The Coffee Break

Judgement Free Zone

Romans 12:4-5

⁴ For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

I am visiting Ron at the hospital when my cell phone rings. “I’m quitting Planet Fitness,” Allen says. His voice through my phone sounds upset. “Things are just not right at that place.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask. Allen has been a member of Planet Fitness for exactly three days. They were supposedly a “No judgement” zone, a fact I emphasized when I signed Allen up.  What had happened to disturb the work-out of my autistic son?

“I’m locked out of the machines,” he says. “I guess they don’t want me in their club.”

“Okay,” I tell Allen. “I’ll be home soon and we’ll talk about it then.” My mother’s heart hurts for my son, whose learning differences and challenges locked him out of many groups during his school years. Allen is, in a word, “quirky”, but he is also sweet and moral and kind. It takes some work to get through the quirkiness and the lack of social cues that characterizes young adults like Allen who are on the autism spectrum, but I was hopeful that the physical activity and interaction with others at the gym would be good for Allen, whose own social outlets are limited.

I turn towards home when I leave the hospital, but change my mind part-way and head to Planet Fitness. A mother protects her children, no matter how old they are. If the gym has in anyway made my son feel that he is not welcome in their club, they will have me to deal with.

I think Jesus Himself knew a thing or two about being ousted from the popular lunch table. We need only to look at those He chose as his close companions—several common fishermen, a Zealot, a tax collector, and a thief—to know that Jesus was not hanging out with the Beautiful People. As He left Earth for Heaven, He desired for there to be unity among the believers.

Unity is never an easy feat. While Romans 12:4-5 acknowledges that the members of the Church have many functions yet belong to one unit, the concept can be difficult to grasp. The Book of Acts is full of challenges that faced the early church: changes in leadership (Acts 1:19), immorality (Acts 5:1-10), complaints (Act 6:1), false teaching (Acts 15:1), and diversity (I Thessalonians 19:11). Jesus’ command to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace” (Ephesians 4:3) was a tough act!

We’d like to think we’ve all evolved past the point of looking down on someone because of their job or the color of their skin, or where they live or how they comb their hair. Or in the case of my son, how adept he is at social cues. Despite our differences, I Corinthians 12:18 clearly tells us that each member has a specific value. All are important to God.

I am mumbling under my breath the part in Ephesians 4:16 about building each other up in love when I arrive at the parking lot of Planet Fitness. I compose myself, say a quick prayer, and calmly walk into the gym and ask to speak with the manager. She is kind in every way, mentions she saw Allen in earlier in the day and wondered why he had left so quickly without saying anything if there had been a problem.

“He wouldn’t have complained,” I tell her. “He would have just walked quietly away.” With the help of another employee, we figure out that Allen had been working on a machine that was glitching. The trainer offers to help Allen with the machines if he would come back. I promise to try and convince him to give it another try. I am glad, I tell the manager, that they are what they advertise: Judgement Free.

As I drive home, though, I remember my years as a middle school teacher, where cliques ran wild and those who, like Allen, were a bit different often found themselves hanging out with the teachers at recess. To be examples of Christ and to uphold the unity of the Church and our own common humanity, we should always strive to live in the Judgement Free Zone.

 Let's all just sit at the same lunch table.

Author's note: I was visiting my father this past Sunday so this blog is based on the sermon from Epworth Methodist Church in Rehoboth Beach. The event with Allen took place in August of 2017.

The Agony of Defeat

THE AGONY OF DEFEAT

⁶⁶ While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. ⁶⁷ When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him.

“You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,” she said.

⁶⁸ But he denied it. “I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about,” he said, and went out into the entryway

Mark 14:66-68

He became the poster child for defeat. The five seconds it took for him to become the icon of downfall wiped out the hard work that had gone into learning to “ski fly” and for many years, the film clip of Vinko Bogataj falling off Heini Klopfer Hill in West Germany accompanied host Jim MacKay’s voiceover on Wide World of Sports.  The “thrill of victory montage” changed with the sports’ seasons, but the “agony of defeat” was always Vinko, losing control before he even left the ski jump, veering off to one side and bouncing wildly into the crowd.

It was an epic fail. Onlookers feared he would not survive the crash.

And don’t we all feel that way when we mess up? We assume the world is pointing fingers at us, exploiting our faults and snickering behind their hands. Worse even, we have a hard time forgiving ourselves and so we figure that God cannot forgive us.

It happens to us all.

Even to those who walked with Jesus. Mark 14:66-68 tells the story of the downfall of the disciple Peter. Often referred to as the “Big Fisherman”, Peter was known for his loud and brash ways. In Matthew 26:33-35, Peter hotly declares that he will never desert Jesus; he will not run away when push comes to shove and he says, and I quote, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!”

Big words from a big man. Easy to say, hard to do.

When Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and taken to the house of Caiaphas the priest, Peter and John are the only disciples who do not run away. Points for that. But later on, one of the servant girls sees the Big Fisherman in the courtyard and says, “Hey, you! You were with Jesus!”

Peter brashly denies it, using legalese to say, in effect, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Strike one.

A short while later, another servant girl says, “Wait a darn minute. I know this man here was with Jesus.”

And Peter continues with his slide into the agony of defeat by uttering an oath that basically says, “I don’t know who that blasted fellow is!”

Strike two.

By now, everyone who is hanging around the courtyard has heard Peter speak and they know he is from Galilee. Someone puts two and two together and shouts out, “Yo, dude! You talk just like Jesus! You must be one of them!”

And this  time Peter begins to curse.

Strike three.

Ouch.

Then, as we all know, that rooster crows to herald the coming of the dawn and Jesus, just yards away from Peter in the courtyard, turns and looks at His disciple and Peter leaves the courtyard and goes to cry his eyes out in privacy (Luke 22: 60-61).

And Peter’s story could have ended there. He could have crawled off and licked his wounds, spent his life on his boat in the Sea of Galilee, and faded into a cautionary tale.

But God had other plans for Peter.

The angel who greets the women who come to Jesus’ tomb after the Sabbath specifically says to them, “Go and tell Peter and the disciples” (Luke 24:9). And Peter, wild with excitement and disbelief, pushes his way in front of John, and runs as quickly as his sandals will allow to the tomb where Jesus has been laid. It’s not much later when Jesus turns Peter’s “agony of defeat” into the “thrill of victory.” Appearing to the fisherman on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus says to Peter, three times, “Do you love me? If you do, feed my sheep.” And while it saddens Peter to know he’s messed up before, he now embraces a chance to do the right thing.

As Pastor Tim pointed out on Sunday, we are all prone to failure. But wiping out, be it on a mountaintop or in a courtyard, need not dog our steps. Here are three lessons Pastor Tim pointed out:

1. Wiping out is never the end of the road. Peter went onto become “the rock” upon which the church was built (Matthew 16:18) That’s turning a defeat into a victory!
2. Jesus prioritizes those who have fallen. The angel made a point of telling the women at the empty tomb to “Call Peter.” And later, when Jesus met Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, He had a special message for him.
3. Church is a hospital for the broken, not a museum for the perfect. Many of our Old Testament forebearers messed up in Biblical proportions: Abraham, David, and Saul just to name a few.

But whatever happened to Vinko Bogataj, the very face of failure? To him, it wasn’t the big deal Wide World of Sports made it out to be. He made a call from the hospital that he wanted to have a “do-over” but his doctors wouldn’t allow it. After recovering from a concussion and a few bruised ribs, he went back to his quiet  live in Slavia. He married, raised two daughters, and became a painter famous enough to be awarded the Golden Palette in 2002, the highest honor Slavia can give to a painter. He was largely unaware of his iconic role on a television show in the United States. It was just a tiny sliver of his life.

In 1981, ABC hosted an event to celebrate 20 years of Wide World of Sports and invited Bogataj to attend. He accepted and was surprised to find that many of the famous athletes at the event –including Nadia Comaneci and Muhammad Ali—wanted his autograph.

Not because he failed.

But because he didn’t let it stop him.

Just like Peter did.

Just like everyone of us can, too.

In an interview Bogataj gave shortly after the 1981 event, he was asked, “What is the difference between defeat and success?”

“Milliseconds,” he said. “Falling down isn’t the thing. It’s getting back up.”