“There is one body and one Spirit . . . one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all
and in all.” Ephesians 4:4-6
The Reverend Luther Zeigler
Emmanuel Church
August 5, 2012
Let me begin
with a confession: I have spent more of
this past week than I really should have watching the Olympics. And I
gather that I’m not alone. The media
reports that as many as a billion people around the globe watched the Opening
Ceremonies, and NBC says that it is averaging around 40 million viewers in the
United States alone this past week, not counting the streaming video coverage
that is now available on the internet.
Indeed, as to such digital coverage, the Wall Street Journal reports that millions of American workers admit
to watching the games on their computers at work to the tune of an estimated
$650 million in productivity losses.
Honestly, I don’t know how reliable all these numbers are, but they
certainly do point to a very real and very global fascination with the athletic
performances that are taking place right now in London.
I have long
been interested in the potential of sports to promote human solidarity and
community. At its best, the drama that
we call athletics has the capacity to unite people from diverse backgrounds, to
break down the socially constructed barriers that separate us, to rally folks
around their common humanity and the pursuit of excellence, and to ignite them
with a Spirit that transcends individual circumstances. In the Olympic stadium, we see people gathered
together from all nations in wondrous awe of the heights to which the human
body and spirit can soar. The genius of Olympic
team sports – where athletes are not just in it for themselves but are
representing their countries – is that it shows us what is possible when the flourishing
of the group depends upon individuals setting aside selfish agendas for a
common purpose. It reminds us that we
are at our best as individuals when we work cooperatively in community for our
collective good rather than each person seeking his or her own glory.
The most
memorable Olympic moment for me that proves this truth was not from this year’s
Olympics, but from a different Olympics that took place several decades ago in
Spokane, Washington.[1] The 1976 Special Olympics to be precise. One of the featured events from that year’s
games was the 100-yard dash. The field
included nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, most of them
children or young adults. According to eyewitness accounts, the runners took
their mark at the starting line and, at the gun, they took off, not exactly in
a dash, but with a relish to run the race, to the finish, and win. All of them, that is, except one young boy,
who stumbled out of the starting blocks and fell to the ground, letting out a
shriek of pain and disappointment as he did.
The other
eight runners apparently heard the boy’s scream, because all of them slowed
down and looked back. And when they saw
the boy writhing in pain and embarrassment on the ground, they came to a full
stop in the middle of the race, turned around and scrambled to his aid. Every one of them. And, according to a report from one spectator,
one of the contestants, a young girl with Down's Syndrome, bent down and kissed
the young boy, saying “This will make it better.” The runners then lifted the boy to his feet,
linked arms, and walked together – all nine of them, arm in arm – to the finish
line. Everyone in the stadium stood, and
cheered, and cheered, and cheered.
People who were
there are still telling the story. Why? Because notwithstanding our intensely
competitive culture, grounded as it is in an ideal of rugged individualism, we
know that on that day these nine young runners embodied an ideal that
transcends what we are ordinarily capable of doing. They utterly forgot about their own aims and
ambitions, eagerly setting them aside to care for someone in distress. Indeed, the actions of these young athletes
embodied precisely the kind of Christ-centeredness into which Paul invites us
in today’s lesson from Ephesians: a life
marked by “humility and gentleness,” by “patience,” by “bearing with one
another in love,” with the goal of “making every effort to maintain the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” In
Christ, we are not separate individuals pursuing our own gain, but brothers and
sisters united in “one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.”
I am not so
naïve or sentimental as to think that we can replicate this kind of selfless
devotion to the other easily or consistently or even often in our own
day-to-day lives. But I also know that
as soon as we give up on this as our ideal, and give into the world’s cynicism
and self-centeredness, we are lost.
Which is exactly why we show up here in church every Sunday: to hear again the story of God’s ultimate act
of self-giving love in Christ, to pray that God will open our hearts to such
love, and to support each other in trying to grow into what St. Paul calls “the
measure of the full stature of Christ.”
It is a heady ideal, to be sure, one that is possible only by virtue of
the mystery of God’s grace secretly at work in each one of us. But the reason the Church is here is to “build
up the body of Christ” as best we are able.
And one of ways we do that is to be a place where when people fall – and
we all will fall – there is somebody to pick us up.
This is
precisely the kind of Christ-centered life, and the kind of Christ-centered community,
into which we welcome little Skylar Rothe today. Skylar’s
baptism is more than a momentary event; it is the beginning of a lifelong
pilgrimage in relationship with God. On
that pilgrimage Skylar will have a guide in Christ, who is constantly by her
side. But Christ also relies on those
who are closest to Skylar, her parents and godparents. Brian and Rachel, Randal and Nancy, God is
counting on you to show Skylar what it looks like to seek and serve Christ in
all persons, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect
the dignity of every human being. It is
an awesome responsibility, but it comes with some good news too: Even when you mess up – and you will – God
will be there to redeem your errors and straighten your path. God only asks that you give the little bit
you have, knowing that in the mystery of things it will be enough. God does not expect you to be perfect role
models for Sklyar; He expects only that you strive to be faithful ones,
prepared to seek forgiveness when you make mistakes.
And as for the
rest of us here in church today, we are not only witnesses to Skylar’s baptism,
but we are her brothers and sisters in Christ, and as a community we have our
responsibility to help her parents and godparents guide little Skylar through
the often treacherous stretches of being human in this world. It will not always be easy going, but with
God’s help, we know it will be a race well worth running. And if there is an ESPN Olympic highlight
reel that I would want to share with little Skylar to teach her about the
Christian life, it would not be a clip of Lebron James leading the American
basketball team toward another gold medal, or of Michael Phelps becoming the
most decorated Olympian in history, or even of the American women’s gymnastics
team working so beautifully together to win the gold. Rather, it would be the film of those nine
disabled children in Spokane, Washington who became true Olympians by helping
each other walk arm-in-arm across the finish line in an otherwise obscure race that
still has people talking. Amen.
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