Anglican Diocese of Perth

Northern Region

Hear Saint Paul from prison as he awaits his execution:

"l have run the great race, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. And now there awaits for me the garland of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on the great day, and not to me alone, but to all who have set their hearts on his coming appearance."

Inside a richly decorated ceremonial sarcophagus in Southern Italy lies the 2,500 year-old skeleton of a Greek athlete. Last Sunday night ABC television screened a programme that re-created the world of the first Olympians using cutting-edge forensics, lavish special effects and high action drama. Complex computer graphics brought this 2,500 year old athlete to life and illustrated him competing against a contemporary athlete!  Detailed scientific examinations revealed fascinating details about the ancient athlete's life: a collarbone worn down by extreme muscle showed that he must have been an experienced discus thrower; spinal abnormalities suggested he suffered from arthritis brought on by the rigours of chariot-racing; and a chemical analysis revealed his diet was rich in meat - a regime recommended by trainers of ancient Olympic athletes.

Special computer effects re-created the awesome sight of ancient Olympia and the games that would have drawn up to 40,000 spectators. I watched the ancient athlete brought to life competing in the pentathlon, I met real characters (including Mr Fingertips - the feared wrestler who broke his opponents' fingers to ensure victory), and wondered at the ultimate spectacle - a chariot race involving 160 horses in a life-threatening charge.

While the appearance of the Games has changed in the last 2,500 years, the values have not: winners would have been elevated to stardom and cheats would have been punished. And some of the games have not changed either: modern-day athletes experimented in that television recreation with ancient javelins to give a genuine insight into what it would have been like to take part in that magnificent ceremony in ancient Greece.

The ancient world, the world of Saint Paul, was dominated by the gigantic military power of Rome, by the institution of slavery upon which the military and economy of the Roman Empire depended, and by the Games. The Games that Saint Paul knew were most likely the Ismithian Games held at Corinth every two years. The memory of Olympia had been transferred to the Ismithian Games. The idolisation of the athletes was still as real in the time of Saint Paul as that time long ago at Olympia.

Indeed, the effect of the Games is still upon us. Do you recall that there were 26,000 volunteers who worked at the Sydney Olympics in 2000? Thousands of these folk still attend regular reunions because of the continuing effect upon them of that voluntary service at the Games. That is truly remarkable!

When the Games were in Sydney, the whole of Australia was drawn into that grand spectacle, and we forgot inter-city rivalries for that Olympic period. We were proud of Sydney and its Olympic achievement - the Olympic culture saturated all of Australia. We can therefore appreciate how natural it must have been for Saint Paul to reach for images from the Games to speak of his discipleship and his work as an apostle of the Lord Jesus.

In this instance in his letter to his apostolic delegate Timothy, Paul uses the imagery very poignantly. Paul knows his death is near. He employs Games images to define what it has been like for him in his life of faith.

The race is nearly finished for Paul - all that strict training, those three years in the Arabian desert, the energetic travelling to begin and plant churches, the return journeys to oversight and nurture those young churches, the pastoral heart-ache, the turmoil of leadership, the plots against his life, the escapes, and now the house-arrest in Rome - all these are nearing an end. Now disturbingly there is a growing intolerance of Christian leaders by the Caesar. Paul is conscious of his impending execution.

Years earlier, Paul had written to that troublesome church at Corinth (the city that hosted the Ismithian Games),

At the games, as you know, all the runners take part, though only one wins the prize. You must also run to win. Every athlete goes into strict training. They do it to win a fading garland; we, to win a garland that never fades. For my part, I am no aimless runner. I do not spare my body, but bring it under strict control, for fear that after preaching to others I should find myself disqualified.

Paul was conscious of his example as a leader, as a mentor, as a missionary, as a founder of churches. And Paul argued that all members of the Corinthian Church -possibly some 60-100 people from very different social and ethnic backgrounds- should themselves recognise the imperative to keep the faith, to run this race with as much discipline and determination as an athlete would at the Games. Corinth=s economy benefited greatly from the Ismithian Games, just as Sydney=s did in 2000. So any appeal to Games imagery would have quickly resonated with Corinthians.

The notion of 'keeping the faith' is locked into the church's corporate memory. In fact, this phrase holds a central position in the Baptism service in A Prayer Book for Australia. When this phrase is used, it has special power, particularly with adults.

Last Wednesday I baptised a woman who was aged in her 70s. As I traced the cross on to her forehead in holy oil (a sign of consecration to Jesus as Lord of her life), I said these words,

Barbara, I sign you with the sign of the cross to show that you are marked as Christ's own for ever.  Live as a disciple of Christ: fight the good fight, finish the race, keep the faith.

I try to look candidates in the eye as I say these words. Invariably, the candidates' eyes are moist, for they too know the power of what is being said. Being baptised is entry into a great race of faith that requires real commitment, intentional training, and a desire above all else to be devoted.

This morning I will confirm Andrew and Jonathan, both Year 12 students at S. Mark's School. It is remarkable that two young male adults are making this solemn commitment of themselves to Jesus Christ on the verge of their adulthood. Their's is a profound act of courage and confidence.
For now that they are leaving school and in many ways the ambit of dependency, now that Andrew and Jonathan are at the threshold of adult independence, they can shape themselves to become whoever they wish to be. This is truly for them a momentous period. They probably will never be as free as they will be for the next few years - they can become whom they wish to be. They are enacting this wish in being confirmed to belong to Christ - to be men of faith.

The wish of God in Confirmation is that Andrew and Jonathan will continue to grow daily in the Holy Spirit more and more. Indeed, those words become prayerful words on the lips of the supporting congregation, after I have called down the Holy Spirit upon both Andrew and Jonathan.  How do we keep the faith?  For it is obvious that some people give up the faith, even after being confirmed; others move in and out of faith; still others remain sustained in the faith. How do we go about keeping the faith?

First, I suggest that keeping the faith is a matter of returning to any profound experiences that we have had of God. Last Wednesday morning when I met the candidates for confirmation briefly before the service, Barbara (the elderly lady I baptized) told me of a profound experience of feeling God's presence during her recent illness. Barbara's experience was still powerful and retrievable for her. As she told me about it, she began to cry.  Her tears indicated the effect of the experience. There was an emotional flow within her experience. This emotion has glued the experience into Barbara's internal meaning system - she will live from this experience, drawing upon its assurance as she faces future anxieties.

Barbara's gentle experience is typical of religious experience. Religious experience -experience of God- happens to us all the time. We simply need to be open to these experiences, to identify them as religious experiences, to ponder them, to talk about them to gain insight into them, and to live on the basis of them.

Second, keeping the faith is a matter of building up a Christian memory or mind-set. What vocabulary about God do we readily have in order to interpret what is going on in our lives? I sense that many people have only ideas or words about God that they have picked up off television soaps - certainly not from the teaching of Jesus.

Reading and reflecting upon Holy Scripture is vital, if we are to know the mind of God in any way. This does require a routine, just as morning walking does. I am amazed at how disciplined so many Perth people are about physical exercise. You meet in daily exercise whole new communities by walking around nature reserves or suburban streets. The point is that these folk -no matter their shape- are pounding the footpaths in a very disciplined way.

Each of us requires similar discipline to build up a Christian memory or mind-set by which we reflect upon our life experience and make sense of or meaning out of it.

Third, keep the faith by paying attention to the way you talk to yourself. What are your inner conversations like? Are they conversations that reflect faith? That is are these internal conversations reassuring, gentle, delighting conversations or are they complaining, angry, aggressive self-talks? Are you talking yourself up or down?

We get clues about the style and even the substance of these conversations when we respond (often automatically) to the greeting question, "how are you?" I am surprised at the number of people who make responses like, "oh, not badly."  That response seems fairly low on the rungs of life's joy, so I muse, what's going on for them now, are they beating themselves up over something?

A simple method of helping to detect how things really are for you on the inside and thus to respond out of knowledge rather than unawareness is a spiritual exercise known as The Examen. This is an exercise that has been used for a very long time. It is tried and tested. This exercise when faithfully undertaken can lead people to identify their deepest desires, and so connect them more effectively with their quest for God or their longing to serve God more fully. Our deepest desire if we work through our accumulation of desires is really a desire for God.

I suggest that this is an exercise most usefully completed prior to our returning home in the evening or prior to receiving other members of the family home in the early evening. Using The Examen will assist us to move from underneath any particular gloom that we have experienced during the day so that we can meet others, especially our family members, without contamination. In many families, especially young families, the most potentially lethal time of day is from 5.30p.m. when bath-time happens, dinner is prepared, and family members arrive home.

If people could encounter one another freshly, and from a sense of gratitude or release, the encounters are more likely to be rich and life-giving - in other words, attuned to the practice of Christian Faith.

Let's briefly look at the steps of The Examen.  Remember this spiritual exercise is a form of training, of being able to finish the great race of faith, that Saint Paul extolled.   I have suggested three practices in training to keep the faith:

First, I suggested that keeping the faith is a matter of returning to any profound experiences that we have had of God.
Second, that keeping the faith is a matter of building up a Christian memory or mind-set.
Third, that keeping the faith is a matter of paying attention to the way you talk to yourself.
I suggest that we more consciously live with the image that we are in training as Christians, and therefore, that we are accountable for how we live. This sense of accountability was prominent in Saint Paul's self-awareness. Hence, his statements in this letter to his apostolic delegate Timothy,

"I have run the great race, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. And now there awaits for me the garland of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on the great day, and not to me alone, but to all who have set their hearts on his coming appearance.'