August 18, 2013 | 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 a.m.

Since We Are Surrounded

Judith L. Watt
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 80:1–2, 7–19
Hebrews 11:29–12:2

But the tree hadn’t died . . . it hadn’t died. A new tree had
grown from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground
until it reached a place where there were no wash lines above it.
Then it had started to grow towards the sky again. . . .
This tree that men chopped down . . . this tree that they built
bonfires around, trying to burn up its stump—this tree lived!
It lived! And nothing could destroy it.

Betty Smith
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Last spring I took the first art class I’ve ever taken as an adult. I’d been talking about taking an art class for a while, but every time I thought about it, fear would stop me. But the thought wouldn’t leave me alone. I had this persistent internal tug that I wanted to do something with paints and colors. I wanted to see if I had any ability. I wanted to see if I would enjoy it. So, I finally signed up for a class called “Drawing to Painting for First-Time Artists.” Five weeks, three hours each week.

During the first three classes, we used charcoal. A different still life was arranged for us every week. In the middle of every class period, a feeling of despair would come over me—total discouragement about some aspect of my work. I had no idea how to fix the problem on the page, and all I wanted to do for about ten minutes was either run out of the room or smudge everything over with charcoal or just sit down and wait until the class ended. The perspective was off or any number of problems existed, and I’d be so perplexed and so insecure about how to fix the problem, I just wanted to give up.

The last two weeks were spent with a canvas, two weeks working on what was to be our final product: a still life, not only drawn but painted to completion.

When we started working with the canvas, we first drew the still life, and then we prepared that drawing with what our teacher called a burnt umber wash. It was the first step of our real painting experience. We were to get the shading blocked in, the dark and light places, all in preparation for the following week when we would actually apply color. When my teacher came by, she looked at my work and said, “I don’t get what’s going on with your shadows.” She didn’t get my shadows because they were going every which way, though in the real still life, they were all directed in one way because the light was coming from one direction. “I don’t get what’s going on with your shadows,” she said.

Well, she didn’t get my shadows because I’d hit one of those discouraged places when I was trying to draw them and I had no idea what I was doing, and so I just thought “Phooey” and I stopped looking at the still life and I just started drawing shadows, a shadow here and a shadow there. “What’s going on with these shadows?” she asked. And then I confessed, “I think I stopped looking and just started drawing shadows.” My teacher had this really low, distinctive voice. She pointed to the still life in front of me: “All of your information is there. That’s where you have to look to get your information for your painting.”

I’d taken my eye off the still life. Taken my eye off the ball. It reminds me of my dad teaching me to hit a golf ball. How many times he reminded me to keep my head down, to keep my eye on the ball. I’d stopped looking at my source of information for my painting.

The message my teacher gave me was the same message the writer of Hebrews was giving to his audience: “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” That’s where all of our information is.

The people who first heard this message were people discouraged with their faith, because they had been under the assumption that if they followed Jesus they would be protected from problems and persecution and challenges. Robert Jewett, a former professor of mine, wrote in his commentary on Hebrews, “Christian congregations in the Lycus Valley interpreted harassment and persecution as proof that hostile cosmic forces were still in control of history and nature” (Robert Jewett, Letter to the Pilgrims, chapter 11). The fact that they were still suffering and facing challenges and being persecuted, even though they had decided to follow Jesus, made them think they weren’t doing something right. And so they pulled away unto themselves and began cultlike practices of purification, thinking that if they only did this faith thing just right, in a prescribed manner, they could gain control over hostile evil forces and get to the place where no suffering would exist, challenges would disappear, and there would be no shadows to deal with.

If you are alive in this world and have at least a small degree of awareness, you know that there is plenty to be discouraged about—on the world stage, on the local stage, on a personal level, even in our church. Egypt, for example. Random killings of youth locally. Personal challenges in our own lives—illness, money problems, aging, loss of loved ones, demoralizing work situations, challenges that simply threaten to overwhelm. And church. The Pastor Nominating Committee surely has experienced ups and downs in its search and the congregation wonders about the unknown and the how long. Aside from that, there is discouragement about the larger church too. Staid and stiff traditions bother some of us. Shallow theology bothers others. We worry about appealing to younger people. None of us likes being in the middle of great challenge and struggle, feeling out of control and ill-equipped to fix the problems. There are plenty of times we want to sit down like I did in art class and wish we could wait for all of it to be over, rather than muddle through our problems. That’s why the encouragement from Hebrews is so needed. Keep your eye on Jesus. Why? Because Jesus kept his eye on God. Jesus kept his eye on God and still Jesus encountered threat and resistance and challenge and even endured death. But keeping his eye on God was more important than any of the threats that came his way.

James Alison, Catholic theologian, talks about Jesus having his imagination fixed on God. (James Alison, Raising Abel, chapter 2, referenced at www.textweek.com for 18 August 2013). It’s a cool thought, isn’t it, to have our imaginations fixed on God. The Hebrews author speaks of life as a race, and in the Greek the word for race is agon. Agon refers to any kind of athletic event and is related to words such as agonize. The race metaphor lends itself easily to moral and ethical struggle, something that involves rigorous training, self-discipline, and intense effort. Throughout it all, we’re to keep our imaginations fixed on God.

The writer of Hebrews listed all sorts of examples of people of faith. He called them witnesses for us. They are witnesses who had their imaginations fixed on God. We are surrounded by them, he says. Their surrounding of us is meant as encouragement. They were people who had endured great struggle, by faith—getting through the Red Sea, hiding spies at great risk. They were people who by faith conquered kingdoms, won strength out of weakness and even experienced mocking and flogging and stoning. Some of them never saw their goal realized. The argument he laid out is that challenge and struggle, disruptions throughout the world, and even death aren’t reason enough for us to turn away from Jesus.

The witnesses that surround us include people more recent in our history too. Some of them are famous. Some of them exist without our ever knowing their names. Fifty years ago on August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and part of his “I Have a Dream” speech included these words: “Go back to Mississippi; go back to Alabama; go back to South Carolina; go back to Georgia; go back to Louisiana; go back to the slums and ghettos of the northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.”

Harrison Ray Anderson pastored this church from 1928 to 1961. Our Anderson Hall is named to remember and honor him. Longtimers here know the story of his outreach to a Japanese congregation during World War II. Because of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and the events that followed, Japanese Americans were distrusted and discriminated against, some of them rounded up during the war and placed in internment camps. Anderson became aware of a Japanese congregation that had been booted out from their previous place of worship because of the anti-Japanese sentiment that was building everywhere. Harrison Ray Anderson leaned on the Session of this church to allow this Japanese congregation to worship in Stone Chapel every Sunday at 2:00 p.m. It was a controversial move. Anderson and the Session received criticism from members and from people outside the church. “Some remember the pastor himself keeping guard outside the chapel some Sunday afternoons as the Japanese-American worshipers arrived for their services” (Marilee Munger Scroggs, A Light in the City). King and Anderson both had their imaginations fixed on God and disregarded the shame that came to them.

But there are others, lots and lots of others. Care teams in this congregation who support those in need and keep their imaginations fixed on God even when the person for whom they are caring suffers one defeat after another. Our newly formed group of Stephen Leaders, recruiting a first class of Stephen Ministers, not knowing for sure exactly who will be in that class and hoping against hope that members in this congregation enduring struggle will be open enough to receive the listening presence of a Stephen Minister. The Stephen Leaders know there will be challenges of all sorts. But they have their imaginations fixed on God. We are surrounded by witnesses, witnesses leading advocacy efforts in regard to gun violence or food issues. Witnesses all around us who have their imaginations fixed on God, who, because of it, remind us to do the same.

So let us decide again to lay aside every weight and the sin of discouragement and insecurity that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, keeping our imaginations fixed on God, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, for even he, for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, disregarded its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. We have encouragement from the witnesses that surround us —so many of them—to keep our imaginations fixed on God, to keep our eye focused on the source. That’s where we get our information so that we can continue with our painting.