Posted January 2, 1999
"ON GETTING KNOCKED DOWN "
I Peter 2: 19-25
Two sportscasters on television were discussing the
great running backs in professional football. They
came to Walter Payton, the all-time leading ground
gainer in the N.F.L. "What a runner," said the
first commentator. "Do you realize that all
together Walter Payton has gained over 9 miles
rushing in his career?" The second sportscaster
thought a moment and then responded. "And to think
that every 4.6 yards of the way, someone was
knocking him down."
Maybe that describes your life. A long journey with
somebody knocking you down every few yards. The
writer of I Peter was dealing with persons who were
getting knocked down and finding it difficult to get
back up. So he advised them to "suffer with
patience."
It is difficult to advise someone to suffer
patiently. We are solution oriented. We like to
think every problem has a nice, neat, quick fix.
Self-help books promise slick, glib one-minute
solutions to our every vexation. There are many
problems, however, that are not so easily dealt
with. Ask someone with cancer or MS or AIDS. Ask
anyone with an abusive spouse or someone who has a
chemically dependent child. Or the person struggling
with deep depression, or loneliness or grief.
The writer of I Peter was writing to Christians,
many of whom were getting knocked down because of
their faith. It was troubling to them. They were
suffering not because they were doing wrong, but
because they were doing right. It was so unjust.
Unfortunately, that is the way life is.
SOMETIMES WE GET KNOCKED DOWN WHEN WE DON'T DESERVE
IT.
That's one thing that makes getting knocked down
difficult to accept. Once when Bob Hope received a
major award he responded, "I don't deserve this, but
then I have arthritis and I don't deserve that
either." His comment was only partially in jest, I
suspect. Sometimes it is frustrating to try to
figure out why life has struck us down at this
particular point along the journey.
The easiest place to see this, of course, is with
children. What could the children of Northern
Ireland, or Beirut or Hiroshima possibly have done
to merit the ravages of war? How about babies born
addicted to cocaine or infected with Aids? How about
those who have been the victim of drunken drivers or
parental abuse?
What about those born into poverty and squalor or
those born in places where the supply of food is
dwindling to nothing? Some suffering in this world
comes from personal wrongdoing, but many of those
who suffer most have done nothing to deserve it.
Life is unfair.
William Henry Alston of Maryland, an alcoholic, was
arrested, incarcerated, and then placed in a mental
hospital on charges of breaking and entering. After
months of treatment, authorities determined that
they had the wrong man. A journalist with the
Washington Post who reported the story posed the
question, Where is justice?
If anybody's got an answer to that one, please share
it with the rest of us. Life can be unfair. We can
sympathize with a nineteen-year-old boy named Joey
who was dying of cancer at a Rhode Island hospital:
"You could say it's God's fault," said Joey. "And
when I get to heaven I am going to ask God why he
put me through this. If he doesn't have a good
answer, I'm going to punch him in the mouth." Pardon
the irreverence, but I believe God understands.
Sometimes we get knocked down and we have no idea
why.
EVEN WORSE, SOMETIMES THERE SEEMS TO BE NOTHING WE
CAN DO EXCEPT GRIN AND BEAR IT.
It's one thing to have the flu. You know that it will pass. It's another to have a disease diagnosed as terminal. It's one thing to be 25 and lose your job, it's another to be on the verge of retirement and lose everything you own.
It's one thing to have a lover's tiff, it's another
to watch a marriage of 25 years go down the tubes.
Some setbacks heal very slowly--some not at all.
That's one good reason to go through life with a
sense of humor. During the Depression there were
people who jumped out of windows. There were others
far worse off who laughed their troubles away.
For example, those were the days of the great
dustbowl in the Midwest part of our country. Farms
and fortunes were literally being blown away. How
did some people cope? With humor. One man said that
during the thirties the Midwest was so dry that when
"one man was hit on the head by a raindrop, he was
so overcome that two buckets of sand had to be
thrown in his face to revive him."
Someone else said he talked to a motorist who saw a
ten-gallon hat on a dust drift. He picked it up and
found a head under it. "Can I give you a ride to
town?" the motorist asked the protruding head.
"Thanks, but I'll make it on my own," the head
answered.
"I'm on a horse." That's a lot of dust! Telling
jokes was the only way some people knew to cope.
They could not change the weather, so they adjusted
their attitude. They found things to laugh at even
in the grimmest of times. They survived. Some of
them even refer to the Depression as the "good old
days." Suffer with patience. Surely, that is not all
the story, though. Surely, we can do more than grin
and bear it. After all, we are children of the King,
kin of the Creator. Surely, there is more for us
than being patient. There is.
FIRST OF ALL, WE CAN TURN A DEFEAT OF THE FLESH INTO A VICTORY OF THE SPIRIT.
There are some remarkable people who do that every day. For example there was a news item recently datelined YOSEMITE NATIONAL
PARK, California. It was about a young paraplegic
who hauled himself up 3,200-foot El Capitan mountain
6 inches at a time over nine days, using only his
arms. He wore a T-shirt reading "See you at the
top."
Mark Wellman, 29, and friend Mike Corbett started
the day about 300 feet from the top of the granite
cliff, after spending the night tied into sleeping
bags on Chicken-head Ledge.
The climbers were a day behind schedule. They began
the grueling effort July 18 and had been battling
gusting wind and 90-degree heat.
Wellman, whose legs have been paralyzed since a 1982
fall from another Yosemite peak, became the first
paraplegic to make the vertical trek, doing 7,000
pull ups on ropes placed by Corbett.
Wellman was hospitalized for seven months after his
fall, but has since been as active as possible,
staying in shape with sports, such a kayaking, and
directing the park's program for disabled visitors.
His example raises the question, who's disabled?
Mark Wellman's legs may not be too great, but his
spirit is that of a champion. We need to recognize
that some folks face giant adversaries but they do
not give in.
Disciples of Jesus should be those who do not quit.
Lady Julian of Norwich once wrote,
"He said not, `Thou shalt not be troubled, thou
shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be
distressed,' but he said, `Thou shalt not be
overcome.'" Thank God for the overcomers of this
world--those who turn a defeat of the flesh into a
victory of the spirit.
SOMETIMES WE ARE EVEN ABLE TO TURN OUR PROBLEMS INTO PROFITS.
Somewhere I was reading about baby crocodiles. After they are born these little
creatures thrash around in the water doing the dog
paddle to stay afloat. Only after they swallow some
stones, which are used for digestion, do they gain
the proper balance to swim horizontally.
Maybe that is a parable. Maybe none of us get our
balance in life until we swallow a few stones.
Some people believe that Joe Montana of the San
Francisco 49ers is the best quarterback in the
history of the National Football League. He is an
artist with the short pass. He throws long so rarely
that rumors have floated around the league from time
to time that he has a sore arm. John Madden once
asked Montana about his style of play. The
conversation is interesting.
"Are you going to start throwing deep?" asked Madden
before a recent Super Bowl.
Montana never batted an eye. "No," he said.
"Why not?" Madden pressed. "Is your arm sore?"
"No, my arm's not sore: I can throw deep," he said.
"But we don't have any plays to throw deep. We never
practice throwing deep."'
"How come?" Madden asked.
"Look at our practice field here," Montana said.
"Most teams have two full hundred-yard fields, one
grass and one artificial turf. But we only have one
field that's half grass and half artificial turf.
When it rains in December here, the receivers have
to wear either artificial turf shoes or grass shoes,
depending on which half of the field we're
practicing on.
If we practice on the grass half, the receivers
don't want to run out on the artificial turf with
cleats. If we practice on the artificial turf half,
the receivers don't want to risk falling on the wet
grass with their artificial turf shoes. When we
practice plays, we put the ball on what would be the
twenty-yard line, so I've got only about thirty
yards to work with. You can't throw deep in thirty
yards. Even in the pregame warmup, it's the same
situation. You only have half the field to work
with. That's why I don't throw deep."
Montana only had a short field to work with, so he
became a master of the short pass. What would some
.
other people have done? They would sit around
complaining that they didn't have two practice
fields like other quarterbacks.
Montana didn't complain, he conquered. He took his
problem and turned it into a profit. To borrow from
Robert Schuller, he turned a scar into a star. What
can we do when we get knocked down? We can turn a
defeat of the flesh into a victory of the spirit.
Sometimes we can even turn our problem into a
profit.
PERHAPS EVEN MORE THAN THESE, HOWEVER, WE CAN LEARN TO LOVE OTHERS WHO HAVE ALSO BEEN KNOCKED DOWN.
In a PEANUTS cartoon Lucy is berating Charlie Brown. "...And I don't care if I ever see you again!" she says, "Do you hear me?"
Linus turns to Charlie Brown and says: "She really
hurt your feelings, didn't she, Charlie Brown? I
hope she didn't take all the life out of you..."
Charlie Brown answers: "No, not completely...But
you can number me among the walking wounded!"
Some of us know about the walking wounded, don't we?
It's interesting what Thornton Wilder once said,
"The very angels themselves cannot persuade the
wretched and blundering children on earth as can
one...broken on the wheel of living. In Love's
service only the wounded soldiers can serve."
It helps when you seek to minster to people who have
been knocked down, if you have been there yourself.
Perhaps that is why Christ had to go to the cross.
He has been knocked down, too. Thus he can minister
to us in our hour of need. Our role is to minster
from our hurt to others.
It's not easy to get knocked down every 4.6 yards.
It's not easy to say to somebody to just grin and
bear it. Being patient does not mean being passive.
Even our deepest hurt can be used redemptively. That
is what the cross is all about. He was knocked down
but God has lifted him up. That same God can lift us
up as well.
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