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"And When We Fail"
In Southern California we became greatly engrossed in the 1984 Olympic Summer Games. Indelibly etched upon my mind are many pictures of those delightful experiences. One of them that I’ll never forget came at the conclusion of the women's 400-meter hurdles. It had been a very close race — a close contest for first and second, but the real race was between two people for the bronze medal — a girl from Great Britain — a girl from France. They were actually at the very end of that demanding race. The times that were posted on the screen were exactly the same to the very one-hundredth of a second. But the judges ruled that the woman from Great Britain had won the bronze medal. The woman from France was the loser.

Before the awards ceremonies, her coach protested. The drama mounted in the stadium that afternoon as all of us were wondering why the awards ceremonies were being delayed. Then we were told that the awards ceremony was delayed because of a protest. A debate was going on as to whether or not two bronze medals should be awarded, or whether just one should be awarded. The times posted on the board remained the same — an apparent tie.

Finally, late in the afternoon, as the awards ceremonies were to commence for that event, right in front of where we were sitting, the woman from France came walking across the track holding her head, holding her eyes, sobbing deeply. There was no question that she had been eliminated. To her, years of training, all coming together in those moments of competition, and the chance to win, and her feeling that justice demanded that she should receive a bronze medal; both were denied. To her, the Olympics ended in tragedy, disaster and failure.

Another picture etched on my mind came on the night of the closing ceremony — a night that none of us who were there, or saw it on television, will ever forget. Part of the symbolism gripped me deeply. I had never been aware that the Olympics operated this way. In the opening ceremonies, you will recall, all of the nations came in separately. Each group of athletes — some small groups, some large groups — came in marching behind their flag, the joy of each country coming in, unit by unit, with their separate identity. But at the closing ceremony all of the athletes entered together following all of the flags, coming in together. The symbolism is clear! They came in under their nationalistic banners with pride in their own identity. But after the weeks of competition, they came in mixed together — now one big body of people.

Somehow that night, I saw a dream. A dream that is rooted in the Bible. A dream that is rooted in our understanding of God as Creator, and Christ as Redeemer. A dream of universal peace, where men and women from all walks of life are walking together and living together.

I sat there and looked out at the great crowd of athletes mingling together on the infield, some of them breaking ranks and running around the track, some of them like little children celebrating new relationships, new life and new love. It was a festive occasion I will never forget. And then I thought, the vast majority of those athletes all gathered together on the infield of the Los Angeles Colosseum, are losers. With all of our concentration on the medal winners, with all of our celebration of the athletes — three of them, or sometimes four, in each event who won the medals the fact is that there were hundreds who participated in the Olympics, and by any standards they were the losers. Some would call them failures. Some of them went away like the woman from France sobbing, in brokenness, with a great sense of abject depression and rejection.

Then I thought — as I celebrated with all of those athletes, winners and mostly losers — I thought of life. I thought of the fact that in life most of us are among the losers by world standards.

Most of us don’t win the gold medals of life. Most of us don’t win the silver medals. Most of us don’t win the bronze medals. Most of us are those anonymous participants. Most of us are those who, no matter how hard we try, end up somewhere down the line. In the Olympics one has to be exceptional to even participate, but always with that sense that only a few win.

Paul talked about that when he wrote to the Corinthian Christians. He said to that little band of believers in that seaport town long ago: Not many of you are wise. Not many of you are rich. Not many of you are powerful. You are just ordinary folks. By the world’s standards, mostly losers; and yet God chose what is weak in the world to confound the strong. God chose the foolishness of the Kingdom to confound the wisdom of what the world calls wise.

As I saw the parable of life, and all of those athletes on the Colosseum floor that night, I thought of another parable. I had not thought of it before in the context of this struggle of life for success and failure. It was a simple story. Jesus was always telling simple stories — always looking out at people in the world around him, seeing something that was going on day by day — common, ordinary events. Then somehow, extracting the most profound, interesting meaning from those things going on. It was the story that was read tonight. (Matthew 4:1-9) It happened all the time in the Middle East in that agrarian culture. As He gathered there, perhaps on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, talking to a little band of folks, others coming in to hear Him, crowds gathering as they often did, over their heads He saw a man going about his daily work — sack of seed over his shoulder, casting the seed in different directions as he walked back and forth, back and forth across the fields.

Then Jesus said: You’re all aware, you are all aware, that as that man sows the seed and casts it out there, not all of it produces fruit. Some of it falls on the hardened pathway where people have been trodding back and forth, and that seed simply sits on the top of the soil until the birds come down and take it away. It becomes bird food and that’s not what the farmer had in mind. Other seed falls on a type of soil very common in that part of Israel where there is a shallow layer of top soil and underneath a hard layer of limestone. That soil may well accept the seed and receive it. In some ways, the seed may germinate faster because of the warmth in that shallow soil. But we all well know that when the sun bears down and the heat comes, because the roots cannot go deep enough and establish a healthy plant, that seed becomes fruitless as well. The plant withers and dies, and nothing comes of it. Then He said: Some of the seed falls on soil that grows a lot of other things. I know that soil well — it abounds in my front lawn. And every time we try to sow our winter rye or our summer rye, or whatever it is that somebody tells us might grow, there seem to be twenty-eight other things that grow as well and ultimately better than what we’re trying to grow. That seed was not productive either. Oh, it grows but here are so many other things that choke it out that it does not produce the healthy plant that bears the fruit.

About this time one begins to wonder in the story why the farmer even goes on sowing seed, and then Jesus says: But some, however little, whatever small proportion, some of the seed falls on good soil and produces fruit thirty, sixty, a hundredfold.

I heard that parable as a parable of life in a new way as I sat in the Colosseum that night at the closing ceremonies. I thought, my life is like that parable. In a sense, my life is like most of those athletes. I do my best to succeed. I do my best to win in whatever it is. I’ve always been a competitive type of person. Yet as I look back now on a lot of years of living, I’m becoming very much aware of the fact that not everything I do succeeds. Not everything I do accomplishes what I really had in mind, and in the process, I’m aware of failure. Not always dramatic, abject failure but just that fact that not everything comes about the way I really want it to come about.

Then I think about that life, and I realize that in the midst of all this failure, some of the seed falls on good ground. Some of the seed, indeed, is productive and I find new strength and I find new hope.

Oftentimes in reading the parables, they contain certain surprises, certain exaggerations, certain statements that are drawn in order to bring attention to a particular truth. I had long missed that in this particular parable until I went home and began to reflect on it a little more.

A friend of mine, a student of Middle East culture, helped me see that the exaggeration in this parable was in what we would call “the bottom line” — that fact that the statement is made that some of the seed produces one hundredfold. I am told that any farmer or agriculturist in the Middle East would know that that never happens. There is no way that a seed is going to produce one hundredfold.

I don’t think Jesus was unaware of what He was saying. In reality, His stories of life were stories about a different kind of a kingdom called the Kingdom of God. They were stories that cut across the grain of how we interpret and understand the world. Stories designed to tell us what the world is really like — over against all of the things that we have been led to believe, over against all of the assumptions that we make, over against all of our values. And, Jesus is talking about life in His Kingdom. He is saying that it will be unusually productive. He is saying that it will be dramatically different than life in the world.

So, I heard this parable anew saying to me — it may well be that most of the things you do, most of your work, most of your energy, most of all of those things that consume so much of what your life is, may well fail. They may well be unproductive. They may well never bring what you had hoped. Most of your dreams may never come to fruition and reality, but some will. Some seed will fall on good soil, and in the Kingdom of God, the life in Christ, some of that seed will be productive beyond your wildest dreams.

So I find myself with a new willingness and a new freedom to go on sowing seeds seeds of a kind word here, seeds of an act of giving and caring there, seeds of every effort to stand on the side of righteousness and goodness and justice, knowing full well that many of those seeds will fall on paths, lives that are far too busy to even pause and possibly receive or reflect upon the Kingdom of God. But others, indeed, will fall on shallow soil, and some of my acts will graciously, kindly, enthusiastically be received only in order to begin, and then somehow to fail.

Then, I’m aware that other of those acts and works of mine and deeds and efforts and energies and all of the rest, will somehow get a mixed reception, and they may start but they will get choked out by folks who just don’t seem to focus very much on this Kingdom of God.

Lest I get discouraged, I remember that some of the seed will produce fruit beyond any human possibility, that some of those acts of love and kindness, some of those stands for truth and integrity and justice, some of those efforts that have been made, simply to share Christ’s love, to take the cup of cold water, to be of some help to someone struggling, hurting, bleeding along the way, will produce good fruit.

A man came to see me the other day. He reminded me of a youth conference at which I had spoken in the Seattle area many years ago. I particularly remembered that conference — some of them blend into others — but this one stood out because at that point in my life and ministry and career, I had never come away from a week with a greater sense of failure.

I had worked with a couple of hundred high school kids for that week and everything I did seemed to be meaningless. I remember wondering whether or not I should even continue on in the ministry after that particular week and I’ve had more than a few weeks like that since.

This gentleman came to me and said, “I don’t know if you would remember a camp where you spoke outside of Seattle many years ago?” As he described that particular week, I said, “I remember it all too well. It was one of the worst weeks of my life.” He said, “I want you to know that I came to that camp as a young teenager contemplating suicide, and something about some things that you said, helped me find a new direction in my life. And for all those years since 1952, I’ve been walking a rich, meaningful life in Christ. I’ve always wanted to see you, or write you, somewhere along the way, to thank you for being God’s person, and helping me find new direction, and hope, and help.” And I thought that’s what it’s all about.

The kingdom of this world has all kinds of ways of measuring success and failure. The Kingdom of God has an entirely different set of standards. The kingdom of this world generally measures success in terms of bigness and greatness and recognition and achievement. The Kingdom of God measures success in terms of faithfulness just in planting seeds, in sowing those seeds of God’s love, that the word of Christ may ever be scattered and planted.

And I want to say to you tonight, whoever you are, whatever you feel about your life, I pray that you will find those standards of success in the Kingdom of God — the standard of success, of fidelity and faithfulness.

The Apostle Paul put it so beautifully to the Galatian Christians when he called them to go on planting and sowing, faithfully following Christ — for he said, “In due season we shall reap if we do not faint.”

I suspect that most of what you and I do in our lives will not be all that significant. I suspect that most of the seeds that we plant and every effort to be faithful and kind and loving and caring, and to be God’s instruments of Christ’s love will somehow be met with rejection or indifference or casual apathy. Yet, I want to go on with a band of people and be part of a fellowship with you — of those who just go on planting those seeds, making our witness, taking our stand, doing all that we can, not worrying too much about the results, but knowing that some seed, some seed, however little, of all of those acts and words and deeds that make up our life, some seed will fall on good soil and produce the fruit of the Kingdom of God.

I invite you this night to join with me in that fellowship of sowers and planters of the seed of Christ’s love and Christ’s word in all of life. Amen.

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