With the Olympic Games fresh in everyone’s mind, we will spend the month of September looking as spiritual fitness. The New Testament often compares our faith to the kinds of athletic competitions that were popular in the Roman world.
To win an event, an athlete needs to train, vigorously and intelligently. The same is true with living out our faith in daily life. A Christian has to know what’s involved in his or her faith and practice it. That means much more than believing in Jesus, it means working hard at following him in every choice we make, from the biggest to the smallest. Showing compassion, especially to those we don’t like, is hard work. Practicing justice, honoring the truth, being faithful in all our relationships, and so much else are hard work and the only way we ever get better at them is by practice. As we exercise our faith, it becomes stronger and easier to use, just like an athlete’s body. We cannot all be champions in physical sports, but we each have a chance to excel spiritually, if we put in the hard work needed.
In the Second Letter to Timothy we have the chance to overhear the advice that is given to a young Christian leader-in-training. Timothy is told that he must prepare, like an athlete getting ready for a big race. That’s an image that the Letter to the Hebrews builds on, encouraging believers to keep their sight on the finish line in the long-distance race of life. If we’re looking at the Bible in athletic terms, then John the Baptist is something like a trainer. His mission is to prepare the way, to get us in shape to run the race that Jesus will lay out for us. In all these scriptures the importance of being ready—spiritually in shape—is the focus.
The Bible often uses the phrase “in the fullness of time” which is a way to translate the Greek word, kairos. This word was used in archery competitions where a number of wooden wands were placed between the archer and the target to simulate conditions or hunting in the woods. The archer had to wait until the kairos moment, when everything lined up just right for a clear shot. Spiritually, the kairos moment is God’s time, when everything lines up just right and we see God’s presence in our lives. In the reading from First Corinthians, Paul challenges us to look for this moment in out lives by focusing on the target—the finish line—we are aiming for. Jesus’s teaching in Matthew reminds us how simple this is. We instinctively have a good grasp of what God requires of us, the trick is to keep our focus.
The scripture from Matthew tells us about Jesus’s training for his own ministry. His ordeal in the wilderness built up his endurance and strength, just as our own devotion to prayer, study, and ethical decision making can build up ours. The Psaml reminds us that God’s strength is enough to carry us when our strength isn’t enough. Finally, Romans reminds us that, just as God helps us, we should use our strength to help others. We often think of faith as an individual event, like a footrace, but Romans reminds us, it’s just as much a team sport.
The Bible doesn’t say much about being flexible and well-balanced per-se, but it has a lot to say about the opposite. In Deuteronomy the people are told not to be ‘stiff-necked’ but to follow God’s guidance. This word that translated as ‘stiff-necked’ is a farmer’s term for an ox that doesn’t want to go where its owner guides it. That kind of stubbornness is less than helpful, and even be dangerous when the animal is heading into danger and refuses to follow guidance. The parable of the widow and the judge in Luke gives a good example of a stiff-necked attitude. The judge is convinced in his decisions and stubbornly refuses to listen, either to God or to people. By insisting on his own way, he creates unjust. Ironically, the cure for a stiff-necked person like this is faithful persistence.