Epiphany 5 (B) + Winning by BRAVING + 2.4.18

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Saints, Oxnard

(Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21-c; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39)

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable (Isaiah 40:28).

In today's reading from the epistle of St. Paul, he has heard of this God. And he doesn’t just want to share about our God. It is that he needs to—he can't do anything else. It flows out of him as if out of one compelled. But it flows from his being with so much love for the God saved him and who saved us all in Christ.

Here Paul speaks of "winning" people. It may sound weird, but this made me think of that moment a couple of years back in which actor Charlie Sheen was acting funny, running all over place and putting stuff on Twitter and just generally acting up. And he kept using the word "winning" to describe his actions. But as far as I could tell the only thing that that he was winning was the derision of others.

Winning. There are several ways of thinking about winning in our culture, but usually it has to do with some personal gain. Here, Paul shows us another way, the way of the Christian. The way of winning for Christ, instead of for oneself.

I saw something earlier this week that made me think of an example in today's world of "winning for Christ." Some of you may have heard of a show by Samantha Bee on Comedy Central. If you do not know it, I want to say that she’s biased to the left and can be crude at times. But she also sometimes brings up very interesting things to reflect on our national dialog. Such as a race in which her comedians compete in asking for forgiveness for the United States in the different parts of the world that the President may have offended in the last week.[1]  Of course, this is a silly concept, but it was fascinating to see the comedians ask forgiveness of people in Mexico about the statements about the wall and about the quality of Mexican immigrants. As it was to see a British woman asking for forgiveness of the people in Haiti for what was said about them and Africa. The man very politely declined to accept her apology on behalf of the US! Finally, they all arrived exhausted at the studio, and none of them won because it was impossible to ask for forgiveness for everything that had been said or done by our executive branch in recent days.

Now whether you agree or not with the politics of the show, I thought that this joking example was a bit like what St. Paul tells us that we have to do as Christians. We have to reach out to one another, and if not ask for forgiveness, be at least aware of others’ reality. We have to be open to the experience of others. Paul wants to win, but in a different way. He wants to gain others’ confidence. How can we win each other’s trust and especially that of people with whom we disagree? How can we gain each other’s confidence for Christ's sake?

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable (Isaiah 40:28).

We serve an almighty God. God is strong, so strong that God even gives us strength. The young may grow tired, but the Lord will renew our strength. It’s possible that we are all a little tired by the world and local events recently. But God doesn't get tired. How it is that we find this strength in God and live as these Christians that Paul describes?

One way we receive strength is simply by the power of God received in prayer. This is why we are here! We need to pray up in order to be strong, together.

But I also think it has to do with how we live day to day and with what writer and sociologist Brené Brown describes with the word "BRAVING."

This is a guide for how we can live into our own bravery and integrity. The “b” stands for “boundaries,” and the idea is that we respect each other’s’ boundaries and our own. The “r” stands for “reliability.” We only sign up to do what we can and then we do it. The “a” stands for “accountability.” If we make mistakes, we trust each other to own up to them and try to do better. The “v” stands for “vault.” We respect what is and what is not ours to tell. The “i” stands for “integrity.” We stand in what we believe and we don’t cut corners on that. The “n” stands for “Non-judgment.” We don’t judge our own needs or those of others. And the “g” stands for “generosity.” This means that if we make a mistake, we are generous with each other that it was not intentional and we try to give each other an opportunity to make it right.^[2]

Do I do this perfectly? Obviously not. Is much easier to describe these ideas than to live them. They may even be complicated by different social practices. For example, those of us who are people pleasers always want to respond “yes” to every request. But it is fine to take a moment and review if you can truly make a certain commitment.  All these practices are a challenge, but in my personal experience, it has been worth making the effort to be brave in Christ.

They may seem antithetical to Paul’s approach of being fully present to others. But I believe when we strive to be people of integrity, we get strong in Christ. And when we are strong in Christ, we can live with open hearts. Open hearts to live as people who follow Jesus’ peculiarly “winning” way, who may yet succeed in gaining others for Christ.

Original

M. Campbell-Langdell

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[1] Melissa Yang, “Samantha Bee is Apologizing to the World for Trump,” CNN, January 16, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/09/entertainment/samantha-bee-apology-race/index.html.

[2] Some pictures of what this looks like are at: Isabella El-Hasan, “B.R.A.V.I.N.G” Brené Brown,” https://bellaelhasan.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/b-r-a-v-i-n-g-brene-brown/. This concept is covered in various Brené Brown materials, including her book Braving the Wilderness.