The Secret of Endurance
Matthew 10: 16-22
Psalm 46
January 29, 1989
I was in San Francisco this week. Some three hundred clergy met at Grace Cathedral, and rub elbows with the closest thing to a living saint that the Anglican Communion has produced in the last fifty years. We went there to sit at the feet of the Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, Arch Bishop of Cape Town. It was a magnificent experience.
Here was this little, gray-haired man, looking like someone1 s favorite old uncle, who had been challenging the might of South Africa for the past three decades. Here was a man who had survived every sort of harassment, threat, pressure, insult, government ill will, and still was able to retain a twinkle in his eyes and love in his soul. Here was a man who could live amongst the most deplorable conditions, experience the worst inhumanity, and still retain a passionate faith. Here was a man who certainly understood Shakespeare’s words, said by William the Silent: “It is not necessary to succeed in order to persevere.” Here was a man who learned the secret of endurance.
Our text for this morning’s sermon comes from Matthew’s Gospel. It is part of the Scriptures set aside to be read on the feast of the conversion of Saint Paul . In it , Jesus describes the terrible cost of discipleship. “You will be delivered up to councils, flogged, dragged before governors, hated, put to death, all for my name’s sake. But” – and this final ” but” line intrigues me- “but he who endured will be saved” When I first read that line, i asked myself , “What , then, is the secret of endurance; the secret that so many of Jesus’ disciples seemed to have found? What is the secret that our fathers used to call ‘ the perseverance of the saints?” What makes the Saint Pauls and Mother Teresas, the Desmond Tutus even when the odds are against them a success, to use Eliza Doolittle’s immortal words, ‘ is not bloody likely, it what makes them continue?”
What , then, is the secret? is it some vague hope that in the future the evils of the world will be set right? The Archbishop spoke of how the Dutch church kept suggesting that the clue to life was to be found in some sort of post-mortem reward. He called it ” a pie-In-the-sky faith, and he asked, ” What good is a post-mortem pie in the sky? it does not give us the courage or strength to face the injustice of the moment”.
There is a hollow belief, he told us, to which one church people would have us subscribe. it is called the philosophy of ” not yet. ” The belief would have us convince ourselves that the time is not right; or this is not the right place; or that somewhere in the future, God will reward those who suffer. But as long as we convince people that the rewards are in heaven, we keep them from dealing with the injustice of the moment.
The “not yet” theory of life is a form of denial; it allows people to step out of difficult situations, to believe that God will somehow right all the wrongs in some future heaven. But like all forms of denial, it becomes an empty mockery and would have us lose touch with reality –
The basic religious question is not how God will reward people in the future. The basic question is “Where is thy God?” This was the Archbishop’s focus for most of his meditating ‘Where is now thy God?” That question leads us into deep waters, but it is in the answering of such questions that we find the secret to endurance.
At this point, the Archbishop told us a story of a young Jewish boy in a concentration camp who had been singled out to do every dirty job; everything from taking down the corpses on the gallows to cleaning the latrines. Whenever there was a dirty, disgusting job, it seemed that the guard would call out the youngster. One day, when he was cleaning out the latrines, the guard began to taunt him saying, “Where is your God now?” The boy just smiled and said,” Right here in the middle of the latrines, standing on the gallows, in the ovens . ” Tutu then told us our God takes on the very fragility and vulnerability of His creation. He enters into our death situations, not to nuke them go away, but to identify with them and take them upon Himself.
Anthony Bloom, the Russian Orthodox priest from London, once observed, “Of course, the Christian God exists. He is so absurd no one could have Invented Him. ” There is an important truth here. if you were to invent a God, you could do a lot better than a God who joins you in the dirt and muck of a concentration camp, a God who stands with you in trouble instead of dispelling trouble; a God who is crucified. And to add insult to injury, the Christian tradition says you are to follow that kind of a God, and to endure. Bloom raises the difficult question, “What is the use of following a God like that?” But that’s the mystery of salvation, for it’s in following that we find the strength to endure. It’s in following that kind of God that we are saved.
Let me explain or, better yet , let me share with you the Archbishop’s words: ” I remember once he told us, when I was in Alexander Township, outside of Johannesburg. It is a black township- no roads, no electricity, no inside plumbing, night soil buckets outside of each house, squallor unbelievable. I was in the church of Saint Michael and All Angels, and as I looked over the congregation, the only message i could convey was that ‘ God stands at your side, ‘ and that God will be with you wherever you are”
” We got to the point of passing the peace, ” Tutu continued, ” and if you have not yet experienced this with a black congregation in South Africa, then you have a treat in store for you. it’s a holy and joyful shambles. And on that day, he said, ” I will never forget the old lady who said over and over again, as we exchanged the peace and were hugging one another, her eyes twinkling and her wrinkled face lighting up, “God is with me. God is with me in this squallor. God is with me, even in the dust-filled streets, in all this apartheid. God cares.
The Archbishop went on to say, ” J could not; but be tearful! as I returned to the altar. She had been strengthened to live through another week with her head held high, knowing, somehow, that it would be all right; God had come to be with her.
The Archbishop finished his address by saying, ” I don’t honestly know how non-Christians can continue the struggle without the knowledge that God stands with us. Without this grace, I would not know God to keep on keeping on. I would have given up long ago. ”
One of the Psalms that I usually read at a funeral is Psalm 46. It says it all so much better than I could. ” God is our hope and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth be moved, and though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters rage and swell, and though the mountains shake at the tempest of the same. ” Then it ends, “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. ”
God is a very present help in trouble; not to get us out of trouble, not to spare us from trouble, but to be with us in the midst of trouble. Where is now thy God? He is present- now, right here. And that is the secret of endurance.
We began this morning, talking about going to see a person who was the nearest thing we have to a saint. I’m sure if anyone had said that to Desmond Tutu, he would have laughed and said, “That’s silly. I’m simply one of God’s little people who walk along with Him. ” But in walking with him, Desmond reveals to us a secret, the secret of endurance is being able to walk with the Lord. That is the gift of perseverance, the gift given to all the saints, and the gift given to us.
T.S Elliot once wrote, ” We are only undefeated because we go on trying.” And we go on trying because we are enabled to walk with the Lord.
Amen.