Seputagesima Sunday (February 13, 2022)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

What does it take to be a professional athlete? It’s an appropriate question to ask on Super Bowl Sunday. Of course, we can say that to be a professional athlete one must have inherited immense physical gifts that come only from winning a kind of genetic lottery. That is partially correct but it isn’t the whole truth. Part of the wonder that accompanies sports is the chance that the underdog might overcome all the odds and somehow win the victory, as we’ve seen over the past few weeks with the Cincinnati Bengals. So, it’s not just winning the genetic lottery that makes one a successful athlete; it’s also dedication. Think about Tom Brady who is most likely the greatest NFL quarterback of all time who just played his final season at the age of 44. He has a daily schedule that begins at 5:30am and involves somewhere around six hours a day in the gym. This is accompanied by a strict plant-based diet that avoids alcohol, gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, and overly-processed foods. The time, energy, and care he puts into his craft is the reason why he is one of the greatest athletes ever. Today, in our epistle reading from 1 Corinthians, St. Paul asks us to consider the life and dedication of athletes so that we can better understand what is required of us as Christians. As he will show us, Christian living is very much like being an athlete in that our goal must be reached through rigorous training and self-mastery.

Paul uses two sports-related metaphors in our reading this morning: running and boxing, events the Corinthians would have been familiar with because of the Isthmus Games. Along with the Olympics, the Isthmian Games was a major athletic event in the Greco-Roman world that was held near Corinth. In ancient philosophical writings, there are similar metaphors. The Stoics, for example, employed athletic imagery to depict the human struggle to attain truth and virtue. Paul, who had been well-educated and in Acts 17 even engaged with Stoic philosophers, would have most likely been aware of these metaphors. He seems to be baptizing them by appropriating the image of the athlete to depict the preaching of the Gospel and the pursuit of holiness.

Now, Paul doesn’t leave this metaphor of the runner or the boxer as some abstraction; he enfleshes it by providing himself as an example, “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air.” As we saw during our sermon series called “Living Sacrifices” during Epiphanytide, the stories we tell ourselves matter and form our perception of reality. With that perception, we engage in action. This is why we celebrate feast days of saints and commemorate their lives with the Christian calendar. It’s important for our theological and moral imaginations to see that Gospel enfleshed in the lives of others, for faithful Christians to set examples for us as they follow our Lord’s footsteps. St. Paul is a great example of someone we should follow because of how closely he followed Christ. And so he holds himself up as an example for both the Corinthians and for us, not as an act of self-glorification but as a didactic tool: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ,” he tells them in verse 1 of chapter 11. So how are we to follow this example?

Paul gives us a two-fold action with negative and positive movements. The negative is in Paul saying that he doesn’t run with uncertainty or as one who boxes the air. He is not a spiritual child who is blown and tossed by the wind, something he warns against in Ephesians 4:14. He doesn’t meander or squander the great gifts of grace he received in his conversion and apostleship. Rather, we should understand Paul as a man who had his sights set on the prize, which for the Christian is not some perishable wreath, expensive medal, or an ornate and prestigious trophy but rather a heavenly and eternal reward. Which leads us to the positive movement: “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: let that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” Paul’s training was not an athletic one so much as a subjugation of the body to his greater goal; a training to avoid the lusts of the flesh so he could pursue what is good., not only to attain a heavenly prize, but also to avoid disqualification because he recognizes that ministers are held to a higher standard.

Athletes have a goal: winning the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Stanley Cup, the olympic Gold. For that ultimate win, they’re willing to endure all sorts of things in the present. This is the kind of long view that we as Christians have to embrace as we run the spiritual race set before us. We navigate the mountains and valleys, the ups and downs, of life wit that imperishable crown in view; we put with criticism, scorn, and insults from others so that at the end of our lives, we can hear that sweet, divine voice tell us “Well done my good and faithful servant.” The Christian view is that every moment in our lives is spiritual; every situation is imbued with opportunity for us to grow nearer to our God. The fact that we, week after week after week, confess that we believe our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead is not an excuse to twiddle our thumbs, sit on our hands, and waste time. Quite the opposite: it’s our motivation to run the race with even more vigor than we have before.

Sadly, this week, we as a community experienced the loss of two saints in Louise Blount and Jeanne Lopez and I would submit that, like the Apostle Paul, both of them are examples for us because they didn’t just wake up one day and magically become who they were. it took a lot of work, a lot of discipline, a lot of prayer, and a lot of faith on their part. But, by God’s grace, they were two beautiful witnesses to the real power of the Gospel.

Today, we begin Pre-Lent. It’s common during this time of year, to make a confession (which you can do, by the way) and a time to prepare for the great 40 day fast of Lent. This Pre-Lent season becomes an opportunity for us to be in prayer about how God would have us grow, as individuals and as a community. We’ll talk about that growth some in coming weeks and at our Lenten Retreat on February 26. With that in mind, I think that leaving today, we need to remember two interrelated truths. First, we’re all running a race and that race has an endpoint which is our sanctification and ultimate glorification when we behold our Creator face to face. Because of that, we should take to heart a second truth, namely that we must attend to the present as we train ourselves so that we will not be found wanting and can hear those beautiful words “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.