Live Strong

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 19, 2011

Live Strong

Psalm 27 (selected verses)

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
   whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
   of whom shall I be afraid?

The doctors did not bring good news:

the cancer they thought was localized,

the cancer they thought they could remove

through a fairly simple surgical procedure,

had spread.

The cancer was now in his brain and his lungs.

The doctors were blunt: the prognosis was grim.

The patient was a young man, just 25.

He was an athlete,

he’d been strong and in superb condition

before that visit to the doctor

that revealed a cancerous tumor.

He listened to the oncologists describe

the various treatment options

that they thought might work best.

And then he made his decision.

He decided on the most aggressive treatment plan

his body could tolerate.

Surgery,

chemotherapy,

radiation –

whatever the doctors thought would work

he was willing to try.

He knew the days and weeks and months ahead

would be grueling,

even excruciating.

He knew the odds were against him;

that in the end,

none of treatments might work

and he would die.

He was determined to face his situation with strength,

with the same mindset that had helped him

become a champion in his sport,

one of the very best.

His sport was cycling;

not motorcycling, but bicycling:

road racing, those long distance races

where the riders spend 6 hours a day on a bike,

pedaling in the wind, the rain, the cold,

up hills, through mud.

The famous Tour de France epitomizes the sport:

it is a race that goes on for 3 weeks in the heat of July,

covering more than 2200 miles through the French countryside,

over terrain that ranges from bucolic flat countryside,

to brutal ascents and terrifying descents

in the Alps and the Pyrenees.

The course of treatment was even rougher

than he imagined it would be;

he came perilously close to dying

on more than one occasion,

but he fought,

and eventually won his fight.

Almost two years after his initial diagnosis,

the doctors pronounced him cancer-free.

His first thought was to get back on his bike.

While his doctors, his friends,

even his coaches all had assumed

that his career as a competitor was over,

he was determined to become a champion again.

He was determined to win again.

And he did:

Just a few years after his initial diagnosis

he won the Tour de France.

It is a race that is not only cycling’s most grueling competition,

it is widely considered to be

the world’s most difficult sporting event.

He went on to win the Tour six more times.

This is the backstory of Lance Armstrong.

It’s an incredible story,

a story of strength.

Yes, physical strength—

to endure everything he went through

required enormous physical strength;

but more than that,

it is a story of mental strength,

emotional strength,

strength measured not in the biceps and abs,

but in the heart and mind.

Even as Armstrong resumed his cycling career,

he also established the Lance Armstrong Foundation

to help raise money for cancer research.

The Foundation’s motto is simple: “live strong.”

Those ubiquitous yellow wristbands you see:

they are all printed with those words, “Live Strong”.

Unhappily, Armstrong’s name

has been in the news a great deal lately

as colleagues have alleged he took illegal drugs

and banned substances to help enhance his performance

as he won his seven Tours.

Even if it turns out that he did all that’s been alleged

and he ends up joining so many other disgraced baseball players,

football players and others who cheated to win,

the message he helped create through his foundation

rings true: live strong.

Yes, we all need to be physically fit,

and physicians encourage strength training

even for those who are well into their AARP years

to help fight the effects of arthritis, osteoporosis

and other degenerative diseases.

But this living strong is to live strong

from our most important muscle: the heart.

        

We followers of Jesus Christ,

we are called to live strong,

to live fully from the heart.

To live strong is to acknowledge our trust in God,

our dependence on God,

that God is our strength,

that our strength doesn’t come from,

can’t come from

money, or position,

prestige or power

anything or anyone other than God.

To live strong is to sing with the Psalmist:
“The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?                                     

The Lord is the stronghold of my life
of whom shall I be afraid?...”        

I wait for the Lord;
I will be strong…

To live strong is follow ever more faithfully

the strongest man who ever lived:

our Lord Jesus Christ.

Picture Jesus:  the images we’ve seen,

each of us over the years.

Images in Bibles, Sunday School curriculum,

paintings, sculptures,

Hollywood movies:

You are probably not picturing a rugged, ripped Jesus are you?

sculpted biceps, toned quads,

and of course, sixpack abs!

No, you are probably picturing Jesus

as thin, almost gaunt,

his tunic hanging from narrow shoulders,

a man who looked like a fierce wind

might lift him up and blow him

from Jerusalem to Galilee.

But what made Jesus the strongest man ever

was his faith in his Father in Heaven,

our Father in Heaven,

the one Jesus called Abba,

the one Jesus wants us to know as Abba.

Abba, that Aramaic term of endearment,

it conveys much more intimate relationship

than the formal word “Father”.

Abba, even “Dad”, or “Pop”.

This is the God Jesus wants us to know.

Jesus’ strength was in God,

his strength was from God.

Jesus lived strong,

he lived boldly, assuredly,

sharing meals with thieves and prostitutes;

walking among lepers healing them;

reaching out to the all those cast out

by society, gracing them with hope.

He lived strong as he confronted the religious leaders,

showing them for what they were:

petty,

self-righteous,

hypocritical,

ultimately ignorant men,

who might have been able to quote chapter and verse

of the Book of the Law,

but knew nothing of compassion,

grace,

or love.

For all their power, all their prestige,

Jesus showed them to be profoundly weak men.

Jesus shows us how to live strong as his followers,

how to live muscular Christianity.

It has nothing to do with converting others to Christ,

or a facility for quoting passages from the Bible,

or belonging to certain churches or denominations.

Living strong in Jesus,

living a muscular Christianity,

is to live lovingly;

it is to live a life that is grace-filled,

and grace sharing;

it is to live a life that is accepting,

trusting,

welcoming.

                                   

In Bible Study these past few weeks,

we’ve been learning about what the Bible teaches us,

and what the Bible does not teach us

about the place we call “hell”.

We’ve learned that much of what we thought we knew

is mythology, things that have come from

literature, arts, places other than the Bible.

The wonderful end result of our reading and discussion

was that we learned how to live strong,

how to live fearlessly,

just by living as Jesus teaches us to live.

                 

And he’s very clear,

not the least bit obscure:        

First, he tells us that we are to love the Lord God

our Father in Heaven,

with all our heart,

all our soul,

all our mind.

Next, he tells us that we are

to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Then he tells us that we are to put our love to work

by feeding any and all who are hungry;

giving a drink to those who thirst;

welcoming the stranger, the immigrant, the alien;

providing clothing for the naked;

and taking care of the sick.

To live this way,

to live the life Jesus calls us to,

is to live strong.

The great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick

wrote that we show ourselves to be weak

when we focus on the petty,

the unimportant,

when we fail to focus on the godly,

on what helps build God’s Kingdom.

When we fail to seek justice,

fail to seek righteousness,

fail to live with compassion;

when we do what is popular,

rather than what is right and just.

The man who works for peace,

even when everyone else around him

is convinced that war is the answer,

is a man of extraordinary strength.

The woman who stands up against greed and corruption

even when everyone else around her

champions business and profits above all else,

is a woman of extraordinary strength.

To comfort,

to nurture,

to feed,

to show compassion:

to do these things is to live strong,

because these are the same things

the strongest man in the world did

as he walked the dusty roads of Judea.

And, for as much as we might do,

there is always more to be done:

And we know that we can,

because we have the unlimited power of God

always there to grace us with strength.

Jesus calls us to a life of training,

working not on our biceps,

our quads or our abs,

but our hearts –

our hearts –

so we can live as he calls us to:

so we can live strong.

        

AMEN