BURTON JOYCE COMMUNITY CHURCH
Sunday 18th July 2021
An act of worship prepared by Rev John Wiseman. Adapted by Phil Colbourn for BJCC. Hymns from Songs of Fellowship (SoF)
Let’s begin by singing together: SoF 28 As we are gathered
Opening prayer: Psalm 40 I waited patiently for the LORD
Reading: 1 Corinthians 9:19-27
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.
[If you can, watch this Youtube clip from the film Chariots of Fire about the Olympic dreams of Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddle.
Note the references to honouring God with our sporting talents.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwyltmUR3MU ]
Today’s message
I have to admit that the slogan of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games ‘United by Emotion’ leaves me feeling rather flat. I much prefer the one used for London 2012, ‘Inspire a Generation’; the main thrust of London’s bid to host the games being the legacy it was going to hand on and its attempts to inspire a generation. But which generation?
Is it the next generation? Our children, youngsters, grand-children?
Or is our generation? No matter how old or young you happen to be.
It is important to look after our bodies, not just for the first 40 years but for as long as we live. We may not be able to do the things we did when we were younger, but if we don’t use it, we will lose it.
What about our spiritual health? If our bodies are temple, a temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Cor 6:19) then, surely, we should try to maintain that temple in good shape spiritually, working to build up our spiritual speed, endurance, balance, flexibility, poise, strength, stamina, and motivation
For athletes competing in the Olympics, their moment in the spotlight whether it is the 2 hours taken to complete the marathon or the 9.63 seconds required to run the 100 meters is often the culmination of many years work. Because for anyone to win an Olympic medal it requires years if not a lifetime of training. It is through training that you not only become good at what you do but become better than everyone else.
When Daly Thompson, twice winner of the gold medal for the decathlon was asked why he went training on Christmas day, he replied: Because my competitors don’t. In his book “Bounce”, former British no 1 table tennis player Matthew Syed, suggests it takes over 10,000 hours of totally focussed and dedicated training for an individual to become an expert in their chosen field. And it is not the moments of success that make an athlete stronger but the moments of failure, the moments when things do not go right.
It has been estimated by her coach that the Japanese Olympic and world figure skating champion Shizuka Akinawa fell over 20,000 times during her transformation from also-ran to champion. The moral of her story is that it is through falling on your backside 20,000 times that a really great performance finally emerges. Practice and repetition don’t always mean perfection but it certainly means getting better at something.
Hands up how many people have looked at a particular passage in the Bible and not understand what it means? No one becomes an expert in the Bible the first time they read it, the 2nd, or the 20th time. More often than not the penny does not drop all at once; 2000 years of Christian theology do not become crystal clear in the space of a 20-minute sermon. Our faith can at times be difficult, confusing, hard work, but with a decent training programme we can all slowly but surely progress from also-rans to champions.
We can all make - as described by the British track cycling team - marginal gains; slight sometimes imperceptible improvements in how we understand and then live out our faith, until others are impelled to ask what is it that we have in our lives that makes us different.
For any athlete, one of the most important things they are concerned with is nutrition, getting enough of the right type of food into their bodies and avoiding ingesting an enormous variety of things which may look appealing but which will simply not aid their performance.
Nicola Adams, the first British women to win a gold medal in boxing celebrated by having a night out at Nando’s...something she probably hasn’t been able to do in the build up to her event. But having seen all her hard work pay-off, who would begrudge her that indulgence?
What about us? Where do we get our spiritual food? Is it just from our church services on a Sunday? Is it from Songs of Praise? Services on the radio? Thought for the Day? Daily reflections or Bible reading plans? Weekly or monthly church magazines? The Methodist Prayer handbook? Regular Bible studies or one of the fellowship groups? You might gain your spiritual nutrition by meeting other Christians in other places. Where, how and how often are we getting spiritual food, so that as followers of Jesus we can perform to our best?
Behind every athlete, whether they win or lose, is the support of a team helping and assisting them. Their success had been built on the many and varied members of their back up team working together all with the same aim. Teamwork is important and every member of is as important as the next. Even Jesus felt the need to have a support team. He chose people of different talents, abilities, gifts and graces to work alongside him during his ministry, each one fitting together to make up the complete jigsaw that Jesus knew was possible. Note too that whenever he sends the disciples out, he does not send them out alone but in two’s, in teams to work and learn together.
And Paul is a great one for working alongside others. He links up with Barnabus, with John Mark, with Timothy, with Silas and on and on and on. Being a team player sometimes may mean taking turns at standing in the spotlight and working away in the shadows unnoticed. Being part of a team means putting the wishes of others above yours, it means giving someone else at opportunity often at your expense.
Being part of a team means being prepared to make sacrifices for the others, like in cycling road race events, where members of the team who have a slight chance of winning, sacrificing it to give another team member, who has a better chance, the opportunity to win.
I do not think you can be a Christian on your own Being a Christian is about being part of a team. It is about relationships: relationships with God and with each other. It is about being part of Team JC.
And finally, once the games are over, there is the inevitable ‘what happens now?’ For some it will be the end of the road. They retire from their sport, taking the qualities and attributes that made them formidable athletes into their new lives. Others, after a short well-earned rest, but not resting on their laurels, will set new goals; setting their sight on the next competition; the next Olympic Games.
My final thought for this morning is this: What about this team? What about this family of faith, this Circuit, our individual churches, as we slowly but surely establish new patterns of worship and fellowship? What are our training plans? How will we be nourished and nourish each other? How can we work together as a team to ensure that any goals we set have the best chance of being attained?
Are we happy to just be part of the also-rans or can we really set our focus on going for the prize that really matters! Amen
Let’s raise our voices as we sing: SoF 902 Lord of all hopefulness
Intercessions:
Pray for people competing in the Olympics from next Friday
Pray for people training for the Paralympics in August.
We pray we can accept victory and defeat with grace and humility
We pray for level playing-fields for everyone in health and education, equality, justice and inclusion
We pray for people whose strength is failing, for people who struggle to receive daily bread, for people who do not feel part of any team and for people whose hopes and dreams are constantly dashed.
Finally, we share the prayer Jesus taught his first team: Our Father
Our final hymn: SoF 107 Fight the good fight with all thy might
A Blessing:
The God of grace be with you as you run the race together. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment