A Place to Go and a Terrible Urgency to Get There
Sermon by James W. Crawford
October 3, 1999
Joan Benoit Samuelson won the Boston Marathon in 1979 and 1983. Those of us who wandered over to Kenmore Square from Fenway Park and its 11:00 A.M. ball game to catch a glimpse of the runners, will never forget her Bowdoin T-shirt and backwards Red Sox cap as she glided down Beacon Street. And who can forget among those of us who watched on television, or were fortunate enough to be in Los Angeles for the 1984 Olympics, when, at the end of that marathon, she plunged into the tunnel at the Los Angeles Coliseum, emerged on the track to explosive cheers and took a victory lap around the field. If you go into the Nike Store here on Newbury Street, you will see some of her running shoes. And the Bowdoin College Field House features Benoit-Samuelson memorabilia reminding us of this remarkable athlete from Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
Joan Benoit-Samuelson's victories and medals, however, came at a significant price. The cost began with a terrible high school skiing accident, breaking and shortening one of her legs, tempting her to entitle her autobiography, "Out on a Limp." Over the years, her knees gave way, she underwent heel surgery twice; anemia wiped her out, an appendectomy got in the way of a whole season. She underwent a training regimen running sometimes a hundred miles a week, overcoming anxiety, rugged competition, some hideous races, and physical and emotional exhaustion. In her autobiography, Running Tide she tells us,
My response to the lows and highs has been the making of me. My worst races have been my best teachers. Every time I fail I assume I will be a stronger person for it. I keep on running, literally and figuratively, despite a limp that gets more noticeable each passing season, because for me there has always been a place to go and a terrible urgency to get there. For as long as I can remember I have been setting goals for myself and dealing with the consequences of either meeting or falling short of them. I have tried to accept my setbacks as the will of someone whose judgment I have no right to question. But I also believe that that someone—who, for me, is God—expects me to push against the obstacles with all my strength and to give up only when I am fairly and honestly defeated.
Now why begin this morning with Joan Benoit-Samuelson? Why this reference to a racer's challenges and perseverance? Simply because Joan Benoit's story tends to portray Paul's description of the Christian life. In his letter to the church at Philippi, Paul describes his life as "straining forward to what lies ahead;" "pressing onward toward the goal (one translation calls it the 'finish line')"; pressing "onward toward the finish line for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus." In his description of his life as a figurative marathon, Paul uses vigorous, hectic, frenetic verbs picturing a racer sprinting crazily for the tape, clawing the air, bent to the finish, eyes blotting out everything but the goal. This, writes Paul, defines my life. To be sure, shipwreck, beatings, persecution and imprisonment; but all this I count as trivial in light of my chosen goal: "the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."
Do you see what Paul is saying? A lofty goal draws him single mindedly on; a high purpose governs his life. The meaning of his life no longer depends upon what others think of him, what success he claims, what achievements he catalogs, what difficulties he faces, what obstacles he has overcome. A transcendent objective puts all the stress and difficulty of his life in new and fresh perspective. Joan Benoit-Samuelson defined this objective and the pressing to reach it as "a place to go and a terrible urgency to get there."
This pursuit of "the prize of the heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ,"— what some translations call the "upward call"—this goal, this pursuit of the prize, is no less our vocation, our call, our high purpose in life. The prize we seek includes our vision of and the working toward a community and world where the walls of sex and race and nation come tumbling down. As we witness our tortured, angry world, what a valued and urgent prize that should be. On this World Wide Communion Sunday, when churches all over the world read this same lesson, indeed, while our choir today sings anthems from around the globe in different cadences and languages, while Ariel reads our scripture in English and Spanish, we witness yet incredible human wipeouts in East Timor, tribal genocide in Sierra Leone, civil war in Colombia, and the Russians and Chechnyans engaging in another human conflagration.
And, yes, in Kosovo: vengeance. The Albanians pursuing ethnic cleansing in a fashion no less virulent than the Serbs. A month or two ago I came across an absolutely fascinating and oh, so sad observation regarding the human condition. It came from an opinion poll in a Belgrade magazine where Serbs and Albanians living in Kosovo were asked to choose adjectives describing themselves and each other. Describing themselves, Albanians most frequently chose: hospitable, peaceful, courageous, clean, honest, intelligent, united and hardworking. Serbs described themselves as: hospitable, courageous, peaceful, clean, intelligent, cheerful, honest and boastful. Not bad. Nice people.
But what is this? Another perspective. Albanians described Serbs as those who hate other nations, treacherous, careerists, selfish, rough, boastful, impetuous and united. Serbs described Albanians as: united, those who hate other nations, treacherous, backward, rough, hardworking, exclusive of other nations and selfish.
Is it any wonder a reporter from Pristina, Kosovo's capital, sends a dispatch under the title, "Live from Hell."
And, my soul, just this week, the Ryder Cup set old allies against one another. One British journalist watching Americans dance on the 17th green after Justin Leonard holed that unbelievable 45-foot putt (albeit the dancing an egregious flaunting of royal and ancient etiquette) one journalist wrote in the London Evening Standard, "Let us be painfully honest about it. . . (Americans) are repulsive people, charmless, rude, cocky, mercenary, humorless, ugly, full of nauseatingly fake religiosity, and as odious in victory as they are unsporting in defeat. . ."
What do we have here? World War three? In a match designed to further friendship and respect? Really? In the Dictionary for Hackers, Duffers and Perpetual Putters, "Match Play" is defined as "Golfing competition whose outcome is determined by calculating which team or individual had the lowest score on the most holes." That is what they played at The Country Club last week. Medal Play is "Golfing competition whose outcome is determined by calculating which player had the lowest overall score for 18 holes." That is what we usually see or play. But there is another style, according to this dictionary. It is "Melee Play". Melee Play is "golfing competition whose outcome is determined by a fistfight on the 18th green."
What a world! And on this World Wide Communion Sunday, one of our main objectives as an outpost of the universal church on this corner is, wherever we come from, whatever ethnic, national, racial roots we claim we commune, we join, as one body foretelling through our worship together in this place the wonder of the prize we seek and reflect our terrible urgency to get there. Today we commune with Chechnyans, East Timorese, Albanians, Serbians, and yes, inevitably with some of the competitors on those American and European Ryder Cup teams—men and women and children in every continent and nation praying for a community where peace with justice grounded in love may finally have its day. Oh, to strain for such a prize!
II
And perhaps a little closer to home, in a few moments after this service members of this congregation will gather in the Guild Rooms on the fourth floor to preview, work at, dream about and envision the ongoing mission of this church. We will gather as a pilgrim people, men and women on the move, buffeted by change, sharing, I suspect a common vision of a healed and reconciled humanity, but now and again differing on strategy and tactics as we plot the route to the place we go, sharing a terrible urgency to get there. This sacrament of Holy Communion, even as it recognizes our differences and honors them, binds us across our differences. It shows through our breaking of the bread and the pouring the cup that we live in an imperfect world, in an imperfect church, as imperfect men and women yet —yet—that our unity in love for one another and hope for our church and our world fuels us as we "press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus . . . "
We began a few moments ago with reference to the stamina and perseverance of a great runner. Let me close with reference to another American straining toward a finish line. William Edward Burghhardt DuBois is described as the most influential African-American public intellectual of the Twentieth Century. Born right here in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, he graduated from Fisk University in 1888 and received a Ph.D. in History from Harvard in 1895. He founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909, served as the editor of its prophetic and revelatory periodical "Crisis" until 1934. DuBois drew up plans for economic cooperatives, self help projects, and made every effort through political action and brilliant persuasion to ameliorate the terrible racial divisions afflicting our country. In 1909, while serving young people at Atlanta University, DuBois composed for them a prayer for endurance. It carries the flavor of the apostle Paul as he presses for that eternal prize. It reminds us that as disciples, the Gospel promises us a place to go and sustains us through our terrible urgency to get there. So then let us join W.E.B.DuBois in prayer:
In the midst of life and deeds it is easy to have endurance and strength and determination, but Thy Word, O Lord, teaches us that this is not enough to bring good to the world—to bring happiness and the worthier success. For this we must endure to the end, learn to finish things, to bring them to accomplishment and full fruition. We must not be content with plans, ambitions, resolves; with part of the message or part of an education, but be set and determined to fulfill the promise and complete the task and secure the full training. Such men and women alone does God save by lifting them above and rising them to higher worlds and wider prospects. Give us, O God, to resist today the temptation of shirking, and the grit to endure to the end. Amen.
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