Shea It Ain’t So…
Philippians 4:1-9
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Rev. Lou Nyiri
October 12, 2008

Sunday, September 28th as my family and I traveled to New York City, I listened intently to the radio for highlights and updates of the New York Mets game against the Florida Marlins.  The game’s outcome was important because if the Mets won they would force a one game playoff with the Milwaukee Brewers to see who would be the wild card team to take on the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Divisional playoffs.
The importance to New York fans was that this game against the Marlins would hopefully NOT be the final game played in Mets’ Shea Stadium.  The farewell celebration to Shea stadium would be much happier with a Mets win.  Shea stadium is being torn down after this season as the team moves in to a new stadium beginning next season.
The importance to Brewers’ fans who stayed after the final out in the Brewer’s win was that if the Mets’ lost then they could set off the confetti machines; drop the banners and champagne bottles could be uncorked in the Brewers’ locker room.
The importance to me was that the Mets are my team.

As you might infer from the sermon title this morning, the victory never happened as the Mets lost to the Marlins.
That night in New York city as we walked to dinner I poked my head in a Times Square “Lids” store which sells hats with professional sports teams logos and asked, “Are you selling Mets stuff ½ off?”
The gentleman behind the counter replied, “Don’t even talk to me about it.  Two years in a row they’ve done it to us.  I don’t want to talk about baseball until next year.”
The headline on the New York Post (or Gazette) the next day read, “Shea it ain’t so…”
New Yorkers and I were learning once again to live with disappointment.

And yet, there is another group of long time faithful folk who know what it means to live with persistent faithfulness even in spite of disappointing times.
I am of course affectionately referring to…the Chicago Cubs fans.
Fans of this Major League Baseball team have lived with and suffered through the longest dry spell between championships in modern sports history.
This week contains the significant 100th anniversary.

On October 14, 1908, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series by defeating the Detroit Tigers, 2-0 in the fifth and final game of the series. 
This was the Cubs second World Championship win in a row………
…………….It was also their last.

And for the Cubbies fans in the congregation this morning, for the record let me say, oh, how I’d hoped to be bringing this message to you today while the Cubs were embroiled in the National League Championship Series en route to a World Series win. 
However, I cannot and the fact of the matter is that for 100 years, the Cubs have been in a World Series drought.
The country has changed radically over the past century, but the failure of the Cubbies to win a championship has been a depressing constant in American Life. 
When the Cubs last won, Henry Ford was producing his first Model T.
Orville Wright was demonstrating his flying machine to the U.S. Army.
The First World War was still years away.
Being “online” meant you hung your laundry out to dry.

The Cubs have suffered the longest dry spell between championships in modern sports history.
No one else in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, or the National Basketball Association comes close.
In fact, the other three major sports leagues were not even in existence when the Cubs last won the World Series.

And yet, despite this long drought, Cub fans remain faithful.
You see, they have come to learn that on the heels of disappointment there must be hope if one is to ever make it in this world.
They rejoice in the Cubs always.
They model persistent faithfulness even in the face of distressing, disconcerting and disappointing times.
You might say the Cubs fan’s lifetime Scripture is Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” 
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen.
(Can I get an “Amen!” from the Cubs fans who are in the house?)

There is another group of committed persons for whom persistent faithfulness is a requirement.
It is this same kind of persistent faithfulness that Paul calls the Christians at Philippi to show forth in this world when he writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  The Lord is near.”
Paul says nothing about winning and losing.
Paul mentions nothing about being champions of faith.
Instead, Paul focuses us on rejoicing in the closeness of Jesus the Christ.

Like long-suffering Cubs fans, the Philippians are not to obsess over wins and losses.
Instead, they and we are to find joy in being a fan of Jesus –
the One who empowers us to remain faithful in the midst of disconcerting times…
the One in whom we place our trust and faithfulness to never leave us lost and alone…
the One through whom God brought never-ending love into the broken corners of this world AND our individual lives…
The One in whom we rejoice…Always!

Does this mean life will always go our way?
Does this mean that we will never encounter heartache, pain or feelings of helplessness in this life?
Of course it does!??!!?? ...and if you believe that, “I’ve got some nice farmland to sell you in New Jersey” as my grandfather used to say.
Or as that great song lyric goes, “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.”
Life does not miraculously become free of discontent and heartache simply because we believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives.
All one needs to do is turn on the evening news or read the daily paper or check out the down turn in the stock market and one will see that life is not always free from discontent and disappointment…

Life happens!
Life happens to us!
And some times what happens in life is uncontrollable…what we do in the middle of uncontrollable times though is something we have control over.
When it is raining outside on the day we have schedule a family picnic…we can take the picnic inside.  As Steven Covey would say, “we can carry our weather with us.”
But it’s not just a white-knuckling, bearing down, pull yourself up by your own boot straps, and make it better kind on your own kind of mentality that gets the job done.

Paul goes on to say in his letter to the Philippians, “do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

I can’t be certain of this but I want to say it anyway, I don’t think Paul here is saying “don’t give the complexities and discontent of life any thought” when he writes “do not worry…”
On the contrary, I think he is implying that we are to think about the difficulties of life.
We are to wonder what or how we got into such disappointment and discontent.
We are to think about how our actions or inactions may have played into circumstances we now find ourselves embroiled.
And I apologize to the English/Grammar experts for what I’m about to say, but I don’t think Paul is saying, “We are not NOT to think about the things which bring worry into our lives…”
What we are to avoid is the thought processes which handcuff living…the constant thought on an issue that robs us from having the fulfilling life God calls us into and that God promises to us…it is the type of worrying that paralyzes us in fear because of what is going on around us to which Paul cautions.

Remember, Life happens to us.
It’s what we do with what happens in our lives that is the question we all must answer.
Will we succumb to the disappointment and discontent or will we remain faithful and hopeful in the middle?

And that’s where what Paul says next after his comment, “do not worry,” becomes so important.
“But, in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”  
As Christians, as people of faith, we are to make our requests known to God.
And we are to remember that God will not always give us what we want.
A father once asked his son what he had prayed for the night before as he fell asleep, the child responded, “I prayed that God would take the Steelers to the Super Bowl.” 
Well that father knew he had some explaining to do about prayer.
God is not some big Santa Claus or Grandfather in the sky who will give us our every want and desire.
God may not always give us what we want…God will always give us what we need.

And what do we need in the midst of disappointing, disconcerting, discontented times?
We need peace.
Specifically, we need, “…the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, [which] will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus.”  
This idea of peace can be explained in words by saying, “a total sense of well-being that comes from God and links our hearts and mind to Christ Jesus.”
That’s how you would describe it using words.

This is how you would describe it using life experience…“Huuuuuuuuuuuu---Huhhhhhhhh....”
It’s the sound of that last deep breath you take which upon its exhalation is followed closely with a feeling, a sense of knowing that, “it’s going to be all right.”
I have found that this peace which goes beyond our human understanding is difficult to explain though when it is experienced it is what we yearn for whenever things or thoughts are coming at us in such a fashion that we can’t get beyond them…

I have found myself praying in those moments of life when I am tossing and turning because I can’t sleep and my mind is going a hundred miles an hour sometimes with thoughts of what to do and sometimes with thoughts that are so vast the synapses of my brain can’t fire fast enough for each one to make a complete thought form…

And in those moments, on those kind of nights I have found the prayer I often come back to is simply this, “Lord bring that peace into my mind…into my life…that I can’t explain…but that I know can only come from you and calm me down.”
And I pray that prayer over and over again.
And after about five minutes I add, “AND DO IT NOW!!!” to the end of it.

But what a great gift that peace is.

Even when our team is losing and we are waiting for a hundred year drought to end….
Even when our stock portfolio is shrinking smaller and smaller….
Even when we deal with deep anxiety and depression….
Even when we are struggling in school, or feeling miserable at work….
Even when a significant relationship in our life is failing….
………………….…there can be peace.

Amidst all these circumstances and many more there can be peace…a peace that comes only from God…and a peace that links our hearts and our minds to Christ Jesus in such a way that we can be opened up to see the options and possibilities that Christ Jesus brings into the picture…

For in all circumstances of life which carry with them disappointment and discontent there can be peace and there can be hope.
I would take it so far as to say, there must be hope and peace which follow quickly on the heels of disappointment.

When we have faith in the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen…
When we rejoice in the Lord Always and remember the Lord’s nearness to our lives…
When we bring our requests through prayer and supplication and with thanksgiving to God…
….…there can be peace.

And it can begin today…this very moment…because while life can happen to us…one thing remains a constant for us…
In good times and in bad times…In life and in death…
We belong heart and soul to God …Who is our refuge and our strength.

Let us pray:

Gracious God, there are so many people for whom the circumstances of their lives make rejoicing difficult.  We pray for all who live in places of strife and conflict that they would be filled with your peace and opened up to the possibilities of new life Christ promises.  Comfort those whose rejoicing is muted as they struggle with the loneliness of grief or the darkness of depression.  Renew their spirits and shine your light into their darkness so they may once again sing your praises.  We are thankful for your presence among us and we present these prayers to you – knowing that you hear the prayers we have spoken as well as the prayers of our hearts.  Amen.

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