October 2, 2005 Des Moines

World Communion Sunday

TEXT: Philippians 3:4b-14

Pressing On

A friend of mine once concluded Church Loyalty Month by jigsawing a giant picture of the church and sending a piece to every member of the congregation. Everyone was urged to be present with his or her piece on that last Sunday of the special month to help recreate the picture with dramatic flair. It’s a neat idea, with a message that is obvious: the church is not complete without everyone. But I have to confess, as I read the plan and tried to visualize the result, my cynicism wanted to bet that that puzzle never gets back together – not completely. Every church sadly has that section of people who just aren’t interested; who aren’t going to be there, no matter how neat the idea or compelling the message. “Thanks,” they say, “but include me out.” The puzzle won’t be finished. But even with that, the symbol is pretty potent: you cannot miss the point when you look at that Swiss cheese picture that the church is in fact not finished – with its people, or its ministry.

A puzzle with holes. A picture unfinished. A ministry incomplete. Or, as Paul puts it to the Philippians, a race not yet won. At the end of a powerful look at righteousness – at what it means to be a Christian and what it means to live the Christian life; at knowing and experiencing Christ’s power and grace – and after an accounting of his own sweaty pursuit of that course – Paul confesses that not even he can point to completion. Some pieces are still missing with him.

“Look at all I’ve done; all the places I’ve been in Christ’s service; and look at the ways I have changed and grown. And yet, with all of that behind me, I haven’t reached perfection yet,” he shares. “There are yet holes to be filled in my relationship with Christ. There is a race for me still to run.”

Which, if nothing else, ought to make us, and our awareness of inadequacy, feel in good company. Heaven knows that we haven’t finished any races either! Hardly an Elder’s meeting goes by, for example, that someone doesn’t say, in one way or another, “I don’t deserve to be in this position; I don’t measure up; I’m not worthy of the honor or the responsibilities of this title.” There is no quieter, humbler group than a gathering of elders when those scriptural qualifications are read – the missing pieces in those lives begin to glow with a hot and piercing light. No one has to point out to us our failings; they are hauntingly – painfully – clear. Neither have we, we understand so vividly, yet reached perfection. Neither is our picture yet complete.

And the rest of us can only sympathize; nodding our heads as we consider the holes yet present in us. We may not have a title that continually haunts us with the reminder, but something deep down reminds us that the prize is not yet in our hands, either; that the race is still incomplete. And let’s face it, it should be incomplete, given the way we keep stopping for a rest and getting off the track – chasing our fancies and following our hungers – our gods, as Paul so wonderfully describes them, still too much our bellies.

But the word I think Paul would have us hear in this letter is not the gloom of defeat, but the encouraging cheer of the crowd encouraging us along the way. I observed that gift by accident two weeks ago, today. The Des Moines Marathon was underway that early Sunday morning, and in the process of crossing Fleur Drive, as it turned out, just as I was trying to get to church. Stuck, there, at the intersection, watching runners heave themselves along, there were others there, too. In addition to the lines of cars backed up in both directions, in addition to the police officers managing the traffic, in addition to the occasional race official that checked on one thing or another, there were encouragers – family members, perhaps, or friends, or maybe race enthusiasts who recognized the value of cheering and clapping the runners along. “Keep running!” their efforts implied. “You are making progress. You are getting nearer the end. Don’t stop now.” And the runners, some not even veering their gaze from the steps at hand, nonetheless smiled and kept on.

“No,” Paul confesses, “I am not what I would be, I have not claimed the prize – but like the bumper sticker says, “Be patient, God’s not finished with me yet!” The message here is not despair, but resolve: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ once took hold of me.” As I pray will we.

But if the race is to be run, there will be more to overcome than low self-esteem, distraction, and flagging energy and spirits. Of equal liability is lethargy – living the life of faith on automatic pilot; flying a course set when our sights were low or our faith was young or when we were who we were and not who we are. It may be that we think we’re doing all we can; or maybe that there’s nothing more to do. Or, gosh, that we’ve paid our dues; let the young ones take over. We spoke last week about the essential and guiding nature of memory for running the race, but memory can also serve a paralyzing function as well.

It is easy for churches to avoid facing up to the fact that who they once were is not who they now are. It’s easy to live in the nostalgia of a wonderful heritage – full Sunday School classrooms, standing room only in the sanctuary, community prestige and influence – in a building built to house 3 or 4 or 5 times the number who currently assemble under the roof. Gathering now in the wealth of their memory, it is, alas, likewise in the poverty of their vision; they sing and tell of the good things they’ve done and the difference they’ve made; pronounce the benediction and never notice the difference. That the race has NOT been won, but goes on, apparently escapes their attention. Every person and every church has a history, but no person, no church is a history – only a present, with a future still in store, begging for someone to notice, and reach out toward its possibilities.

As we arrive around the table today on this World Communion Sunday, we are confronted again in a still larger way that the race is far from over. Whatever the gulfs that yet divide the myriads of people, Christians have not even learned to breach the walls that separate themselves from each other! We are still too often jealous competitors vying for “market share,” begrudging one another’s successes and judging one another’s methods and meanings; estranged siblings who busy themselves with other mundanities – cleaning their rooms, folding their laundry, anything – rather than join each other for supper around the table.

Which is to say that it isn’t enough to simply run – isn’t enough to just keep going, putting one foot in front of the other. Christ’s race is along a certain path, toward a particular destination – a certain intersection across which a ribbon is stretched and waiting to be broken by the passage of a chest arched forward, straining for the prize. But it isn’t the chest of a lone congregation or even a single denomination who has jumped out in front of the rest and vanquished all the lesser contenders. What World Communion Sunday reminds us, as we imagine Christians around the world sitting down in their separate rooms beside a loaf and a cup on a TV tray, is that the race is run by the Body of Christ, of which we are respectively members, and victory will not go to an arm or a nose or a kidney or a toe, but to the Body, moving in rhythmic, organic unity together, across the line and into the celebration feast prepared by the love that first cried, “On your mark…” and now says, “welcome home.”

Not that I have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Tthis 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.