Overcoming Humiliation

 

The Humiliation Tour is a tale of runners from two distant generations. Jeffrey tells the story of two young men who love to run and who run well, but who have the most bizarre misfortunes befall them. Their stories turn out to be connected, although one lives almost a hundred years earlier. Their lives revolve around running, family, love, public humiliation, and a shared yearning for redemption. As someone who has trained for and finished a 26.2 miles marathon, I understand how stories evolve from running. Each young man makes bad decisions that hinder his progress.  But each has a love for his family and for running that keeps him going. If you live to run, read this book. If you think that no one has ever dreamed of having the kind of bad luck that you have had, you may want to read it, too. But their bad luck is not the end of their stories. Neither, in the end, allows their misfortune or family history to determine their destiny.  Each one keeps running towards their common goal and both will be remembered as heroes. 

Traumatic experiences threaten to drown hopes and dreams. We may suspect that the demons who conquered an ancestor are threatening to overwhelm us. We can surrender to the trauma or we can seek healing. We can sit down and give up on life or we can adjust to our new circumstances, set goals, and live in such a way that we can reach those goals. When we do that, we follow in the example of the apostle Paul, who wrote first of his setbacks, then of his determination to overcome

"Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked" (2 Corinthians 11:24-27).

"I want to know Christ, yes to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me...But one thing I do Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:10-14).

The two young men in the novel survive their own bad decisions, attacks from competitors, abysmally bad advice from advisors, and exposure to obstacles and experiences that threaten to kill them. Yet each keeps pressing forward, training for their common goal, encouraged by love, and transforming into a hero along the way.

Even if physical abuse, betrayal by a family member or trusted friend, or unexpected losses have rocked your world and shattered your dreams, I encourage you to persist in loving, dreaming, and hoping. I urge you to identify and to train to reach healthy goals. Especially, I suggest that you adopt Paul's goal - to know Christ and to become like him. Keep pressing forward toward hope. End your own humiliation tour and never, never give up!

A Secure Path

While we live, even though the world is in the power of the evil one, we have hope God who gives life and can empower us to overcome. We have a firm foundation and we have an anchor that will secure no matter how intense the storms of life may be. We can sing: “We have an anchor..” “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols”(1 John 5:20-21). At Rock City Gardens near Chattanooga, Tennessee, a swinging bridge provides a path across a deep chasm between two bluffs. As I followed my children across the bridge, my daughter froze. She wanted a firm foundation; she sensed no security. Only my presence and coaching gave her the confidence to trust the bridge and reach the other side. We crave safety and predictability in our relationships. We don’t want a swinging bridge. We don’t want to navigate the swamps of depression and fear. We want firm ground, preferably concrete pavement, underneath our feet in our relationship with family, with friends, and with God. Though the cables strain, they are secured by the Savior’s hand. He coaches us and he guides toward safety; he demonstrates concrete love. Will you keep yourselves from idols? Will you trust the true God and eternal life? Will you say yes to the concrete love of Christ?

How Will You Respond to Jesus?

Large crowds surged to hear Jesus in villages and in Jerusalem. They even swarmed into wilderness areas to find the one who spoke like no one else spoke, who healed disease, and who loved the outcast. Even as they praised him, voices from among them challenged the credentials of the teacher, the content of his teaching, and his faithfulness to God’s law (How dare he heal on the Sabbath, a day of rest, was among their complaints.). When Jesus spoke of sacrifice, commitment, and death, crowds diminished. After his arrest, the voices of his supporters were drowned out by the clamor of those demanding his execution. Two of his closest associates betrayed him, one by taking money to hand him over to authorities, and the other by denying that he knew him. Paradox surrounds the ministry of Jesus. Crowds wanted to make him king (John 6); others denied him, saying they had no other king than Caesar. He healed disease, but his priority was healing the soul. He was criticized because he socialized too much, and with the wrong people; he withdrew often to quiet places by himself. He marveled at the faith of a Roman Soldier, talked with women (which just wasn’t done), touched a leper, and prayed for the unity of his disciples, but demanded an allegiance that would create friction in other relationships (Matthew 10:34-39). Large crowds still gather to hear the message of Jesus. Voices from among the crowds still challenge his claims and denounce the content of his preaching. Others still follow him when it is convenient, but drift away when his call to take up their cross and sacrifice for him interferes with their goals or their schedule. His prayer for unity remains, but his followers bicker among themselves, demean one another, and still, like the earliest disciples, seek to be the greatest rather than the servant. The question for us is, “What will we do with Jesus?” Will we praise him when it is convenient, but renounce him by our silence or absence when it is not? Will we follow him, or live life our way? Jesus’s words remind us why our answers to those questions are critical: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

You've Got to Love Technology!

We record the sermons at the church where I preach, then post them to YouTube. My sermon yesterday (about the preparation for which I posted last week) concerned serving God and Christ with zealous obedience. During the sermon, just as I paused for a moment, a member's digital Bible began to read out loud to her. She could not silence it! Finally a friend of hers took the verbose smartphone and rushed from the auditorium to find sanctuary elsewhere. I realized fairly quickly that I could not compete with the other voice. The congregation was too distracted, as was I. So, after a moment (or twenty, as it seemed to me), I smiled and said, "You've got to love technology!" Later, I realized that a perfect illustration for my sermon had appeared without invitation right in the middle of it. As Christians, we profess to follow Christ with all our heart, but then...a distraction - someone or something clamors for our time and concentration. We look away from Jesus and follow the distraction. Here's the sermon if you want see the awkward moment, or if you want to ponder how we can serve Jesus with the same zealous obedience with which he served God.

What would Jesus do?

This week I am preparing a sermon from John 2:13-25, which I suspect is not the usual passage most people consider when asking, "What would Jesus do?" In the passage, Jesus marches into the temple court, throws over tables belonging to vendors, then drives out those merchants and the sacrificial animals they had been selling. This is not Jesus "meek and gentle." Countering corruption sometimes takes overt action. Preaching requires capturing the attention of those so ingrained in their sin that they don't realize you're speaking to them when you call for people to repent. On the other hand, Jesus teaches disciples to turn the other cheek, to give more than is asked, to go the second mile. Do you sometimes struggle to discern when to seek reconciliation and when to turn over tables? Answers to our immediate confusion, urgent and elusive though they seem, may be entwined with our awareness of what it means that we have died to sin when we were buried in baptism and that we have arisen into a new life where we seek to keep in step with God's Spirit. What Jesus would do if he were we might not be easy to determine as some might think. However, followers of Jesus still, like him, seek justice and live faithfully. We forgive and seek reconciliation. We suffer. We, at times, act decisively and abruptly to protect the vulnerable and weak. We seek the way Jesus would take.