Eyes on the Prize, Thomas

Readings:
Acts 5:27-32
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20-19-31

This week I’m “on the road” and the blog follows. You get two sermons for the price of one … your Mt Zion weekly and one I heard at Dr. Martin Luther Church … given very movingly by Pastor Erik Gronberg.

If you love baseball, grew up in New York or think it’s a great and needed message to task each other OUT of the doldrums of the unimaginative, this was a sermon that rang out. I was fortunate to be a bit of all three.

I was summarily trapped by this very wise preacher, trapped into the complacency that is easily adopted when one hears a beginning so parlayed in sermons on Thomas, The Doubter. That opening was that “we can all relate to Thomas, can’t we? We connect with Thomas, don’t we? I get it.”

We too often want proof. I get it.

He struggles with true belief without the “show me”. I get it.

I was getting comfortable in my pew. “Yes, I said to myself, I can relate, sinner and doubter that I am”. Those sins … of disbelief, of the human need for verification and authentication are ones made so easily and comfortably from a Sunday morning pew. But, as my rump struggled for an even more comfortable position, I was thwarted. The very next sentence edged me ever more vertical, eroding my comfort level in a way not too different than that a student caught sleeping in class – enough to notice, anyway. It was a quote from the venerable Peter Gomes, holder of the Plummer Professor Chair of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister of The Memorial Church, Harvard University.

Gomes was included in the summer 1999 premiere issue of Talk magazine as part of its feature article, "The Best Talkers in America: Fifty Big Mouths We Hope Will Never Shut Up."

I have heard this man preach on three other occasions and it is sagely advice that when he speaks – or is even quoted, - that one is best prepared by sitting up and getting ready for a lesson, often one that will catapult you beyond your comfort zone. Pastor Gronberg continued with quoting Gomes:

“I don’t like Thomas! He’s the patron saint of the unimaginative!”

Ouch!!! And I had just comfortably lulled myself into my “I can relate to Thomas Jacuzzi of the sinful”. I was led by a very talented preacher, and only 20 minutes later would I understand a little better why and why it was so good for me and everyone in that Church. Pastor Gronberg continued to weave the meaning in the message.

Thomas is a follower but not a believer!

He was a good disciple in many ways, but he would forever be tagged for his doubt, with it somehow overshadowing all else. He was the Bill Buckner of the disciples, a player with otherwise Hall of Fame statistics who will only be remembered for a dribbler between the legs delivered by Mookie Wilson on a cold October evening in 1986 in Flushing NY. Not far at all from that very first base, in 1947 stood another man, Jackie Robinson, who did something for which he, too, would be remembered. He broke the color barrier in major league baseball. Today, April 15, 2007, he is being remembered and honored for that in every ballpark in America – for what was really a Christ-like and non-Thomas outlook on life.

As Pastor Gronberg points out, it’s often our good fortune to see a vision, get a glimpse of what’s possible – a taste, a whiff of true possibility. But then on Monday morning, it is just as likely we will crawl back into the “same old, same old”, “been there, done that” frame of mind. It reminded me that Pastor Johnson has often suggested that Jesus would have had little patience with a “been there, done that” attitude. Pastor Gronberg quoted another great spirit, Winston Churchill who admonished us all to

“Never, never give up!”

HE, and Jackie Robinson, Susan B. Anthony, Mother Theresa, ALL

KEPT THEIR EYES ON THE PRIZE!!

And often, in spite of being derided. Pastor Gronberg touchingly portrayed part of the legacy of Alfred Emmanuel Smith, an orphan, who said he learned about people, what they needed in their lives, by working at the fish market … among the people. From that fish market, he grew to become a four-time governor of the State of New York and construction company chair for the building of the Empire State Building. He was ousted from office as governor in 1920, but ran again in 1922, being elected then for 3 successive terms. He helped raise the Empire State Building over the Manhattan skyline, only to be derided after the stock market crash of 1929.

He continually found himself in circumstances where his price for keeping his eyes on a venerable prize were mockery BUT he always got back up on his feet and continued on – no time to be unimaginative for this man. Remember Pastor Riggle’s sermon on a cold February morning not too long ago:

“The problem’s not in falling down to the ground. The only problem is staying on the ground.”

Like Mother Theresa and Jackie Robinson, they realized that getting back up, tracking the prize, NOT “coming back down to Monday morning” took the hard work of continued awareness.

Keeping your eye on the prize is hard work!

They knew the primordial rule of the pool lifeguard – NEVER take your eye off the victim. It is hard work to concentrate on a vision and make it your goal, to NOT lose sight of it, for even a short time. To catch a vision and keep it! They also knew that keeping that vision forefront enough to not lose sight of it involved substantial risk, sometimes at the expense of looking foolish, sometimes even to the extent of life itself. These disciples who worked hard at “non-Thomas-like behavior” knew that looking foolish was often part of the price for keeping their eyes on the prize.

Charles Schultz shortly before his death gave an interview in which he said

“If I had it to do over, I’d worry less about looking foolish.”

Good advice. I’m guessing he’s met with Mother Theresa, and Susan and Jackie and Al in the great beyond – where all their risk was for The Prize and their reward is great.

Pastor Gronberg reminds us of this most important life lesson:

The imagination allows us to believe – despite the risk. We have to be willing to risk, to look foolish, to lose, to fail because God will find a way … to reap harvest from that good work. One of Albert Einstein’s most quoted quotes reminds us

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Great spirits have often encountered opposition from mediocre
minds.”

Jesus was known for being willing to look foolish, He surrounded himself with former tax collectors, fishermen, prostitutes, improper women, sinners – all to do the work of The Father - that most honorable Prize onto which he ALWAYS had his eyes fixed solidly. Jesus, Charles and the Peanuts gang, Jackie, Susan, Mother Theresa, Al Smith all kept their eyes on the prize not only for them, but as a legacy for all who would follow. They trudged on in spite of opposition, derision, and mockery.

It’s hard work, but it takes imagination. Who’d know that this legacy would be left by an orphan who hung out at the fish market. I bet Jesus knew.

When the Twin Towers fell, Pastor Gronberg finally reminded us, the tallest building left standing when the cloud and the smoke cleared was the Empire State Building. The legacy of the man willing to look foolish enough to make it happen, whom 7th graders still read about in history class for keeping his eyes on the promise and not behaving like Thomas.

In yesterday’s New York Times, there was an advertisement taken by the Jackie Robinson Foundation. It simply read:

“He was a soldier, a writer, an activist, a politician, a voice, a leader, a father, a husband, and a friend.

Being a Hall of Fame second baseman was the easy part.”

Keeping his eyes on the prize was the hard part. In the op-ed column of the same paper appeared a moving story of Jackie Robinson who recalled, in the end:

“Whenever I hear my wife read fairy tales to my little boy, I’ll listen …… I know now that dreams DO come true.”


And they may have only ever come true for this reason … because he was willing to use his imagination, willing to believe, willing to get back up, willing to do the hard work, and keep his eyes on the prize!