In Life's Marathon, Always Cheer For Your Fellow Runners!

“Therefore…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us….” –Hebrews 12:1

It’s my new April tradition, a personal way for me to mark the unofficial start of spring in this part of God’s Creation. On Patriots Day in the morning, I mount my bicycle that’s sat so forlorn in the garage all winter, clip in, and then pedal my way to Route 135 in Natick so I can watch and cheer on runners in the Boston Marathon.  This year it was my very first ride of the season and my very first ride on the new hip I received last October.  No matter what my physical condition is each April, after all those snowy and cold days, I always wonder and worry if my body still works. If I can still make it up that first hill out of Sherborn and into Natick. 

But climb and conquer it I must, because I had a job to do along with tens of thousands of other spectators: to cheer on people we’d never met and may never, ever see again.  To applaud with joy as strangers ran by, ordinary folks who did something extraordinary. They ran 26.2 miles, and almost all of them were also running to raise funds for charity.

They ran for Boston Medical Center and care for the poor and indigent. For the Dana Farber Institute, so that no one gets turned away from world class cancer care.  Folks ran for the Women’s Lunch Place, a Boston shelter dedicated to helping women experiencing homelessness, hunger, and poverty.  Two members of the church I serve, Kevin and his daughter Emily, ran for a respite center and a group that empowers girls in sports. Thousands of women and men, seniors, and teens, of all colors, all backgrounds, ran for others, through the sleepy suburbs of Metrowest to the blacktop avenues of downtown in the city.  Last year runners raised $71.9 million for charity.

They deserved to be lauded, to be applauded, to be encouraged as they took some 55,000 steps and strides on their way to the finish line.  And I think all the folks who lined the route last Monday and cheered loud, cheered until they were hoarse (those women in the “scream tunnel” by Wellesley College!); they deserve a pat on the back too.  What kind of people show up to encourage total strangers, anonymous, unknown neighbors? What kind of people hand out extra waters, and even beer, and play music for the runners, hold up handmade signs, and shout out, “You can do it! GO!”?         

I’m biased but the people who did such things are, I think, just good people, doing what they could in their own small ways, to bring some encouragement, some hope, and some support into this rough and tumble world.  They were being kind, something that can seem so countercultural these days when we are being led by a person in the Oval Office who seems intent on being as mean, as nasty, as vengeful, and as cruel as he possibly can be, while his supporters cheer him on as he tears down people and values and institutions with glee.  That’s the complete opposite of what happened at this past Monday’s marathon.   

It doesn’t take a religious scholar or theologian to know that the essence of all faiths, the best versions of religion, always puts love and respect at the forefront of faith in practice.  Last time I checked the Ten Commandments there was no “Thou shalt be a jerk, especially to the hurting and innocent” or “Thou shalt work to humiliate anyone you perceive as an opponent.”  It may feel like in these strange and frightening times we are living in, that some folks are actually trying to change moral law or just ignore it, and that is happening.  But there are still some of us who remember and try our best to practice, in humility, the golden rule taught to us in houses of faith and around the dinner table.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  And for good measure, this as well:  love God, love neighbor, and love yourself. Will the world change overnight because a bunch of Bostonians and Bay Staters took the time to cheer on those crazy folks who actually had the stamina and will to run 26.2 miles? Probably not.

But I think it is a good start to remembering that when we are a nation and people of mutual care and encouragement, we always cheer one another on. We each try our best to live good lives in the deepest sense. And that best life, at least for me, always involves living for others, and not just self alone.

May our God of perseverance give us the commitment to run the race before us and to run with kindness and compassion. That is a marathon I’d love to run!       

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

Have They No Shame? Leadership and Amorality.

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.   --Jeremiah 6:14-15

It’s one of the most human and instinctive emotional responses to external stimuli.  To blush. Blushing. That’s when our cheeks turn red, when we feel ourselves flushed with warmth, when we are embarrassed by or feeling shame about something that we have done or not done. Some realization that we are wrong or made a mistake or just screwed up and so when we blush, it is our bodies way of saying, “We went too far.  We crossed the line.  We were wrong.”

Years ago, from the church pulpit one Sunday morning, I decided to make a joke about the wedding I’d officiated at the day before, to get some laughs by telling worshippers about how the wedding party was so late to the altar. But just when I’d finished my storytelling I looked down into the congregation and saw, sitting right in the pews, the newly married couple I’d just mocked. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more embarrassed and ashamed at what I’d done with my cutting words and self-serving joke making.  

And boy, did I blush.

I felt deep shame about my cheap shot. I knew immediately after the words left my mouth that I had done wrong and been hurtful to another. At coffee hour after worship, I apologized profusely to the couple and to their credit, they were gracious and kind in their forgiveness.

What a jerk I was!

But what happens when humans “do not even know how to blush,” in the words of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah? He was writing about government leaders of his day, who were bringing great suffering down upon the people by their actions, but those same leaders were completely unashamed of what they did. They did not give a damn about the pain and hurt that they caused.  They knew their actions were wrong. Yet they were so arrogant, so uncaring, so drunk with power, and so blind to the effects that their actions had upon the people, that shame was just not in their emotional vocabulary.

And certainly not blushing.

In the eleven weeks since our current President took office, it is head spinning, and overwhelming to think about all of the societal and democratic norms he has either ignored or destroyed. With strokes of his pen, he’s laid off tens of thousands of federal workers, with no clear plan, and no compassion for these folks, many of whom have given their lives to public service.  He’s threatened judges and his billionaire buddy Tommy Tesla actually posted personal information about the families of those judges online. The president jokingly (or maybe not jokingly) talks about running for a third term even though this is clearly unconstitutional. And now the president’s tariffs are singlehandedly threatening to crash the economy.

I could go on….

Yet the truth that really scares me the most about this man and the minions and sycophants he’s surrounded himself with, is that they all seemingly do know how to blush. They seem to be completely unashamed of the chaos they create, the people they hurt, the immigrants they deport without due process, the families they split apart, or the government programs they lay waste to.

No shame. No embarrassment. No blushing. None.

You see to blush, you actually need to be centered in some type of moral world view, to be led by an inner moral compass, to embrace and practice values that align with what is communally understood as good and right and true. You have to have a sense of decency in how you treat others. But if you are immoral or amoral, if naked power is more important to you than service to the nation, if your only guiding principle is to do whatever it takes to petulantly punish your enemies, if you believe that you are ALWAYS right, then of course you do not feel shame or blush.

You are without shame. 

To seek to believe in and practice a faith in God means the opposite.  To practice what we preach, folks of faith try our best to live out the values of our faith, in my faith what I’d call “Jesus” values.  Be humble. Care first for the most vulnerable and innocent and powerless.  Be gracious towards your enemies and work with them for the common good.  Recognize that wealth might buy you everything on earth, but it will never get you into heaven.  The best life is about putting others, and not yourself, at the center of everything. Love your neighbor. Treat your neighbor as you want to be treated. 

There’s lots more to this moral code but the point is that it is actually a code. A philosophically coherent way of life. A way of understanding who we are supposed to be in this God-given life and how we are supposed to treat others. And when you break this code or fall short (which we all do) we may blush, knowing what we have done is wrong. And that’s ok.

But some public “servants” right now, the people we actually entrust to care for our country and we the people? Those “leaders?” They do not even know how to blush.

And that is terrifying.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.