Let us pray:

Holy Spirit, thank you for your presence here. Thank you for guiding us as we journey along life's path. Thank you for knowing the words we wish to pray but can't. Thank you for your gentle whispers. Thank you for giving us great comfort. Without you, we would be lost and so we take a moment to express our gratitude. And we thank you, Father, for giving us the Spirit, so that we may know the Son. In the name of the holy three,
Amen.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION

Pastor: In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Congregation: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Silence for reflection on God~ Word and for self-examination.

Pastor: Let us then confess our sins to God our Father.

Congregation: Most merciful God, we confess that we are hy nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, have merey on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways to the glory of Your holy name.
Amen.

Pastor: Almighty God in His mercy has given His Son to die for you and for His sake forgives you all your sins. As a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by His authority, I therefore forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Congregation: Amen.

 

The Nicene Creed

I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light: true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father; by Whom all things were made: Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man; And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried; And arose again on the third day according to the Scriptures; And ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life; Who proceeds from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the prophets.

In One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, And the life of the age to come.
Amen.

 

 

 

 

The Second Lesson is from:

the Gospel of Saint Mark in the 1st chapter verse 40-45

And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter. ( KJVA)

       

The title of today's sermon is:

Primary Lessons

And concerns the theme of:

Tuesday is the New Hampshire primary for candidates seeking to "run" for President. Paul offers some suggestions for the proper way to run, whether it's for President or for life.

The presidential primaries are upon us, which means that if you live in a few key states, you're likely to have already been bombarded with a constant barrage of candidate commercials, telling you why a particular candidate is the best thing since sliced salami, and his or her opponent is a budding anti-Christ. You'll hear the debates, analyze the promises, catch the slogans, and watch as candidates try to one-up each other with memorable sound bites, flag pins, and hundred dollar haircuts.

Though the New Hampshire primary this Tuesday takes place, ironically, on Valentine's Day, only one candidate out of all the others is going to be feeling the love from the electorate. The others, well, they get to lick their wounds, use their campaign team's creativity to spin the loss into a Pyrrhic victory, and prepare for the next round. Candidates will travel via trains, planes and, increasingly, on customized buses that ostensibly put them in touch with the common folk they meet on the way from one primary to the next.

It's no wonder that political campaigns are more popularly known as "races." Every candidate is always on the move somewhere in search of votes with the finish line being the Oval Office. The presidential race, for example, has historically been viewed as a kind of horse race, with the media handicapping the field and voters casting their bets on which candidate will win and provide their particular population and point of view with a windfall. Indeed, the metaphors for presidential campaigns come almost exclusively from the worlds of racing and boxing -- two individually competitive sports. To wit:

The most popular candidate is always called the "front runner," and if she's way ahead, she's in a "one-horse race" or "lapping the field."

A close race, on the other hand, is one where the candidates are "neck and neck," and the election could go "down to the wire" after they "turn the corner" after the last primary or debate.

At a debate, candidates generally "come out swinging," looking to land the "knockout blow" to their opponent. Those who see they're not going to make it tend to "throw in the towel."

Through it all, the candidates "keep their eyes on the Potomac prize."

You get the point. The stakes are high in a presidential race, both for the candidate and the people, and who wins the prize can determine a lot about the country's future.

But we also know that sometimes the race isn't all it appears to be. Promises are easily made and easily broken. The gleam of bright lights can expose a candidate's dark past or bad behavior. Candidates who run on populist platforms often get sidetracked or even corrupted by the powerful pull of a system that wants to maintain the status quo. It's a race where even the winners sometimes turn out to be losers.

Still, though, it's possible to run a good race, whether one is running for president or for an even more attainable prize. The apostle Paul was fond of using racing and competition metaphors when talking about the Christian life, and his metaphors can teach all of us, candidates and commoners alike, some primary lessons about running the race of life with integrity, passion and purpose.

You know it is time to resume running when ...

You try to do a few pushups and discover that certain body parts refuse to leave the floor.

Your children look through your wedding album and want to know who mom's first husband was.

You analyze your body honestly and decide what you should develop first is your sense of humor.

You step on a talking scale and it says, "Come back when you are alone."

Lesson 1: Run to win.

This seems obvious, of course, but for Paul, winning wasn't about achievement, status or the shape of one's office. Instead, Paul understood the ultimate goal of the race of his life was pleasing God and living in relationship with God. Paul gives an account of his own conduct and discipline, telling his readers that his choices and actions are not geared toward achieving personal pleasure or status, but in pleasing God in such a way that, in the end, he would not be disqualified. Winning, in other words, meant achieving the kind of character and conduct that reflected the crucified and resurrected Christ. Having won that prize, or at least striving to win it (as Paul relates in Philippians 3), he could then win others to Christ through his proclamation of the gospel lived out through his words and deeds.

When we're watching presidential candidates vying with one another using "gotcha" phrases and firing off skewed lists of statistics, it's hard to get the idea that character actually counts for something. Not everyone will win the presidency, just like all the runners who compete in a race won't win the same prize.

In the midst of the hard-fought presidential battle between Barack Obama and John McCain, there was a remarkable moment of grace. The night Senator Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator McCain ran a television commercial that was not the typical campaign fare.

Senator McCain reminded the nation of the historical nature of his opponent's nomination as the first person of African ancestry nominated as a presidential candidate by a major party. Not only that, the nomination took place on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Here's what Senator McCain had to say:

"Too often the achievements of our opponents go unnoticed. So I wanted to stop and say 'Congratulations.' How perfect that your nomination would come on this historic day. Tomorrow we'll be back at it. But tonight, senator, a job well done."

Television advertising isn't cheap. Surely there were some in the McCain camp who thought the commercial was a waste of money, that he should have stayed relentlessly on the attack. In fact, the commercial was much-celebrated as a rare moment of civility -- a brief and much-appreciated vacation from the barroom brawl that is modern politics.

Paul's point, however, is that there are different prizes that matter more than others. While offices and titles and money are "perishable" prizes, Paul invites everyone from presidential candidates to regular people to work at winning the prize that's "imperishable": a life that reflects the image, character and purposes of God. In the end, it's the only prize that matters!

Lesson 2: Exercise self-control.

How do you win the prize Paul is talking about? Well, it's not really that much different from winning a competition of any kind. You have to work at it.

"Athletes exercise self-control in all things," says Paul. Runners and boxers have to train diligently in order to have the ability to reach the finish line. Self-control involves denying oneself the things, attitudes and indulgences that could potentially keep a person from running all out for the finish. Runners get out of bed in the early morning when their body wants more sleep, and boxers deny themselves those extra sweets in order to maintain the proper weight and energy. Self-control is essential to winning. Indeed, Paul names it as one of the fruits of the Spirit, or another piece of evidence indicating that we are on the winning track toward reflecting Christ in our lives.

Our sermon text is brilliant prose in which Paul makes extended use of athletic imagery and metaphors in order to exhort his audience in Corinth. That Paul is able to use such metaphors without any accompanying explanations suggests that the basic principles of athletic competitions would have been known both to him and to his audience. Thus, by drawing on common cultural knowledge, Paul is able to make his message applicable and relevant to his audience.

Despite the coherence of these verses in themselves, their connection to their larger context in the epistle of 1 Corinthians is somewhat tenuous. Up to this point, Paul has discussed his rights as an apostle and his ability to morph his behavior to meet the expectations of given constituencies. While it is impossible to know with certainty how Paul imagined this section's fitting within this context, one is perhaps not terribly mistaken in presuming that it is meant to serve as a transition piece between what precedes and what follows it. After having explained his ability to "become all things to all people", Paul's casting of himself in the role of an athlete might be seen as yet another example of one of his many functions. The messages of perseverance and self-control that this imagery elicits then serve as a viable segue into the very lack of these qualities that Paul presumably imagines the Israelites to have had, given that he asserts that God was not pleased with many of them.

Although this passage can be viewed as a transition between chapters 9 and 10, its coherence and clearly delineated boundaries allow it to be treated as a unified whole in itself. Paul opens a section in our text with the rhetorical formulation "Do you not know...." Paul continues to point out that while many athletes might compete in a race, only one of those athletes will win the prize. The word Paul chooses here (brabeion) is a rare word in the New Testament and only appears where Paul also alludes to the necessity of perseverance for the sake of obtaining a prize. Despite the obvious implication that Paul has in mind a prize that is somehow desirable, he does not explicate exactly what the prize is for the believer who obtains it. Paul's statement that only one competitor would receive the prize led the early Christian commentator, Origen, to puzzle over whether this indicated that only one Christian could receive the prize. Origen solved this dilemma, however, by suggesting that the one winner which Paul was imagining was the Church as a single corporate body.

Paul implicitly draws out the imperative of his metaphor in our text where he points to the self-control exercised by athletes. The notion of self-control (egkrateia) as a virtue was a common cultural notion in the Greco-Roman milieu, and thus Paul's adoption of it for Christian pedagogic purposes would likely have been readily acceptable to Paul's audience. Paul suggests that the practice of this virtue will lead to the attainment of an imperishable crown. However, Paul does not explicate what he imagines this crown to be.

Paul uses an emphatic first person singular Greek pronoun to emphasize his own running. His choice to highlight the lack of aimlessness in his running, however, seems rather odd. After all, the athletes to whom he is comparing himself do not run aimlessly, but rather, as Paul himself stated in just the previous verse, such athletes compete in order to win and receive a prize. Running for the sake of a perishable crown is equivalent to purposeless running when compared to the purposeful running which Paul is recommending. Paul's introduction of a metaphor from boxing, though different from the running metaphor which he has been employing thus far, emphasizes the same point, that his actions are intentional and purposeful.

Although he uses two separate metaphors to make the same point, Paul shifts the metaphor by suggesting that the opponent which he has in mind is actually his own body. The two verbs that Paul uses here, "punish" (upwpiazw) and "enslave" (doulagwgw), are rare. The first appears only elsewhere in the New Testament in the context of the parable of the persistent widow while the second appears only here in the whole of biblical literature. At first glance, this verse might suggest the troubling implication that Paul is advocating an extreme form of asceticism or mortification of the body.

In the same way that an athlete trains and pushes his body in order to avoid being disqualified from competition, so too does Paul "train" by proclaiming the gospel and thus making himself fit to compete for the imperishable prize that he mentioned in verse 25. Not unlike his use of the larger athletic metaphor that guides the whole of this passage, Paul leaves the body metaphor open to question concerning its intended spiritual referent. However, even if the body metaphor and the whole of the athletic imagery in this passage are not paired with a definitive referent beyond the metaphor, Paul's imperative to maintain perseverance and self-control is nonetheless clear.

"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself." The Christian life is not an easy life. We cannot, as Carlyle said, slackly wander into the kingdom of Heaven.

We carry with us a body prone to much that is evil, to sloth and pleasure, to spiritual idleness, to lust and envy. If a great Apostle, like St. Paul, felt himself bound to keep his body under subjection, how can we dispense so airily with the common forms of self-control in which Christians have always believed? It is plain that at the present day self-control is out of fashion. Children are brought up to know scarcely anything about it as a virtue. Of the many Christian virtues discounted by popular novelists and playwrights, self-control is the one least thought of as even desirable, much less as a necessary foundation of Christianity. Unlike Felix we do not tremble at the thought of it.

We've seen too often how a lack of self-control leads politicians to crash and burn. The 2008 presidential race, for example, saw competitive candidate John Edwards' hopes for election dashed when it was revealed that he was having an affair and had a child with another woman, while his own wife was battling cancer. Lack of self-control, lack of the will to focus our lives in a particular direction, can derail even the most gifted person.

Paul says, "I punish my body and enslave it" so that its desires won't distract him from the prize. The only way to achieve self-control is through constant discipline of the mind and body.

When we practice spiritual disciplines like prayer, reading Scripture, fasting, and daily acts of compassion toward others, we are orienting our lives full-time toward winning the prize.

When we're exercising self-control, for example, we're able to put things in perspective and pray for people with whom we may not agree rather than denigrating them, which is such a part of the current political climate.

When we're exercising self-control, we'll listen more than we speak and view the world through the lens of the gospel rather than the distorted lenses of pundits and talk-show hosts, and we'll begin to recognize that character counts over just about anything else.

Lesson 3: Live with a purpose.

It so often seems that presidential candidates start out with a sense of idealism about what they want to accomplish, but then the reality sets in that they must often compromise that idealism and instead say and do the things that will get them elected and reelected. When your primary focus becomes pleasing those who elected you, it can be fairly easy to do what's pragmatic rather than purposeful.

Paul again taps the competition metaphors when he says, "So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air." Runners have a particular goal in mind and boxers eventually need to make contact with their intended target if they're going to be successful. Listening to the cheering crowd and their opinions, both positive and negative, can lead to atrophy. As football coach Buddy Ryan was fond of saying, "If you listen to the fans, you'll be sitting up there with them."

Paul refused to allow the criticisms of some people in the Corinthian church to sidetrack him from his purpose of preaching the gospel. He understood his life mission to be bound up in proclaiming the risen Christ and the good news, so much so that he was willing to adapt his approach in any way necessary to reach different groups of people.

Again, instead of pleasing his constituents, Paul was always more interested in pleasing God. God has gifted and equipped each of us with a particular mission within the Body of Christ for the purpose of transforming the world as agents of God's kingdom. Our first loyalty must always be to God and God's purposes because, as followers of Christ, we recognize that Jesus was laser-focused on that particular purpose. Jesus received a cross because he didn't please the right people. Paul would be thrown in prison repeatedly and abused in a myriad of other ways. Nothing could dissuade either of them from living out their purpose. May we be able to say the same!

After all the primaries and commercials and promises, someone will eventually win the race this November. While the candidates are running, we ought to be paying attention more to how they run. And while we're watching, we should be running the race of life ourselves in a way that pleases God. That's what makes us all winners indeed.

 

 

 

 

Psalter:

Psalm 30

A Psalm and Song at the dedication of the house of David. I will extol thee, O LORD; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. LORD, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. I cried to thee, O LORD; and unto the LORD I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth? Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be thou my helper. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.

Let us pray as our Lord taught us;

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Benediction

As you walk from this place today, may your feet be swift, your lungs full of breath, and your body strong. The journey is often long and hard and often painful, but the end brings joy and celebration. May you feel his presence as you take each step. Go now in the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.

   

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