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"Drooping Hands and Weak Knees"
Hebrews 12:1-2, 12-17
A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
August 26, 2001
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
When I told Paula Moyer the title of today’s sermon, she said, "you’re not going to talk about aging, are you?" No, I’m not. If I were to talk about my own aging process I might call this sermon, graying hair and growing gut. Or maybe shin splints and back pain. Or thinning gum lines and hairlines. Or "what was it I wanted to talk about again?"
No, I’m not going to talk about any of that. But I am going to talk about what happens to us when we’re not completely on our game, when things are a bit out of whack, when things don’t go just right. Those times when our hands droop and our knees feel weak.
We’ve all been there. We’ve all had that one experience we were looking forward to and it just didn’t go the way we planned.
I went to see the movie Shreck the other night, a witty and hilarious parody of Disney movies and fairy tales. When a princess is rescued by a brave knight, the knight doesn’t obey the script. He doesn’t sweep her off her feet. He doesn’t have a carriage. He doesn’t slay the dragon. He doesn’t offer her love’s first kiss to break her spell. In short he doesn’t do what’s expected. The princess is briefly off her game, having to readjust to reality in mid-stream while regretfully leaving behind the exact words of their happily ever-after romance she had played out in her head. In frustration, she threw up her hands and her knees buckled.
Think about the championship game comes down to one last set of free throws and the person on the line misses them. We say they choke. Their hands and shoulders slump.
Whenever I see John Rocker step to the mound to pitch for the Cleveland Indians, still my favorite team, my hands droop and my knees get weak. Not only do I despise his racism, classism and homophobia, he has the tendency to give up five run leads. That’s the part Twins fans like.
Musicians know about this. Before we moved out of Hartford, Kim was poised to do a workshop for the Hartford AGO on performance anxiety for singers and other musicians. In practice, in front of the mirror, we can be fine, but put us in front of a microphone or on stage and we crumble. We have weak knees.
I have this same experience when a reporter sticks a microphone and camera in front of my face. I have attended protests wearing my clerical collar (the only time I do so) and invariably some reporter wants to talk to me. Sweat starts pouring down my back. Tension fills my face and I lose about half of my intelligence. I get tongue-tied or I sound even more like a babbling idiot. This is what it’s like to have weak knees. It’s a condition where we lose our confidence. We lose our control, we lose our ability to think and speak and perform clearly or up to our potential.
The writer of Hebrews uses athletic imagery in this passage of scripture. He then extends the image by saying that when suffering and persecution come, we are to "lift our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees, and make straight paths for our feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed."(12:12-13)
Drooping hands and weak knees remind me of the exhaustion of athletes. It’s how one feels at the end of a race. Sometimes, like Corey Stringer, it’s how you feel when the heat is too unbearable and there seems no relief in sight.
Less than a year ago, University Baptist Church was beset by issues of burnout. This is not uncommon in a time of transition, of leadership change. I only know from hearsay, but I hear tell there were many people feeling of being overworked, underappreciated and burned out. A Streamlining Task Force was selected to address this issue and they are still working on it. Hopefully by the end of the year we’ll have a new streamlined structure designed to minimize burnout and maximize the doing of ministry. But when you are burned out and you feel like your hands are drooping and your knees are weak, it’s hard to get up the energy to do anything.
The writer of Hebrews calls us to strengthen our drooping hands and our weak knees so that the Gospel can be spread and so we can be ambassadors of that life-giving Word.
It’s easy to stumble around with our drooping hands and weak knees. It’s how the opposition wants us to be. They want to take the wind out of our sails, to squelch our spirit. But that is exactly what we must not let happen. We need to lay aside every care and run the race set before us.
Look at us now. We might not have addressed all of the burnout issues, but look at the energy and commitment that is here in this congregation. Our attendance and our giving are up. This past Spring, we had little trouble filling up long-vacant board seats. We have plans to have a renewed outreach and student connection. We’re poised for a new year which will see a Capital Campaign, building a foundation for our future in and with this great building. New music will be sung and performed here, from a brand new opera company directed by Sheila Wolk performing here next Friday to a Shaped-Note Singing School held here at the end of September as part of the Minnesota Shaped-Note Singing Convention. We have people moving the Nursery to a more central location today and we are geared up for a new year of Sunday School and forums. The place is buzzing. We’re exploring new and more effective ways to use soon to be empty rooms in our building before opening them up to more outside renters. When you see these kind of things happening, it strengthens those weak knees and it lifts up those weary drooping hands. We’re on the right track.
When I was at Dolores Street Baptist Church, our worship space doubled as an art gallery. One season, the church featured black and white photographs by a San Francisco optician whose specialty was macular degeneration. His practice changed in the 80’s and 90’s from an older clientele to people in their 20’s and 30’s going blind in the later stages of AIDS. He took pictures of them and wrote a brief paragraph on each of them. It was called Images of AIDS. Another season, we had a few dozen paintings of by rural Mayan artists living in Guatemala. Throughout both of these exhibits, we saw stories of stories of struggle; stories of faith; stories of hope yearning for life; stories of pain and anguish. These occasional displays became the stained glass of that struggling faith community made up of a diversity of people including Central American refugees and people living with AIDS.
Today’s scripture says: "Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us set lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."(Hebrews 12:1-2) That’s what stained glass is supposed to do, what images are supposed to do: reconnect us with who we are and who we long to be. That’s what UBC is doing as we strengthen our weak knees and lift up our drooping hands.
The topic of all of the sermons and Bible studies in Providence at the ABC Biennial Convention this past June was on this passage from Hebrews. It was a love-in about how we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses from Roger Williams to Rosa Parks to Lottie Moon, to Ann and Adinoram Jusdon, to Lott Carey to Martin Luther King, to us. It made for great sermons and exhortations, but still it belied a truth that all are not welcome at the table. There are still others who are excluded. For all the talk about inclusiveness and wanting to lay aside every sin that so closely lives in us, official policy still excludes the GLBT communities. Many of our faithful communities although enmeshed in the central life of the denomination, stand poised to be excluded by those same faithful witnesses with whom we worshipped in the big room at the Biennial.
Many of us get cynical in the face of the endless struggle to have people simply hear our stories, to respect us and to welcome us to the table. We encounter people unwilling to do so at the least or rabidly opposing to hear our stories. I have even heard people say in public meetings, "don’t confuse these clear issues with your stories. The issue is not your experience or your pain or even the revelation God has given you. The issue is do we believe the scriptures or not." Stories, this aspect of the cloud of witnesses obscures the doctrinal purity and adds variables to the discussion. Cynicism is a weak-kneed response. We need to remember the witnesses that surround us and lift up the drooping hands of those who need it.
You see, we can either be defined by our weak knees and drooping hands, or we can be defined by the cloud of witnesses that have come before us and who are pulling for us. There are 151 years of UBC witnesses pulling for this community. There are people from across the nation who log onto our web site and write to say thank you for our witness. There are dozens of lonely people who depend on us as we deliver meals on wheels. They are our witnesses. There are hundreds of witnesses whom we will encounter this Friday night as we serve meals at Loaves and Fishes. There are at least three or four families who serve as witnesses when we share our church home with them during the Families Moving Forward Week in early September. There are the students who come through these doors, looking for a spiritual home or just a place to find comfort or challenge during and beyond their student years. All of these are our witnesses. All of these people can strengthen our drooping hands and weak knees.
When we have all of these witnesses surrounding us, no Klan demonstration is going to keep us from doing the work of racial reconciliation.
Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, no Fred Phelps visit is going to keep us from making our church an inclusive place for all people regardless of race, sex, age, class or sexual orientation.
Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, no falling apart windows or outdated wiring is going to keep us from making this church a welcome place for all people.
We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who lift up our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees.
Look at the cloud of witnesses who have come before us. All of them are pulling for you. They all run this race with you. "For since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."(Hebrews 12:1-2) Look around this room, too. There are these people here to lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.
Today’s scripture gives us one more clue to living a Christian lifestyle: "Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see God. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it many become defiled."(12:14-15) Bitterness and strife make our arms heavy and our knees buckle. But we are to pursue a just peace with everyone we see here and those yet to come through these doors.
This is the practice of nonviolence in a nutshell. It is the antithesis of winning over one another. It is the admonition to create a beloved community where all are welcomed at the table and no one person is an enemy. The only enemy is evil. The witnesses of this beloved community surround us like pictures and paintings on a wall. Like the roll call of the faithful, like stained glass, like music echoing off stone and wood and absorbed in flesh. And they all look at us to live as the ones who will bring the good news of a new way of living in community to the fore.
If anyone is in Christ says the Apostle Paul, they are a new creation. In other words, we can never be the same old, same old. It is not an option for Christians.
Mike, you have been one of our finest witnesses these past few years. Your spirit of gentleness, your professionalism and your mastery of that Dobson Tracker organ, this piano, that harpsicord, the UBC Chorale and soloists has been wonderful to hear and to experience. We thank you for the many ways you have touched our spirits. You have lifted many a drooping hand and strengthened many a weak knee by your playing and directing. Whether you are here physically or not, your playing and your musicianship will add to the chorus of sounds coming from that organ. And what we do and who we are is in a large part because of what you have given to us through your music and your presence in this community. We pray that when your hands get weary and your knees get weak, that you will remember us, the witnesses who surround you and look up to you now. It would be our honor to lift your arms and strengthen your knees by our thoughts prayers and by our gratitude for all you have done here at UBC.
Sisters and brothers, let us lift up each other’s drooping hands and strengthen each other’s weak knees.
Let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. Remembering that laying aside a weight and a sin does not mean ignoring it, but repenting from it.
Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfector of our faith.
Let us give thanks for those who have gone before and may their witness be the wind beneath our wings, the hope we hold, the strength which will make all things new.
For a new day awaits us all. It’s more than a new month, a new church year, a new season. It is a new opportunity to live our lives together in a new way.
May we approach our new day with light as air arms and confident knees. For a great cloud of witnesses empowers us.
AMEN.