“Learning from the Saints- a Need for a Hero/Heroine” 9/2/07 Labor Day/Rally Day Heb. 11:32- 12:3; I Cor. 11:1
The theme for the Chapin Labor Day Parade- the biggest event in our area is “Celebrating our Heroes.” A subtitle is “In Loving Memory of the Fallen Heroes in Charleston” speaking of the nine firefighters who died June 20 (Capt. William “Billy” Hutchinson, 48; Capt. Mike Benke, 49; Capt. Louis Mulkey, 34; Mark Kelsey, 40; Bradford “Brad” Baity, 37; Michael French, 27; James “Earl” Drayton, 56; Brandon Thompson, 27; and Melvin Champaign, 46). I believe it is really fitting on Labor Day weekend to remember those who work and sacrifice for the good of the community as a whole. There is something to be said about being faithful to God and to the community. In the book The Day America Told the Truth” it was reported that 70% of Americans have no living heroes. Another survey of 2000 eighth graders asked them to name the prominent people that they admired and wanted to be like. Every one of the thirty prominent personalities was entertainer or an athlete. No statesmen, authors, painters, musicians, architects, doctors, missionaries captured their imagination. One writer said that these heroes and heroines made it big, bud did not necessarily do big things.
Our world has been rocked over and over again by people we thought we could trust and could elevate to high status falling down. There are lots of fallen stars all over Hollywood. Mel Gibson was my hero in Braveheart and The Patriot and then The Passion, but then he was arrested for drunk driving and caught saying some anti-Semitic things. For a while I thought Britney Spears was alright. She began her career on the Mickey Mouse Club- she was a mousekateer! She claimed at one time, to be a Christian. I told my girls (a long time ago) that she was a model for them because she was someone with talent, beautiful, and good values, and a good witness. However, Britney publicly renounced her Baptist faith and studied Kaballah with Madonna, and then renounced it saying, “My baby is my religion.” Of course, raising a baby without values has shown in the end (social services has been investigating child neglect/endangerment). I hope our young people can look at the destroyed lives of Anna Nichole Smith, Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Michael Vick, and Owen Wilson and see a need to go away from the sole worship of beauty, money, fame, and feeling, and go back to the God who gave us life. Senators, Presidents, state treasurers, lawyers, doctors, preachers, professors, stars, all have fallen.
However, I believe in heroes. I believe the good in people should be imitated. The Bible even says that. Paul said, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Hebrews 11 is chock full of people that we should remember and seek to imitate in many ways.
Now the danger is that we cannot worship heroes. The Bible is very clear about that. The greatest hero can be a sinner. Moses sinned in killing the Egyptian and giving glory to himself. David is called “a man after God’s own heart” but he committed adultery and indirectly had Uriah killed. Abraham said Sarah wasn’t his wife. Sarah was just plain mean to Hagar. Samson didn’t listen to his parents and was a bit of a rebel. The Bible, in contrast to many other sacred books, does not try to hide the failures of its leaders. So we must be very, very careful here. The Bible does not say to follow them in everything they do. Rather, it says to imitate them in their faith. These people did some terrible things, but no doubt they would have been worse without their faith. David was rebuked by the prophet Nathan, and repented. Having faith and returning back to God in repentance are key concepts here. Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely and let us run with perseverance the race set out before us.”
The image here is one of a sporting event—like a football game and we are on the field. We are not spectators but players in this life. We are not tourists or people to be entertained and comforted. Rather we are pilgrims along the way. We are the laborers sent to the Chapin-Irmo area to do the work of the Lord, to speak a good word for Jesus, to help someone in need.
The writer here says we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. If you were a football player and you knew the Carolina Panthers had come to town and were watching you play, wouldn’t you have a little more incentive to play well? If you were a runner, and you knew that the Olympic athletes had come to Chapin to see what you were doing, wouldn’t that put a little extra spring in your step? If you were a mother and knew that the greatest parenting consultants in the world were watching your every move, wouldn’t you want to be extra loving and careful. That is what is being said here. The angels are watching us, the saints who have gone before are watching like a great cloud of witnesses.
But the greatest witness and the par excellent example for us is Jesus Christ. He is our goal, He is also watching and caring about how we are doing, and He is also the companion along the way. Our goal is to imitate the greatest hero of all- God in the flesh. The scriptures say, “Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.” In other words, if they treat you bad, remember they treated Jesus bad as well. Once a saint said to, “despise the world, despise our selfishness, and despise the fact that we are despised.” Jesus didn’t care what he went through, he set his eye on the sacrifice he was to make, and didn’t let anything keep him from it. He endured to the end.
The life of the disciples also was a bit rough. Peter was impulsive- he’d say things without meaning them. He was a bit of a quick and passionate decision maker- and that got him in trouble. James and John were rebuked for wanting a high place in the kingdom. Thomas and Nathanael were doubters. Martha was distracted. Mary mother of Jesus (as John the Baptist) was full of faith, but sometimes questioned. In Washington they set up investigative committees depending on who is in power. But truth is we all could be investigated.
Maybe some of you remember Ben Stein. He wrote the following (as part of a column for e-online web site).
The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists. We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die. I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject. There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament....the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive. The orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery, the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children, the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards. Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero. We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what happens to us is not terribly important.
God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over our lives to Him, he takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves. In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way.
Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin--or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman, or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them. But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life…I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human. Last week at presbytery meeting, I asked an incoming minister in his examination- who is your favorite theologian. He said he could have said Calvin, but he said really it was his father who was also a minister. We all have the opportunity to be models of godly and good behavior that speak louder than our words. Imitate our hero- Christ!