“Reaching for Rainbows”
Matthew 10:16-33
A colleague tells the story of a woman who was an enthusiastic hockey fan (don’t worry, I’m not going to go there, after all the election is over). She always tried to sit on the front row of the arena so she could be close to the action. In one particular game, she almost got more action than she wanted when one of the players was slammed into the boards right in front of her. Then an opposing player deliberately skated into the downed player, gave him an elbow and hit him with his stick. The man slipped and fell to the ice, but pulled himself up and draped his abused body over the rail. He looked up at the woman with an expression that begged for sympathy and said, “There’s gotta be an easier way to make a living.” The woman replied matter-of-factly: “I’ll trade jobs with you any day.” The player asked, “What do you do?” She replied, “I teach high school choral music.” He looked at her and then skated away.
Life is difficult—for everyone! It includes burdens that we must bear, frustrations that annoy us, failures that discourage us, tragedies that devastate us, circumstances that overwhelm us, losses that numb us, misfortunes that darken hope, reversals that weary us and leave us feeling useless and unwanted. No one is exempt. No one.
The Scripture makes it clear that God never promised anyone a rose garden, that life is not some pleasant existence removed from trouble, pain and struggle. Study the lives of the patriarchs, the prophets and the leading characters in the Bible. Life was difficult for them. Their faith in God did not insulate them from suffering and despair, nor exempt them from dark nights of the soul and dormant times of the spirit.
Jesus spent considerable time with the twelve and his other followers reminding them of that same reality. He challenged their illusions, moved them beyond their exaggerated expectations and presumptions and encouraged them to face squarely the contradictions of life. In this morning’s reading from the Bible his words are very clear:
See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles.
“In the world you’ll have trouble,” Jesus said. “(And) if you really want to be my disciple, you must take up your cross daily and follow me.” Which means to follow Jesus is not to always have a rainbow wrapped around our shoulders; more often than not it’s to bear a cross instead. It’s to experience and to deal with the ironies and frustrations, the interruptions and reversals of life. It’s to cope with deferred dreams, rejection, harassment, empty outcomes and loneliness.
A friend was shopping in a sporting goods store. As he looked at some racquetball equipment, a label on a certain brand of racquet caught his eye. It said simply, “Due to the nature of the game, this product cannot be guaranteed.”
It was a similar warning that Jesus put plainly before the disciples. “Due to the nature of your commitment, there are no guarantees.” To follow Jesus is no Sunday School picnic. To follow Jesus is to struggle with the evil in our world, to be in danger, to take risks, to confront the darkness and destruction in plain daylight, to meet people at their worst as well as their best, to know agony as well as ecstasy, to taste despair as well as joy, to feel the chill of God’s absence as well as the warmth of God’s near-presence.
Ask Peter how it was for
him. Or ask Paul, who talked of the
scars he bore for Jesus, the attacks and beatings he received, the
imprisonments and reversals he had lived through, and the thorn in his flesh
that did not go away. Or ask Francis of
Assisi if his faith journey was smooth and easy. Or survey the faithful today who in Jesus’
name seek first the
I read a report on the famine in
parts of
Ask a working mother struggling to raise a family when the ends never quite meet; or ask a father who’s lost his job when the factory closed down and the medical bills and mortgage payments pile up; or ask migrant farm workers or the farmer who’s losing the family farm; or ask a cancer patient or the victim of a crippling disease; or ask refugees who barely manage to live out an existence in the cross fire of violence and conflict that continually injures our world. Ask them if they know what to do when the lights go out and the world caves in.
Now, let’s get a little more personal. How about you? What do you do when you feel done in? How do we cope when our chin is dragging, our soul is sagging and our heart is breaking? What keeps us going when we want to give up? What prompts us to laugh when all we really want to do is cry? What stirs hope in us when there’s no reason for it? How do we reach for rainbows when the sky is dark and the storms are fierce? What enables us to take one more step, to hang on a little longer, to sing with a lump in our throats, to pick up the pieces one more time, to keep believing in God?
The response I would put before you this morning is this: courage and trust. That’s what it takes to reach for rainbows. That’s what it takes to follow Jesus through a life that never turns out exactly as we planned, to live out love “in spite of.” Courage and trust are what separate the strong from the shallow, the genuine from the artificial, and the faithful from the mere onlookers.
Now I know that’s a pretty audacious response, and I have no pat, instantaneous, attractive or cheap formula for how to get courage and trust. I do know, however, where we get them. We find them by yoking ourselves to Jesus Christ, and in the cross he invites us take up. Jesus knew that nothing transforms discouragement and despair more completely than a compelling purpose that makes us forget about our troubles. He also knew that nothing makes us feel even more overburdened than feeling sorry for ourselves, that nothing is more exhausting or debilitating than letting our troubles get us down. The surest corrective for feeling good-for-nothing is to choose to be good-for-something.
Courage and trust emerge through commitment to the best and highest that we know, commitment that exacts a price, commitment that is deepened by love’s sacrifice and by staying faithful. So Jesus’ word abides, “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.” He challenges us to move beyond our discouragement and be lifted above our self-pity by living with and among persons as he did with caring love. To be yoked to Christ is to value what he valued, to seek what he sought, to live from the undefeated faith in God he had, to find some human need and give ourselves to meet it, to enter some darkness with the light of simple kindness and affirmation, to dry our tears of self-pity and get up for another go at humanizing the world with goodness and righteousness. To take the yoke of Christ is to open our eyes, our heart and our hands, realizing that God is not finished with us and that God needs us, even when it seems no one else does. To take Christ’s yoke is to bear our private burdens with dignity, to strive for the best, to transcend life’s troubles, to transform frustration by reaching for the rainbow of hope through God’s grace and promised power in Jesus Christ. That’s the good news we proclaim and live out with courage and trust!
Alan Paton, who wrote “Cry, the Beloved Country,” and who bore
many scars from his long struggle in Christ’s name for racial justice in
Life has taught me (he wrote)
not to expect success to be the inevitable reward of any endeavors. Life has [encouraged] me instead to seek
meaning and reward from the endeavor itself—and then leave the rest with
God. It’s a lesson that—for me—had to be
learned twice. When I learned it in my
youth, it meant Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail.
When I learned it later, it meant Christ and the road to
On another occasion when Paton’s motives were being attacked and the struggle against apartheid was very grim and even more burdensome because his wife was dying of cancer, Paton was met by a friend who wished him a Happy Easter. Paton replied that he didn’t think it would be happy. The friend wrote a note to Paton suggesting, self-righteously, that no Christian should be unhappy at Easter because our problems pale in the light of God’s miracle. Paton replied by saying that he didn’t expect to be unhappy at Easter and that he was prepared to face the future, whatever it might bring. Then he added, “I like to see happiness and to see happy people, especially happy children. I hope they may grow up happy also, but if I had to choose, I’d rather see them brave.”
We’re called to be brave in and with the faith, trusting that nothing in life will ever be able to separate us from God’s love in Jesus Christ, and that with God no night lasts forever. Amen to that kind courage! Amen to that kind of trust! And amen to the victory that comes through Jesus Christ who enables us to reach for rainbows and to overcome whatever difficulty we may face. Let us pray:
Loving and gracious God, may we not seek happiness but joy. May we not seek the detachment of pleasure but the painful involvement in the suffering of others. May we not expect life to be fair but may we strive for justice. May we trust you to take care of us while we pledge ourselves to caring for others. For this is the faith we seek, to which we have been called and for which we have been born anew in that Spirit who keeps us faithful. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.