What do you do when you’re
too old or feeble or out of it to “do” Christianity?
St. Mark’s is really into
doing faith. We volunteer for every good cause. We host every good cause. We
support every good cause. We visit the sick and those in prison. We feed people
who are hungry. We house people who are homeless. We give coffee to people who
are… well, that one may not be in the sermon on the mount. [Mt 5-7] We are the
perfect model of what a church should be. And I feel left out. Like I don’t
belong. Because I’m too “puny and feeble” to do faith.
“Puny and feeble” was what
the membership secretary wrote beside the names of certain people in the
Solsberry Methodist membership book, when I was a nineteen-year-old pastor, so
that I would know not to expect those folks to do Christian stuff, like serve
on committees.
Now, I’m on the “puny and
feeble” list. I’ll bet Jesus would have been, too, had he gotten as old as I
am.
Remember, Jesus was only
32 or so when he was saying all that stuff about doing faith. What if he’d
lived another 50 years? Or 60?
Well, a lot of that stuff
he’d still be saying. You can turn the other cheek, turn away from anger and
revenge, at any age. [Mt 5:38-39] You can put your faith in God instead of
bigger barns at any age. [Luke 12:18-21]
It’s a lot harder, though,
to take that guy on the Jericho road to the hospital when you’re too old even
to get out on the road, especially if you have to guide that donkey at night. [Lk
10:25-37] And you can’t dig a hole in the roof of the hospital to let a friend
down to where the healing happens because you can’t climb ladders anymore.
[Mark 2:3-4]
As I mentioned in the
Christ In Winter for Feb. 15, I wanted to address this issue when I preached my
final sermon, at St. Mark’s, almost exactly a year ago now. I was going to tell
about Uncle Jesse. But I had to leave that story out because we ran short on
time.
My mother’s brothers were
all tall and handsome men, but Jesse, third of the four boys--the one my father
said was most like the grandfather I never knew, because he was killed in a
coal mine cave-in before I was born--stood out even in that group. Curly hair,
great smile, Navy pilot… but no athlete.
Ted, his oldest brother,
had been a high school basketball star. Likewise, Claude and Johnny. In small
town Indiana, that was the ticket to acceptance. Jesse was on the team, because
the school was so small, but he was so bad the coach never put him into a game.
Until the inevitable
happened. Seven boys on the team. One fouled out. In went the sixth man. Then
another fouled out. Only Jesse was left. Tie score. Less than a minute to go.
And only Jesse was left.
“Go in,” the coach told
him, “but just stand there. Don’t touch the ball.”
Jesse did as he was told.
But the inevitable happened again. The ball came right at him. He put up his
hands to protect himself, and the ball stayed there. He knew he wasn’t supposed
to touch the ball, so he threw it up into the air to get rid of it. Of course,
the ball came down, right through the basket. Two points. For the other team.
The only basket he ever scored was for the wrong team, and cost his team the
game.
When the McFarlands get
together they tell funny stories. The Ponds don’t get together anymore, not
enough left. But they used to. Lots of them then. Their idea of humor was to
tease people unmercifully. So every time Uncle Jesse was there, they told the
story of his basketball misadventure.
I was a high school
basketball player myself then, and I was mortified. “How can you stand hearing
that story?” I asked Uncle Jesse once. He just smiled that wonderful smile of
his and said, “I always knew which side I was on.”
John Robert McFarland
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