Philippians 3:10-14
In the 1980’s a Californian named Larry Walters, a 33 year old truck driver, rigged 42 weather balloons to an aluminum lawn chair and then had two friends untie the tethers from the bumper of his Jeep. Expecting it to drift gradually up and away, instead he streaked into the sky as if fired from a slingshot.
He had packed only a two-liter bottle of soda, a pellet gun to facilitate his descent, a parachute, a portable CB radio to alert air traffic if necessary, and a camera--although he later admitted to being so mesmerized by the view that he forgot to take any pictures.
At an altitude of 16,000 feet (about three miles), he drifted into an approach corridor for LAX. There he was spotted by a Pan Am pilot, who radioed the control tower and reported passing “a guy in a lawn chair with a gun across his lap.” (I wonder if he still used that blase pilot’s voice we always hear from the cockpit.)
Soon shivering in that altitude, Walters used his pellet gun to begin popping the balloons, which actually worked. But on the way down his deflated balloons draped over some power lines, blacking out an entire neighborhood in Long Beach. Afterward, he was awarded the prestigious national top prize from the Bonehead Club of Dallas, along with a $1500 fine from the FAA for violating protected air space.
But Walters also became famous overnight, appearing on late night talk shows and quitting his job to go on the lecture circuit as a motivational speaker. When asked why he did it, he always gave the same answer: “Because you can’t just sit there.” (Repeat)
In a nutshell, that’s also what I want to say to you this morning, as Christians: “You can’t just sit there.” None of us has that luxury in practicing our faith. Jesus’ call on our lives can be summed up in two words: “Follow me.” And following requires intentionality and action. You can’t be a follower of Christ and just sit there, even if it’s sitting in a pew. We’re called to a far greater adventure than that.
The call on our lives requires a journey of discipleship. It’s a pilgrimage, in the same way the original apostles were called to experience a life-changing adventure by following Jesus. There was an expression in Jesus’ time that spoke of the devotion required of the disciples of Israel’s spiritual teachers: “May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.” (Repeat.) Those apostles spent over three years with Jesus, at great personal sacrifice, but also with a great reward for the experience: a life-changing, and even world-changing, adventure.
And every one of us has that same call on our lives, to follow Christ on a spiritual adventure.
And while attending worship is certainly important, it isn’t enough on its own. The life of faith requires action.
Listen to these words from the Apostle Paul expressing his commitment to knowing and following Christ as fully as he possibly can: read Philippians 3:10-14. “I press on,” leaving the past behind and pressing on “to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (v. 12). Twice he uses that phrase “press on” (literally, “I pursue”).
Our spiritual adventure requires action and desire. We “can’t just sit there” and expect it to happen on its own. It doesn’t work that way. There’s a world of difference between having fifty years of growing as a Christian, or the same year fifty times. Which of those two conditions describes your own faith experience, if you’re being honest about it? If there’s not a ‘growing edge’ in your spiritual life, that’s a very good indication that you need to be living your faith more actively.
If you were to ask them, most pastors would tell you that the greatest problem in the church is complacency: Christians who aren’t willing to invest more of themselves, and their time and energy, into their own spiritual growth. There’s no growing edge in their faith, and no sense of a pilgrimage, or any real spiritual progress. Consequently, they’re missing the life-changing adventure our faith is meant to be.
We all know that there’s a direct correlation between the effort we put into something and the results we receive. That’s true in every area of our lives: our education, our relationships, and across the board. We need to invest ourselves-our time and energy, and our hearts--to reap the rewards.
The Christian life is no different: a meager effort in how we live out our faith will yield meager results. But as we devote ourselves more fully to our spiritual growth, God will faithfully honor that commitment. There’s a very clear promise to that effect. As Paul writes to the Corinthian church, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is never in vain” (1 Co. 15:58). No spiritual commitment on our part will ever be in vain. It will always yield God’s blessing.
The writer Henri Nouwen became fascinated with the art of the trapeze, and he came to understand that the star wasn’t the ‘flyer’ who soars through the air and trusts his partner, but the ‘catcher,’ whose hands are always there to receive him. He saw spiritual lessons in this image. He said, “I can only fly freely when I know there is a catcher to catch me. If we’re to take risks, to be free in the air, in life, we have to know there is a catcher… we’re going to be caught, we’re going to be safe. The great hero is the least visible. Trust the catcher.” God, of course, is the divine Catcher whose love is always there to save us. But we also have to be willing to grab the bar, and then to let go and fly. It’s very much a collaborative process involving both the Catcher and the flyer, requiring an active desire and commitment on our part.
A friend of mine has a philosophy of adventure. He says that any great adventure has three elements: risk, purpose and companionship. Think about that in the context of our faith as a great adventure.
There’s RISK when we follow Christ, since we walk by faith and not by sight, we have to forfeit our safe comfort zones, and we can only trust that God will help us to live the new life he’s calling us to. As Martin Luther famously said, “I may not know the way, but well do I know my Guide.” We follow Christ as faithfully as possible, trusting that he knows the way perfectly.
There’s also certainly PURPOSE in the adventure of our faith, the discovery of a new and higher way of life, in which we come to know God better and learn how deeply we’re loved, and how to love others more generously.
And finally, there’s COMPANIONSHIP in this adventure, in the gift of the Church. We have the benefit of mutual inspiration and encouragement, and a new spiritual family, through our common bond in Christ.
There’s a tee-shirt that says, “I don’t go to church, I AM the church.” That’s an important distinction. Every one of us is the church, part of the Body of Christ in the world, all called to follow Christ on the adventure of our faith. It’s a dynamic, growing-edge pilgrimage that involves gaining greater knowledge and understanding, discovering and using our God-given gifts, serving others, enjoying meaningful fellowship and worship, and much more. Adventure, by definition, is never boring, but invigorating and enriching. That should be true of our faith journey, too.
Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The Christian life is as good as it gets, with its promise of greater love, joy and peace. And isn’t that what everyone really wants: more love, joy and peace, just for starters? Those rewards, and more, are there for everyone who actively follows Christ and lives their faith in the spirit of the great adventure it was always meant to be.
Amen.
