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July 1975, Arthur Ashe became the first African American man in the modern era to win the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament outside London. Almost ancient for tennis players at age 31, Ashe defeated the then formidable Jimmy Connors even though he was a 11-2 underdog. Besides being the first African American to win the tournament, Ashe’s victory remains memorable for the way he did it.
Recognizing that he could never out power the intimidating Connors, Ashe devised a strategy that would turn his own weakness into strength. His relatively slow, but accurate first serve prevented Connors from his usual practice of attacking a second serve. Unable able to compete with Connors on a powerful game from back line to back line, he hit self described ‘dinks’ just over the net and then lobs over Connors head. He didn’t try to outhit him, he simply tried to take what many saw as his deficiencies –age, lack of speed and lack of strength – as his opportunity to keep Connors off balance and out of sync. There were those who criticized Ashe for not playing ‘real’ tennis that day, meaning he didn’t win with power. To his critics, Ashe simply replied that his goal was to win the match and the only way to do it was by turning his weaknesses to his advantage. It was yet another reminder that that strength has its limits and that weaknesses are sometimes are our best assets.
Today’s first word, in our ongoing series of 12 simple words of faith, is rooted in the idea that sometimes one’s weakness can be turned into strength. The word is HELP. Each week we’re looking at two words that might be seen as spiritual practices. We’re hoping that by focusing on simple practices, we might find some daily or regular ways to engage our Spirit and faith that is renewing and useful in living with hope and joy.
The practice of HELP is what author Brian McLaren calls spiritual jujitsu – a weaponless martial art that turns the force of the attacker back on the attacker. (Brian McLaren, Naked Spirituality, 2011)
The apostle Paul spoke of ‘boasting of his weaknesses so that the power of Christ would dwell in me…when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Isn’t that at the root of the baptisms and the renewal of our baptisms we just experienced this morning; a willingness to recognize our need for help in this life? Aren’t we saying that without the love, power, and grace that comes to us through the Spirit and through community, we cannot become all that we might otherwise be?
The practice of help is also called expansion because it involves expanding our resource base beyond our limited capacities; moving us from self-reliance to Spirit-reliance.(McLaren, Naked Spirituality, 2011)
Sometimes the practice of ‘help’ requires re-calibrating how we understand ourselves in the world.
Recently I was in a conversation with a family about their father’s aging and the many concerns that are arising with his behavior and limitations. When the issue of driving came up, two approaches were considered. One approach was to confront the dad to say, ‘soon it will be time for you to stop driving so you don’t get hurt or hurt someone else.’ While possibly honest, most in the family recognized this would not be very effective or helpful, as the father would probably resist. A second approach was to affirm the father for the choices he was already making to limit his driving, asking others to drive at night or in heavy traffic. What the second approach has to offer, it seems to me, is the affirmation of the father’s willingness to ask for help where he once wouldn’t have. He was being encouraged to expand himself, not limit.
Bill Wineke, who has preached here on occasion, once told me that aging highlights one of the most difficult yet important spiritual lessons in life – giving up control and asking for help.
At other times this practice can be wordless, what one author calls ‘the great unsaying’ (Richard Rohr, The Naked Now, 2011).
The ancient Old Testament word for God was Yahweh. But originally it was just a collection of letters, YHWH 9yod, he, vav, he. It was considered literally unspeakable and to try saying it was considered ‘in vain.’ New insights point out that while this word was always unspeakable, formerly it wasn’t spoken but breathed. Many are convinced that the correct pronunciation is an attempt to replicate and imitate the very sound in inhalation and exhalation. Therefore, the one thing we do at every moment is say the name of God. (Rohr, The Naked Now, 2011)
This can be considered the ‘great unsaying’ because in ‘simply’ breathing, without using words, without framing thoughts, we could imagine ourselves praying for help. Expansion here is expanding our chest to let in the Spirit of God, deepening our breath to fill ourselves with the Divine Love. It comes a practice of help that is without words, not because we are afraid to ask for help, but because we realize we hardly even know what we need help with, much less how to ask. We acknowledge that our need for help goes deeper than words, deeper than cognition. Breathing meditation, or breath prayers, both precede and follow understanding.
As I look at our culture today, I wonder if developing the practice of help isn’t one of our most pressing needs. All of us are facing change, struggle, and chaos in some area of our lives. All of us feel either overwhelmed or powerless in some area. We live with fear – for our marriages, for our economic livelihood, for the culture into which our children and grandchildren will grow, for our environment and our civic life. We fight depression, over-eating, and physical problems that can leave us feeling isolated, alienated, or lonely.
Our faith urges us to step back from this fear to gain perspective. From the beginning of our bible through today, through our shared experience with one another and with the ancients, we learn that life isn’t supposed to be easy and that struggle can lead to growth.
In the book of Genesis, God creates a universe characterized neither by fully ordered stasis nor complete chaos, but by order and chaos in dynamic tension. From that point on, the Bible tells us that the hardships life throws at us are not intended to destroy us, but provide opportunities to strengthen us.
In Romans, Paul writes that we celebrate our sufferings, because they produce in us endurance, which produces character, which produces hope, which makes us receptive to the outpouring of God love in our hearts (5:3-6). We may wish for another way, but it seems there is no other way.
Along the way to developing these beautiful qualities we discover inter-dependence – the ability to reach beyond ourselves, to ask for help from others and from God, and to offer help as we are able. Life, for those willing to see, is organized for mutuality and vital connection. Many would go further and say that it is precisely these connections that define the Holy. (McLaren, Naked Spirituality, 2011, p. 108)
While always a balancing act, the practice of asking for help is a direct challenge to the individualist, “I can do it myself” ethic that is a deeply ingrained attitude for many of us.
- Where we see weakness, our faith highlights the broader strength of a community or relationship.
- Where we feel embarrassment, our faith teaches inter-dependence on God and others as wisdom.
- Where we see ourselves as a bother, our faith teaches us that meeting our need can be a great blessing to someone else.
A second practice which flows from ‘help’ is “Please” – the practice of compassion and intercession.
Traditionally, we think of intercession as the act of asking God for things we need. Those of you here on Christmas Eve might remember me quoting Catholic priest, Richard Rohr, who described prayer as putting out a tuning fork. All we can really do in the spiritual life, he says, is get ‘tuned’ to receive the always present message. Intercession, then, is opening ourselves to a deep resonance, positioning ourselves not so much to talk, but to listen. Rather than an attempt to change God’s mind about something, it is more rightly understood as an attempt to change OUR minds so that things like mystery, forgiveness, infinity, and paradox resonate within us.
In the practice of please, of intercession, we rightfully bring our deep concern and need – those things for which we ask help – and hold them humbly in an attitude that my time of prayer is about opening up, being open to change within ourselves, rather than simply asking God to give us something. Deeply connected, deeply conscious and alive because of our web of relationships, we seek not to control God, but to listen, to be led, to be guided, to be prayed through.
The Quakers, I once learned, have a simple image for this – holding someone in the light. By bringing that which they care about to prayer, they seek to bring it into the light of God, the light of Holy Love, the light of infinite healing. To bring one ‘into the light’ doesn’t presume we know the answer, but it does presume the combination of deep concern, shared love and holy light will produce and reveal even greater love.
Yesterday, I got an email from a friend who is another UCC pastor. He was on his way to visit someone in his church, a 98 year old who ‘loudly left the church because they called a (gay) pastor.’ Thousands of miles away, unaware of the explicit and implicit dynamics of both people, their histories, the church and even the day they had yesterday, how could I pray? How could I practice “please” or intercession? I could hold the entire situation ‘in the light’-trusting that the Light of the Spirit would be present and transformative. I say ‘please’ by listening for God, looking for light, trusting in paradox and mystery. I trust that if I hold these people – some I know and some I don’t – in the light, it might be more possible for them to feel and know the light. I can’t nor shouldn’t define exactly how, but I trust that the light is greater than all of us even as it is within all of us.
And tomorrow, if I hear that the incident went poorly, I say ‘please’ in the same way again.
Lived this way, the practice of please is no longer an anxious sharing of troubles with the faint hope that God will take them away. It is a deeply communal, deeply inter-connected state of openness to what is happening around us, and how even the most tragic circumstances will illuminate hope and possibility.
The practices of ‘help’ and ‘please’ may require more Arthur Ashe qualities, requiring humility to see life as it really is, not as we want or pretend it to be. They also require courage to seek resources beyond ourselves. For the sake of our faith, for the sake of our communities; may we live with such humility and courage.
Amen.
Sacred Texts for this sermon
We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. 3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope. 5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5
At its best, prayer does not seek to manipulate the mind of God into doing my will – quite the opposite. Prayer enters the pool of God’s own love and widens outward. Philip Yancey
