Throwing Off the Weight

Last weekend, the World Series came to D.C. On Thursday and Friday, the mood was exuberant! Sporting goods stores were selling out of Nats gear faster than hourly shipments could replace it. Monday morning, the mood was deflated. You could hear people grumbling at their lockers about how terrible the Nats were. As someone who stayed up late three nights in a row watching them lose, I understood the feeling. My husband reminded me, “It’s easy to be a fan when your team is winning.”

In spite of how the Nats played this weekend, how they got to the World Series in the first place is a story worth retelling. Zoom in with me to a player in the outfield. Gerardo Parra, a 32-year-old from Venezuela, joined the team in May. Neither he nor his team were perfect to begin with. He’d been in an 0 for 23 batting slump, and on June 19, he decided to change things up (Alex Andegere, The Washington Post, July 25, 2019). He chose “Baby Shark,” his two-year-old daughter’s favorite song, to be his music as he walked up to home plate. The song helped him to stay in the present, to think about someone he loved, and to stay “loose and confident.” That day he hit a double and a home run. Soon the song was adopted by the whole team. A Post article from July was titled: “Gerardo Parra has helped the Nationals find their joy.” Mr. Parra says he’s always been “joyful, happy, trying to live in the moment,” and he wants his teammates also to focus on the “now.” He’s not weighed down by thinking about what might or could be later.

Today’s reading from Hebrews picks up on the image of us, God’s children, as athletes who need to focus on what we’re doing in the moment. The author of Hebrews invites us to imagine that we are running a race. As we run, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. These people form a large and joyful community. The crowd stretches all the way back to Moses and beyond; it stretches forward to people we have never met; it extends all around us to people east, west, north, and south living now in the moment, focused on what matters most. They cheer us on, urging us throw off the weight—anything we’re carrying that might drag us down. They know it’s hard to run a race if you have something heavy in your hand, on your back, or even on your mind. It’s hard to focus on your running if you’re distracted by bitterness, meanness, self-doubt, or pettiness. If we can let go of those things, we can run with all we have, loose and confident, fully present: Just like our cross-country team did when they won the IAC. This crowd shouts with joy, “Drop the weight! Run! You can do it!”

Who are these people surrounding us in a great cloud? They are people who have been on a long faith journey. They aren’t sprinting. They are distance runners who have run faithfully their part and who now stand in the arena to urge us on. Their message is: “We KNOW how hard this is, we have BEEN there, and we are WITH you NOW” (David J. Schlafer, E-mail. 10/27/19). They advise us to run our leg of the race with perseverance. Whether we are winning or not, we are to throw ourselves entirely into what we are doing with joy and without distraction. If you are weighed down by a negative message like, “I’m behind and will never catch up,” throw it off. Change the song and the message: Play “Baby Shark” if that reminds you of someone who loves you unconditionally. Or reframe the message: “Yes, I am behind. I am behind a long line of runners who have tried to make a difference in the way they run the race.”

Friday marks All Saints’ Day in the church. Monday we will celebrate Holy Communion together. We will remember that we are connected to people past, present, and future. These are people who have given all they have to bring God’s joy to others; they have lived freely, moving beyond fear, embodying Jesus’ message that love is stronger than hate, division, and even death itself. Who do you imagine you’d see in that cloud of witnesses? For some of you it might be a beloved teacher or grandparent. For me, it includes a trio of women who helped shape me in my faith by their words and example. I keep this photo of my Grandmother, Aunt Martha, and Aunt Ethel on my desk at home. When I see it, I hear my grandmother’s determined voice: “We are not quitters!” I remember my Aunt Ethel’s sense of humor, her laugh, and example of not taking life too seriously. I feel in my very being my Aunt Martha’s goodness. Her message to me and every relative was: “I’ve loved you since the day you were born.” I remember them giving time and money to help others. They tried to see people around them first as a valued child of God.

And at work, I keep photos that you have given me or allowed me to take over the past year and a half. Having these photos surround me day in and day out reminds me of why we are here. Of what is truly important. Of what matters. Whether I’m having a good day or a hard one, you remind me to make the most of the time we have here together; and to remember God’s call to each of us to love Him and our neighbors first in all we do. Seeing you run the race with perseverance, throwing off whatever is holding you back, inspires me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, imperfect, but supported.

We are part of a community—present, past, future—here and around the world. We are not here primarily to please people with our good first quarter grades, to impress others with our superiority on the athletic field, or to be the top leader. As good as it feels, we are not even here to win every time. We are here to do our best, to throw ourselves into learning and growing into the people we were made to be; we are to serve others with our gifts, and to encourage and cheer each other on as we go.

My prayer for us all is to stop the next time we feel we’re in a slump or think we’re no good at something. Pause until you can imagine a great crowd surrounding you. Hear joyful voices crying, “Drop the weight! Run the race! You can do it! We’re here with you.”

Amen.