"Being The Support Staff"
It's not just the stars who make the difference.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Text: Mark 1:1-8
I'd like to ask you a question. What do the following people have in common: Dame Judi Dench, Sir John Gielgud, Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep and Jack Lemmon? You are probably saying, “They are all big-name movie stars.” And you would be right! You are probably saying, “They have won great awards for their craft.” And you would be right. You might even guess that they have won Academy Awards and, again you would be right. But, the surprising fact about these individuals is that they have won Academy Awards for being Best Supporting Actor or Actress.
Now, one would think that actors like Dame Judi Dench and Sir John Gieldgud and Meryl Streep would have won their awards for their work in leading roles (and some have, though not all). What is surprising is that they have won them for supporting roles. It is often in the supporting role that a great actor or actress shines. By being a great supporting actor and actress, you can make or break the whole of the performance of the play.
It is by what you do in that role that the lead actors and actresses make their names; and without the diligence and expertise of supporting actors and actresses, everything else could fall by the wayside. Indeed, many of these actors won their awards not for particularly major performances: Judi Dench was literally on-screen for just a few minutes in Shakespeare in Love. Nevertheless, the impact and the power of that supporting role made the whole film.
The same is true, I believe, for much in life. It is often the supporting cast, the supporting people who make great things happen. Without their commitment and without their desire to do great things, others would not be able to rise up and achieve greatness. If you look at the history of the Christian church, you realize, and we will see a little later on, that it is often the supporting characters, not the big names, who are used by God to do great and glorious things. It is that very principle that I want us all to grasp this morning, for indeed, in many ways we are, each one of us, called to be support staff and to play a supportive role.
Now, let us be very clear when we are talking about a supportive role that we are talking about it within the context of the reign and the kingdom of God. I have never believed the adage that says, “God has no hands but our hands to do his work.” That is simply an untruth! I mean, after all, was it not God who reminded Job when he was thinking along such terms, “Was it you, Job, who made the cosmos and put the stars in the sky and made the earth tremble and the waters foam? No, Job, it wasn't you!”
It is not us and our hands upon which God depends. God does call us to use our hands to do good things and to serve God, but, God is not dependent on our hands. God is free to act as God wishes and God pleases; neither are we the focus or the centre of this activity. Ours is a supporting role, as the supporting cast. But it is never about us; it is about what God is doing. Nevertheless, we are called to be support staff and to have a role within the kingdom of God.
To understand this, we need to see a really powerful example. Nowhere is it clearer than in the passage from today's Gospel of Mark, the story of John the Baptist. Now, it is interesting that Mark begins his gospel not with the birth story of Jesus, as Matthew and Luke do, or with a fancy, eloquent prologue like John has - Mark goes right to the action!
It is also interesting that when Mark begins the Gospel of the story of Jesus Christ, he begins with someone other than Jesus Christ: He begins with the activities of John the Baptist. John the Baptist breaks onto the scene and tells people to prepare for the coming of Christ. He says, “You must repent and prepare yourself for the coming of the Kingdom.” He points ahead to God's glorious reign that will take place. He encourages people to prepare themselves for something great that is going to happen, by baptism.
Now, baptism was something that was practised elsewhere before Jesus or John The Baptist ever arrived on the scene. There were Jews, for example, who were new converts, who themselves cleansed and ritually purified in preparation for joining the community. In Qumran, in the early Essene community, proselytes were washed clean and brought into the kingdom. Always, it was a sense of getting rid of old sins.
John the Baptist, though, is different. He's not looking back; he's looking forward. He is preparing the way for Christ to come. He says, “I am not even worthy to wash the feet of the man who is to follow. I can't even untie his shoes. Who is coming is greater than I, and he will baptize with the power of the Holy Spirit.”
John, then, as a support staff, and this is significant, is pointing the way forward, not back. He is looking towards what God is going to do in the future through Jesus Christ, rather than simply back to the sins of the past. In other words, John is preparing the way for people to know the power of God's activity in Christ.
John's activity as the support staff is a profound encouragement to us all. It tells us that sometimes we need to follow in the footsteps of people like John the Baptist. It is not about us; it is about God. Nevertheless, we are called to be the encouragers, the enablers, like John the Baptist, and we should take seriously our role as encouragers.
To be an encourager is to be the greatest support staff we can possibly be. When we are an encourager, we are following in the footsteps of people throughout thousands of years who have prepared the way for God to do great things. When I look at the great character of David in the Bible, he would have been nothing had it not been for his friend Jonathan, who prepared the way for him to become the king. When I think of the great Levites, the great priests of the Old Testament, had King Hezekiah not been supportive and encouraging, they would never have amounted to the great priestly leaders they were. In the New Testament, Mary, awaiting the birth of Jesus, might never have had the strength to go through with it the way that she did, had it not been for her cousin Elizabeth. In the early church, many of the young Christians felt that they were not worthy to provide leadership (and I was saying this to the young people this morning at the contemporary service), and had it not been for Timothy encouraging them, being the support staff to their growth, they would never have been able to make it and to serve God.
I am a great fan of the football coach Bear Bryant. He was the coach of the famous University of Alabama Crimson Tide. Year after year, he had great success, even though some maintained he didn't have the best players. Bear Bryant had a motto, and he stuck by it no matter what happened: “If things go bad, it is all about me; if things go semi-good, it is all about us; but if things go well, it is all about them, the players.” In other words, he understood that he needed to be an encourager every step of the way. He needed to reach out to his players and to give them encouragement when things are being done right, as well as when they are being done wrong.
Lo and behold, my friends, in the church and indeed in the world today, there is so much negativity, so much nitpicking, so many times when people are put down rather than encouraged, that many people give up on doing the good. They look at the church, for example, and they see that it is a place of unmitigated negativity rather than an place of overflowing positive feelings and love. It seems to me that in the world, we need to be encouragers one of another. We need to encourage people to do good. We need to encourage people in the faith. We need to prepare people for God to do great things in their lives.
That is what Paul was saying in the passage that I read from the Book of Romans. In fact, there is a wonderful Greek word to say “encourage.” It literally means “to stand beside and to push forward.” Now, I have never understood how you can stand beside somebody and push them forward, but let's just assume that you can. You stand with them, but you encourage them to move forward in the faith. And Paul said, “I want you to mutually encourage one another. Support one another, because you never know when you do this what good God will do with it and with the person you are encouraging.”
You don't only need to be an “encourager,” you also need to find someone who can encourage you. Sitting in the congregation today is a colleague of mine with whom I took a course on spiritual direction. In that course, one of the things we looked at was how to be a “soul friend,” how to be an “encourager,” of someone, to befriend them and to support them, very much like that great character in the New Testament, Barnabas. He was somebody who supported Paul every step of the way. When Paul was down and the missions seemed to be going nowhere, it was Barnabas, whose name literally means “son of encouragement,” who came along and kept Paul going in the faith. Oh, the Academy Award for lead actor goes to Paul. Everyone knows that name! But the supporting cast was Barnabas. Paul knew enough to find someone to encourage him in his darkest moments.
This morning, at the 9:15 service my colleague, Rick Tamas was bemoaning the fact that he was wearing his Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, and yesterday was Hockey Day in Canada. He was saying he supports the Leafs no matter what, and how discouraged he gets, but he just keeps going forward. I tell him, our colleague David McMaster tells him, he should change his allegiance and should follow a soccer team like Manchester United - then he will never feel discouraged, but no, no, he won't listen, he's got to keep going, year-in, year-out, supporting the Maple Leafs! It gets discouraging after a while, but you know, he sought out someone to make him feel better - he sought out ME! And, I didn't do a darn thing to help him! So, Rick needs to find someone else!
Sometimes, life can get like that. Sometimes the discouragement can be so great and so hard that life is hardly worth living. Sometimes you are so down, and so discouraged, and so hurt, and so despondent and guilt-ridden, you feel there is no way out. Sometimes you are so ill that you do not feel you have the strength for the next day. Sometimes you look at the state of the world and you say, “When is God going to do something about it and make it more just and more peaceful?” When you feel like that, you need to seek someone out who will encourage you. It is amazing what a word of encouragement in the faith can do.
In 1936, at the Olympics in Germany, the great Jesse Owens was about to compete in the long jump. He was rather nervous. Although he had been the world champion and four times world record holder, he looked around the grand stadium setting and he saw Adolph Hitler in the box looking down on him, and he was intimidated. On his first try, his foot passed the mark and his distance didn't count. He looked over in the distance and he saw the great German long jumper, Luz Long, and he was intimidated even more. He went for a second chance, and again, he overreached the mark, and fouled.
It came time for the world record holder to do the third jump, at a distance he should do with his eyes closed, when something remarkable happened. A conversation began in the middle of the field. Luz Long and Jesse Owens stood toe-to-toe. The crowd wondered what on earth was taking place. Would this result in harsh words? Was this the final clash between the black American and the white German? Would they come to blows? They tapped each other on the shoulder and Jesse Owens went back for the third and the final run. He went and he had a tremendous jump. He went on to win the gold medal and to break the world record.
When asked later what the conversation had been about, he said that Luz Long had told him to actually take off a foot before the mark. He said, “Because I know you can jump almost any distance, if you take off a foot before the mark, I guarantee that you will make it. That is what you need to do.” And that is what Jesse Owens did, and he won the gold. He could never talk to Luz Long about the events later on, for Long was killed fighting for the German army in World War II. Jesse Owens said afterwards, “If I were to melt down all the gold medals that I have ever won, they couldn't even amount to a plating for the 24-karat friendship of Luz Long.” Luz Long had encouraged him at the time of his greatest need, and he went on to glory.
Being the support staff sometimes means taking a backward step, humbling oneself. It sometimes means allowing others to do the great and the glorious and the wonderful things for God, and allowing them to get the recognition for them. But, in the kingdom, God sees the support staff. Seek out people to encourage, but also be encouraged yourself. It is no good being an encourager, if you don't believe in God's Spirit. It is no good seeking the wisdom of another, if you do not believe that the Holy Spirit can guide. First, it requires faith that God can encourage.
This is what John the Baptist was saying: “I cannot even wash the feet or undo the sandals of him who is coming.” It is the Holy Spirit who is going to baptize through Jesus. It is not about us; it is about the Spirit. It is not about us; it is about the Son. It is not about us; it is about God. When you realize that, a tremendous sense of burden leaves you, and instead you feel a tremendous sense of hope and optimism and a tremendous sense that God is going to be doing marvellous and glorious things.
When the great preacher John Wesley was on his deathbed, he heard through the grapevine that his friend William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, was facing an immense struggle in trying to end slavery. Realizing that a word from him might be a source of encouragement, with a shaking hand and a dying body, John Wesley wrote to William Wilberforce: “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But, if God is for you, who can be against you? Are all of them stronger than God? Or, being weary of well-doing, go on in the name of God and in the power of his might till even American slavery shall vanish away before it.” Six days later, Wesley died.
Wilberforce carried on for the next 45 years and, finally, three days before his own death in 1833 he saw slavery abolished. It was an amazing day and an amazing time. Even the greatest need encouragement, and when God gives it, great things can be done. My friends, the kingdom needs encouragement. It needs support staff. It needs people who are not just seeking to win the glamour awards of life, but are willing to be supportive and encouraging in the way of faith in others. My hope and my prayer on this, one of the first Sundays of the New Year, is that you will find it in your heart and in your soul to be the support staff that God wants you to be. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.