• Valson Thampu

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews compares a believer, in relation to the spiritual discipline he or she needs to maintain, to a sprinter (Heb 12:1-2). Paul asks Christians in Galatia, ‘You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?’ (Gal 5:7) As he reviews his own life as it comes to a close, he feels inwardly assured that he has ‘finished the race’ (2 Tim 4:7). It goes without saying that Paul ran and finished the race like a champion athlete in the ‘Way’ of Christ (Jn 14:6). Or, Jesus is the athletic track along which we are to run the race of life towards eternity. If was of those who would be such athletes that Jesus required, ‘Be perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect’ (Mt 5:48). An athlete cannot be satisfied with anything less. For him or her, excellence is the normal. For the rest, it is supra-normal, or miraculous.

The analogy between the believer and the athlete is, therefore, neither accidental nor farfetched. As Soren Kierkegaard maintains, the believer must be passionate about his calling, like an athlete is about her discipline. According to him, we insult the majesty of God’s holiness if we are like the Church at Sardis: have the name of being alive, but are dead. Or, like the Laodiceans: ‘neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm’. A believer is one who keeps his ‘first love’ (Rev 2:5) for sustains his or her passionate intensity for things godly. From the perspective of a nominal Christian, schooled in ‘mere Christianity’ (C S Lewis), the analogy could sound farfetched, which is not hard to understand. Mere Christianity breeds mediocrity; whereas the sphere of competitive sports and games demands excellence. Olympics is a grand festival of human perfection in a particular respect.

The primary resource of an athlete is himself or herself: not just the body and its incredible possibilities, but the total person, including mind and soul. An Olympian athlete longs to perform at the zenith of his or her scope, which strikes the spectators as miraculous. Try running 100 meters in 9.7 seconds, if you are not persuaded.

Games symbolise and validate team spirit. The essence of ‘team spirit’ comprises: (a) each member performing at his or her best for oneself, for the team, and for the country, and (b) the team as a whole serving as the enabler for bringing out the best from its members. This is an appropriate analogy to understand the role and value of Church life. Church, as the Body of Jesus Christ, is like a team within which every believer is challenged to attain spiritual perfection so as to be ‘the salt of the earth and the light of the world’ (Mt 5:13-16). Imagine having to play in a team, say in a football match, in which each member runs away with the ball! Or, insists on playing the game as per his whims and fancies! The match degenerates into chaos. Excellence seems utterly outlandish. Perhaps the congregational life Jesus envisaged was of the dynamic kind, analogous to a well-trained and holistically-compacted team, ever straining after perfection. The secret of that perfection, as Jesus said, is the integration between faith and action (Mt 7:24-28). If a team is mere theory and no action it will be barren of achievements; much like a congregation that professes faith in God, but lives entirely for, and by, Mammon.

Finally, a word about Aman Sehrawat, the 21-year-old orphan boy from Haryana, who won the only Olympic medal of any category in freestyle wresting in Paris. On the wall of his meagre room in Chhatrasal Stadium is inscribed: If it were easy anyone could have done it! As believers we belittle the discipline of seeking perfection. Ask an athlete what it involves. In particular, ask an athlete how he or she sees external difficulties and hindrances even of the most formidable kind. Surely, this concern is at the core of Jesus idea of what it takes to be children of God, as the Beatitudes (Mt 5:1ff) indicate. How else will we ‘rejoice’ when we face trials, tribulations and persecutions? Increase the degree of difficulties in the training for an athlete. Raise the bar higher. Put her to the hardest routine imaginable. At the end of it all, she’d be grateful. But the same cannot be expected from those who want to be no more than mere spectators of displays of excellence at a distance.

The Way of Jesus Christ, St Paul will say, is meant for spiritual athletes; not for mere spectators. Only a spiritual athlete can say in the end:

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness…

I conclude by recalling the words in Hebrews: Let us run with diligence the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.