutions we’d like to gather some information from.
I encourage you to do two things as you sip your coffee and talk with friends: write down suggestions for questions we ought to ask or for the kind of input and information we ought to seek; and put your name down on one sheet indicating your willingness to contact the group named on the sheet.
We’re researching so that we do not, as Paul admonished, “run aimlessly,” but, rather run with purpose and direction toward the prize. The prize, as I think Paul understood, is the life that Jesus points us toward: life abundant, life fully realized and fully lived at each and every stage of the race.
So, rather than a final “amen,” I’ll just say, “on your marks, get set … go!”
posted by David Ensign at
11:02 AM
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