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ENDURANCE (click on title for audio)
Hosea 6:1-3
Philippians 3:12-14
June 22, 2008
“Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s little nut, that held its ground.”
When Julie Andrews was twelve she took a screen test for MGM studios. They tried a variety of different looks for her, altering her makeup again and again. The final decision was, “She’s not photogenic enough for film”. J. K. Rowling took her story of Harry Potter to twelve different publishers. Each one turned it down before the thirteenth decided it might sell. Decca Records listened to the Beatles, and then denied to offer them a contract, because their ‘sound’ wasn’t marketable. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he “lacked imagination”. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity basketball team for lack of potential. What binds all of these people together is that they didn’t give up. In spite of what the world was telling them, they persevered. It took Thomas Edison 1000 tries before he invented the light bulb. Edison said, “I didn’t fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.” Where does this internal drive come from, this willingness to continue on regardless of the challenges? Psychologists call it ‘self-efficacy’, the unshakable belief that I will succeed.
In Christianity we call this endurance. And yet, we know that endurance doesn’t come automatically to those who embrace Jesus. Why do some people seem to lose their faith? We can look around this small church and remember. “We remember those who stood before this body and were baptized. For a while they took part in fellowship. Some accepted positions of responsibility and leadership. Some taught Bible study or Sunday school. Some sang in the choir. For a while they were fixtures here. Then, they were gone.” They left us. They didn’t leave us to join other churches. They just stopped worshipping all together. They returned to their lives before, as if they had never been here. And now, each year in October, we read their names from a list before we drop their membership. Then, it’s as if they had never been. It causes us to wonder if someone can know the power of God without it leaving any permanent mark. And, if so, could that happen to me? Will I endure?
It might help to know that Jesus spoke about this exact situation in the parable of the soils (Mark 4:1-20). Jesus speaks of a sower planting seeds. Some seed fell on the path and was eaten by birds. Some seed fell among thorns and was choked. And, some fell on good ground and gave a hundredfold return.
However, some seed fell on rocky ground, sprang up quickly, then was scorched by the sun and withered away. He’s talking about these people. He’s talking about the ones who start out so strong, so powerful, so enthusiastic and vibrant. Then they just wither and disappear. He’s talking about those who don’t endure.
We need to know a little bit about farming in first century Palestine. Just before the early rains the field was burned to remove all of last year’s stubble. That left the field blackened and dark, and you couldn’t tell the good soil from the bad. Farmers did not plow their fields during planting. They walked along broadcasting the seed by hand, and it fell wherever it fell. Sometimes there might be a large area of rock just below the surface. Rock absorbs heat. So, the seed planted on rocky soil germinated faster than the rest. It would spring up quickly and grow rapidly, well ahead of the rest of the crop. Unfortunately, rock doesn’t hold water. Without moisture the large plant would soon dry up, and the hot sun would scorch and kill it.
Jesus says that the seed is the word of God, sown in this world by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it grows, sometimes it doesn’t. But, its not the message, and its not the messenger, its the soil. The hot sun is going to come into every life. If there’s no depth in the truth we will scorch and die.
Peter, James and Paul were all aware of this truth. They knew each other, but they didn’t spend their days hanging out together. They didn’t run draft copies of their letters past each other. Paul didn’t write to Peter and say, “Review this for me. See if it matches what you’re writing. After all, someday this is going to be Scripture and we want everything to blend well.” No! It’s highly unlikely they ever saw what the other had written. And yet, listen to the truth they all wrote about, at different times, in different countries.
Peter wrote, “You must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
James the brother of Jesus wrote, “Whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).
And, the Apostle Paul wrote, “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).
Notice that all three men agree, its not ‘if’ suffering comes into your life, its ‘when’ suffering comes into your life. That hot sun is there for everyone. Notice that all three agree that endurance is also part of that life process. I find it really interesting that they independently decided life is a sequence of growth and maturity opportunities, and that endurance is the outgrowth of trials and suffering.
I don’t know every trial that each of you is facing right now, but I do know some of them. We are not a tiny church, but we are small. Yet, even in this small body we have some who have been diagnosed with fatal illnesses and have been given a time line for their life. We have some who hate their marriage and wish they had never entered into that vow. We have some who don’t know where they went wrong with their children, but they see no hope for them. We have some who bitterly hate their job, and some who feel completely crushed by growing bills and debt.
I know you’re asking, “Where is God? Why is this happening to me?” I know many of you are desperately looking for a word or a message that will give you the hope and the strength to endure. Unfortunately, this is when the church often comes up with plastic sayings. ‘This is a wonderful opportunity for growth!’ ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ These are phrases that are heartbreakingly unsatisfying. There is no simple single sentence that will suddenly reveal an omnipotent and all-loving God in the midst of our suffering and tragedy.
What can be helpful is to know that God knows exactly what we are going through. Jesus suffered. He suffered horribly, he suffered intensely, and when he descended to hell for our sin he endured the ultimate in unfair and undeserved suffering (Ephesians 4:9, 1 Peter 4:6). Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the Christ” is two hours of brutal human suffering. It’s almost too much to sit through. Yet, none of those moments of punishment are the most emotional point of the movie. The most emotional point of the film comes just as Jesus dies, and a single tear drop falls from heaven to earth. God knows what we are going through.
If we believe that suffering is inevitable, but that it can produce endurance, the question is how? How do we endure? St. Augustine said that we endure by getting up every morning and putting Jesus absolutely first in our life. How do we know that we are doing that? He said you can tell by how a man treats his wife. You get up every morning and you love the people around you as completely as you can. In doing that, you put Jesus first. In doing that, you endure one more day. We can do that, can’t we? Get up every morning and love our family?
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, said you endure by getting up every day and seeking to become perfect in love. I was at Annual Conference last week. There was a five hour session just for clergy, where the status of every Pastor in the conference was addressed. Part of the session was the admission of some Pastor’s into full connection in the United Methodist Church. Before the Bishop pronounces them affirmed he asks them the 19 historic questions handed down from Wesley himself. Question number three is usually the high point of the examination.
The Bishop asks, “Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?” At this point every one of the 500 odd Pastors in the room laughs. Who has the guts to say, “Yes, I believe I will be perfect in this life.” And yet, if you answer the question “no” you cannot be admitted into full connection. The solution to the dilemma is in how Wesley defined endurance. He said you get up every morning and you tell yourself Jesus loves me, even me. In spite of who I am and what I have done Jesus loves me. Day after day you get up and you say it and you believe it. And then, one day, there is this moment of clarity where it finally hits you. What you are saying is true, its real, Jesus loves even me. There, for a moment in time, everything is perfect. Wesley says endurance is getting up every day and seeking that moment. The fourth question the Bishop asks is, “Are you earnestly striving after it?” It’s not the message, and its not the messenger, its the soil. Will you choose to endure?
Growing and maturing in Christ, in the midst of life’s trials, tribulations and suffering doesn’t just happen – it’s a decision we make. Theodor Geisel took his book to twenty seven different publishers. They all said the same thing. “What kind of a book is this? These aren’t words, they’re gobbledygook. This is nonsense. There is no market for nonsense.” If Theodore hadn’t taken his book to a twenty eighth publisher we would have no Cat in the hat, no Green Eggs and Ham, no Horton hears a Who, no Grinch, no Dr. Seuss.
We endure by getting up every day and facing the hot sun. We get up and we choose to love the people around us. We get up and we choose to pursue the love of Jesus. We get up and we choose to remember that we cannot suffer any trial more heinous that Jesus himself suffered. We get up and we choose to return to this place, participate with this family, and worship the Lord who is God. We get up and we choose self efficacy, the unshakeable belief that we will succeed. We get up and we choose to endure.
Melinda Beck, “If at First You don’t Succeed, You’re in Excellent Company”, The Wall Street Journal (April 29, 2008), D1.
MaryAnn McKibben Dana, “Suffering, Endurance, Character, Hope”, Journal for Preachers 28:2 (Lent 2005), 33-36.