2023.10.08 | Pressing on Toward the Prize
“Pressing on Toward the Prize”
The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost;
October 8, 2023
Philippians 3:4b-14 | Español
It may not surprise you that I was never much of a runner--not even in high school, not even before I underwent two knee surgeries, or suffered a series of joint injuries. This body just wasn’t built for speed, yet I once had the capacity to stay on my feet all day, in the fields of Iowa, and do whatever needed to be done on our family farm.
Despite my obvious design flaws for footracing, I was--you heard it here first--a member of the Reinbeck High School Girls’ Track Team.
I was a member of my high school’s girls’ track team for some of the same reasons that I was a member of my high school choir.
In the case of the choir, I could sing tenor, but more importantly, I was willing to set up and put away the risers before and after concerts. This fact is, in part, why I am president of the Eden Church Music Boosters.
In the case of our track program, I was on the track team because track included field events. For the uninitiated, the field events in Iowa girls track, since Title 9 was passed, included the shot put, discus, softball throw, long jump, high jump, and pole vault.
My twin (Marlene) and I competed in the first three field events that I just mentioned.
We learned quickly that winning field events, much less simply training for them, did not land a person’s name in the news headlines--not even Reinbeck, which then only published one paper, a weekly, called the Courier. What did you expect? The population then was 1800. The town is smaller now, and the paper folded years ago. (Gotcha punsters!)
II
It may surprise the youth in our present generation that field events in the 1970s did not involve skin hugging clothing that resembled modern undergarments, or expensive running shoes.
And I am not pointing fingers. I wish I had the figure for the clothing, such that it is, and I’ve made it my personal mission to “rock” the shoes in my old age--especially on Sundays, and most especially in worship--even though I do not have to wonder what my grandmothers or my surviving elder Iowans would have to say about my fashion statements these days.
Timehop back to the ‘70s. Those who were alive then and now remember that we wore baggy unisex hoodies with matching draw-string pants. Each athlete was issued one (yes one) set of “sweats” and a team uniform (think “long” shorts and sleeveless tops). We wore these for the entire season, which was 2 to 3 months, depending on whether we were successful enough to advance beyond our Conference to compete at the Drake Relays or the Iowa State Track Meet.
Mar and I (and other slightly above average athletes) were accepted on our school track team back then, not because we were so great, but because everyone who showed up was welcomed on the team. Our school didn’t have an inclusion policy to counter bullying or to ensure diversity. We didn’t have much diversity in a town of 1800 descendents from European pioneers. Our high school enrollment dropped under 200 when our class graduated. No one, then or now, dares to be selective about who makes the team.
Someone had to place and remove the high hurdles for the 220 and 440 dashes on and off the track. The Billerbeck girls--who made it to the Drake Relays and the State meets every year (and others crazy enough to run hurdles) could not be wrestling the equipment. They had to be on the blocks behind the starting line--ready and set to go--when the official's gun went off.
We field events girls were the perfect match for the role of hurdle jockeys. We were strong (thanks to genetics, chores, and Title 9), and our availability jibed with the hurdler events. When the hurdlers were warming up, we were competing in our events. When our events were over, theirs were starting.
At the time, I didn’t appreciate the importance of this synchronization process. Now I do. I learned a lot about running, despite only competing and lettering in field events. For example, I learned that there were strategies and techniques that could be used to get better and faster--not just as a shot-putter, but as a runner.
III
Now that all these training “secrets” have been revealed, we (like the Apostle Paul) comprehend why he chose the image and metaphor of a runner and a race to describe human spirituality and life in a faith community in Philippians, chapter 3.
Philippi was a Gentile city in Northwest Macedonia, which was then part of the Roman Empire, and is now part of modern Greece.
Paul and his audience well understood the concepts of a runner and a race, so it was meaningful for all involved to use these as part of his coaching strategy to this fledgling congregation.
The Apostle understood that most human beings are born with the capacity to run, and that all of us are born with spiritual capacity, and that not all train for the sport or spirituality, and not all stay in the race or the faith.
He also understood that not all seek or participate in physical or spiritual practices or faith experiences that help us get stronger or more skilled in our sport or faith.
Not all of us strive to get fit or stay fit as individuals or congregations for various reasons: some of us weren’t raised in a faith tradition. Some bolted for the door at the first opportunity, while others drifted, and some others showed up well past our first “press day.” Many more have had intermittent and varied feelings and thoughts about our spiritual selves and journeys.
IV
People often ask me what I think about these variations in spirituality, and religious identity and practices. So here goes. I make no judgments about whose experience or tradition is best for anyone, except for myself--at least not any more.
I was raised to be suspicious of those whose spiritual formation and faith traditions were different from mine, or seemingly non-existent. But I learned long ago (and so have most of the people who raised me) that these kinds of suspicions were foolish--and unfaithful to the Jesus we knew of, and whose teachings we still study and strive to emulate.
Furthermore, I dare to say that NOW, more than ever, we are all spiritual beings, created in the image of God, and prepared to receive, to form, and to reform a tradition (or traditions) that we encounter and to be chosen by and/or to choose participation in a faith community (metaphorically speaking, like a sport and a sports team), even if though we might be the slowest runner in our high school, or feel we are the poorest excuse of a Christian in town.
Maybe our lack of surety is due to spiritual privations in our youth, or rejection of theological indoctrination or prurient religious practices that were terribly damaging to us and others, or we took profound collateral damage from the culture wars that defined our adulthood, once we fledged the religious nests of our childhoods, and were forced or chose to venture into the Brave New Worlds of our adulthoods without a compass, much less a map.
Whatever the case may be, here we are.
Here we are in the pews (or the Internet site) of Eden United Church of Christ, unable to shake the urge to attend--and maybe even to return to something that is distantly familiar in a mostly good way. And, for some unclear reason, we (still) want this opportunity for ourselves, even though we said we're going to church for someone else (e.g., our friend, neighbor, child, or partner), we have bookmarked the address for this page in the dropdown menu of this funky old, yet revolutionary new faith community whose full name only the very few can say correctly--Eden United Church of Christ.
V
Why is that? Why are we here?
My hunch is that we are here because we have sensed that each of us is fundamentally a spiritual being, called by the Holy Spirit--not by just our parents, our tribe, our culture--to be and belong, to remember and participate in something associated with our beginning and our ending.
And we are here, because we are propelled rather than compelled NOT by our parents, or social pressure--because we are in charge of our spiritual lives now, and the culture that fostered Christian conformity has died in our country, even in Iowa.
We have come, we return, and we just might hang around, because we’ve discovered that a person can buy a book, read a blog, and order spiritual accouterments over the Internet and have them door-dashed to their home address before coffee hour is over, but they cannot/we cannot DIY God, the meaning of life or the significance of our deaths, or deliver a substantive faith tradition to us, much less to those who come after us.
That’s right, the really old fashioned truth that Paul wrote about in the mid-first century of the common era endures.
We who are here have begun to discover that we need Jesus, and a faith community with integrity and a mission to help discern why the world is going to Hell--think Cooks Corner in Orange County, California and the latest world wars blowing up what the children of Abraham believe is the cradle of our faith.
Moreover, we have come, we return, and we dare to hang around, because we have the fleeting hope that we could find the courage in this context to form faith, families, and faith families, with others who are desperate to discern some semblence of hope and guidance for navigating a way forward.
And what might our geographical and theological destination be and what might our yet unknown and unpublished map resemble?
My proposition is that our destination--our “there” resembles the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, where indigenous people have taught their youth to run without shoes and clothing, since they were old enough to attend high school, and before multinational corporations false prizes euphemistically described as “logos,” and most of the world so nievly embraced the false as the “true.”
And, again, why specifically ought we bother?
Answer: so that that our children and the children of our perceived enemies can wake up in the morning and know that the and we ALL are children of G*d, fearfully and wonderfully made for divine purposes, and intended to be a blessing to each other, rather than the curse that so many woke up to yesterday in Israel and Gaza.
You may think I’m crazy for believing and saying this, but I’m OK with that possibility. Because I’m in good company with the prophets of the world’s great religions--all of whom know that peace and justice are possible, wherever two or three are gathered for God and for GOOD. Amen.