Winners and losers

Cross country runs for school children are still a thing. Who’d have thought it? I assumed they’d been banned years ago along with dunce caps, the cane, fagging and other forms of tormenting the young, but apparently not. Many’s the time I’ve seen a conga of childhood suffering snaking across Beddington Park when a certain local school has decided it’s time for it’s pupils to spend the afternoon scouring their lungs, torturing their muscles and spattering themselves with mud. 

Thankfully, not all schools harry their charges in this way. Unfortunately, some hold school sports days instead.

There is a peculiar horror for those of a certain age and a certain disposition- me-  in remembering  school sports days. One, two, eight hundred metres running.  Various types of jumping. Hurdles. Throwing pointy things, round things and heavy things. And then some humorous stuff like sack  races slow bicycle competitions, but of course they weren’t really fun or funny because they were still sport and for a typical games teacher there is nothing more serious than sport.

My experiences might have been less unpleasant if there’d been heats for power mincing, or running away from something scary, or screaming at a spider; then I might have had a chance. If school tournaments had followed the ancient Olympic tradition of artistic competition, then bring it on. As it was, the best I could do was come last at the egg and spoon and hope beyond hope I didn’t get tied to some neanderthal bully in the three legged race and end up a winner by the expedient of being dragged over the finish line flat on my back.

Weird people on Facebook will insist ‘those were the days’. I demur. The peak of school sports days  is now. Now, they’re celebratory, non-elitist events where everyone’s involvement is honoured. I know there has been a sneering scepticism about events where every child gets a participation certificate, a medal and a pat on the head just for turning up, but I, for one, think that can only be a good thing. They’re kids and it’s a pretty awful look for parents to be standing on the boundary line in full competitive mode,  screwing up their faces braying and fighting. Being inclusive is not rewarding failure, because it really is true that it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part that matters.

Unpleasant though it was at the time, apart from a lifelong aversion to sacks, my experience of school sports days has left no lasting damage– pretty much at the back of the queue in that regard– but anyone with a thoughtful bent, at a mid-70s sports day, observing my discomfort would have predicted that it was only natural that in later life I would fall headlong into Christianity.

Because our faith is all about losing, capital L. Listen to what Jesus says:

Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Following Jesus is a never ending trek of trying and failing; trying and failing; try, fail, try, fail; again and again and again. Our faith is about failing and falling. And picking your self up and moving on and failing again. Sometimes you’re tied to a thug, sometimes not. It’s not about winning, because we can’t win, at least, not by our own effort. And worse, what victories a Christian can achieve, are defeats in the eyes of the world. Those are usually the eyes we look with. When we win, we lose.

So. If, living the Christian life, all you have to look forward to is a future where the floor is constantly rising up to meet you; if all there is ahead is inevitable failure, if it will forever be coming to pieces in our hands, is there then a point when you can give up? A point where it’s ok to concede defeat, admit that you’re out of your depth or had enough or can’t go on; a time to decide to avoid humiliation, save face and hold on to whatever’s left, even if it’s only your dignity? Stop striving, take the participation certificate and retire to a quiet corner to lick your wounds? Surely there will come a point when you will realise that the fighting talk has run its course and you can’t be Rick Astley any more. There’s only so much banging your head on a brick wall you can do before your brains are on the floor; there are a limited number of times you be washed onto the rocks before your dreams are scuttled; there will come a point when you’ve taken so many blows you just can’t get up off the floor.

Well. If you’re striving for the praise of your peers, fighting for fame and fortune, chasing the baubles and tinsel of worldly success, then there will be times when it makes no sense to keep on going, no matter how much you want it. Some dreams will only ever be dreams and you’ll just hurt yourself trying to catch them. Fame is fleeting. Fortunes are quickly spent. Success never lasts. Time ravages all beauty. The finest clothes fray, the flashiest car fails its MOT, the must–have is soon the has–been. So, for fame, fortune and success time will come when it will make sense to give it up and chalk it up to experience.

But not for we who would follow Jesus

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.

If you’re striving for the prizes of faith, never give in, never give up, never surrender.

There’s a rather peculiar parable in Luke’s gospel. Actually, most of Jesus’ parables are odd, that’s what makes them memorable. But the one I have in mind is the one we just heard. On the surface it’s straightforward. On closer inspection it’s anything but. Here it is again for those who were distracted first time around.

In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.  In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,  yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'”And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?

It’s a parable, and like any parable it’s an allegory and you can’t push the metaphor very far before it crumbles away. So, Jesus is not saying that God is unjust. Or that God only listens to our prayers if we keep nagging at him. Or that God will give us anything we want if we pray long enough. The message of this tale is given in the introduction:

Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart

Let’s be honest. It is easy to lose heart, it’s very easy to lose heart. It’s hard to carry the Cross, sometimes it’s unbearable. Jesus’ teaching is a set of impossible demands, a standard we can never reach, a summit we can never scale. ‘Be perfect. Love your enemies. If your eye causes you to sin tear it out.’  If we keep going down his path we will keep failing; if we keep moving we will keep stumbling; if we stumble we will fall. Staggering on, our clothes will be rags, our feet callused and unshod, our faces spattered with mud; any onlookers will have stopped jeering and long since left us to our fate, amazed only, perhaps, at our stubbornness. 

It ain’t easy. But remember:

Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Never give in, never give up, never surrender. Treasure in heaven never frays or fades; treasure in heaven is never spent; treasure in heaven can never be stolen.

I have, maybe, overstressed the difficulties of our faith; perhaps given the impression that following Jesus is all about shame and suffering, misery now for reward at some unspecified later point. Certainly, from the outside,  Christianity appears to be some sort of insane form of masochism for the gullible, a way of guaranteeing that you’re always missing out on the good things life has to offer. But that’s only true if you think that the best life on the menu are the fleeting pleasures of affluence and acclaim, power and possessions; nice while they last, perhaps, but never actually lasting, never really enough, always needing to be replenished.

Living a Christian life on the other hand, is living life in full; living life as it should be lived, it is the life the creator of all life intended for his children, it is a life whose outcomes, satisfactions and rewards are tasted now as a promise of the future, rewards deep and lasting and eternal. It is the joy of doing what your loved one wants, the pleasure of loving what they love, the satisfaction of becoming the person you were created to be. It is peace, joy, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and above all else love. 

Love is always a good. To be loved and to love is what all human hearts desire. Love is what we were created in and  by and for. And love is what the life of faith offers. To love others as our brothers and sisters. And to be loved with the love beyond our understanding, the love above all others, the love of God.

It ain’t easy. The road is narrow. Each cross we carry is heavy.

Don’t lose heart. 

Stick with it, and you will realise,  his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Never give in, never give up, never let go of the vision: keep your eyes on the prize.