Patience, Perseverance & Accommodation (New Beginnings UMC)

I've got shocking news that no one will ever have thought of

before, insight that no one has ever had before.

Are you ready? Brand new life is hard, maybe

not shocking life. It's it's a struggle.

It's, it is a genuine struggle and there's a very real sense

and that's just what we should expect.

But there was AII saw, saw something on just again, several

moments of Full disclosure here this morning.

Saw something, a video on social media the other day that I

didn't bother to Fact Check because I agreed with it.

And you know, why bother fact checking something If you, if

you agree with it, I'm going to share it with you.

I it needs to be fact checked, but I think that intuitively it

makes sense. And it was a guy talking about

children and the differences between raising children now and

like 30-40, fifty years ago. And the example he was using was

playgrounds. Now, I grew up on a playground,

a playground at my elementary school, Bidwell Elementary

School, had the 12 foot tall aluminum steel slide, right, no

hand rails and it went down to pavement and and so, you know,

you could die on that thing. I don't, as far as I know, no

one ever did. We also had the monkey bars that

were way up high that you could climb on top of.

Also over pavement. The part that wasn't over

pavement were the swings. We had the best swings, great

big tall swings. And when I was there, we still

had the board seats rather than the foldy seats because you

could jump out of those board seats.

We weren't jumping on the pavement.

We were jumping onto gravel and big pieces of gravel, not wood

chips, not little, you know, ground up bits of rubber tires,

but gravel, except when it was rainy and then it was mud.

And that's, you know, people got hurt.

I, I miraculously, I never got a serious injury on that

playground. I don't know how I didn't get a

serious injury on that playground, but I didn't, I did

get some injuries doing other things growing up.

Then he showed that and then he showed a picture of a modern

playground where where nothing is taller than this.

And, and right now at that point, that's, you know, fact

checking required. We, we have witnessed those

kinds of things ourselves, if if not in person, then through

pictures. But this is the part that that

intuitively makes sense to me. But I think it warrants fact

checking, which I haven't done yet, which is the argument he

was making was that children need an element of risk and

danger in their lives to develop properly.

That if we insulate children from all risk and all danger,

we're not protecting them. We're doing them a disservice

because children need to learn how to evaluate and look at a

situation and see whether it's dangerous and then how to

navigate through a dangerous situation.

And then if they get hurt and, and when they get hurt, to learn

how to work through and navigate through the pain and the

suffering that comes from the injury.

And that all of those things are good and important parts of

growing up and maturing. And when we don't allow children

to experience those things, we're not, we're not helping

them. We're depriving them of

something that warrants some fact checking.

But to me, it intuitively makes sense because it seems like our

world was not designed to be safe.

The world that God has placed us in.

There is an element of danger there, not a maybe that maybe

it's a guy thing, maybe maybe it's just a me thing.

But my wife Amy and I have a very different attitudes about

these sorts of things. And it showed up with how we

raised, particularly our son. My our son James was in the ER

more times in the first two years of his life than I was in

the 1st 25 years of my life, maybe 35 years of my life.

First trip to the ER, he jumped over Amy who was sitting on the

floor and did a face plant on our stone hearth and and split

his lip wide open. I believe he got some stitches

on that one. The second trip to the ER, and

these are only injuries he had, you know, ear infections that

sent him to the ER as well. But we're just doing injuries

was another jumping incident. Amy was, and I saw this one

happen. I wasn't there for the first

one. I saw this one happen.

Amy was sitting on the bed. It was bedtime doing the bedtime

routine and James was at the foot of the bed and he launched

himself over Amy and smashed his face into the wooden headboard

and his tooth literally flew out of his mouth.

I saw it pop out and go across the room.

Another trip to the ER. Amy was determined that James

have no more trips to the ER. She didn't want him to jump from

anything anytime. And then a couple years ago, we

were going back and looking at old movies and we were, in this

particular movie, we were in our family room.

I was holding the camera. Amy was on the floor, Grace and

James were on the floor playing. Amy had her back to the sofa

and, and, and, and then there would be periodically where

Amy's playing with Grace on the floor here.

And I would pan the camera over and James was climbing up onto

the couch and launching himself off behind Amy's back.

And she was unaware of what was going on until she saw the

video. Like 15 years later and we had a

conversation then that that was, you know, interesting different

attitudes we had towards safety. I, I'm not saying 11 is right

and one is wrong. What I'm saying is, is that our

life is filled with struggle. Our life is filled with pain and

and the goal and our response to that I believe, should not be to

insulate ourselves and our kids and whoever else from every

experience of pain as much as possible, but rather to teach

patients perseverance and accommodation through pain and

through suffering. Jacob and Rachel and Leah went

through a long period of suffering.

Long period now, Jacob had every reason to believe that his life

was going to be charmed and blessed and free from any

meaningful pain and suffering. God told his mother while Jacob

was still in the womb that he, Jacob, the younger brother, his

other brother, they were twins, but he saw was going to be born

1st, that the younger brother was going to rule.

The older brother, the younger brother would be heir to the

promise that God made, the covenant and promise God made to

Abraham, that it was the younger brother whose descendants would

fill the land and occupy the land and own the land.

It's the younger brother who would be the leader, the younger

brother through whom all nations of the world would be blessed.

And with that kind of promise from God of that that rolling

God's plan, it would not have been surprising for Jacob to

think, hey, my life is set. My life is made.

God has made his promises. Everything is going to be great

for me. And it wasn't.

It wasn't through his own frailty and weakness, he so

alienated his father and his brother that he had to flee for

his life. He ended up at his mom's

brother's home in a distant land, and he spent 20 years

there, being repeatedly, constantly lied to and cheated

by his father-in-law. He worked for his father-in-law.

He worked seven years to marry Rachel, his father in law's

youngest daughter. But his father-in-law lied to

him and sent in his oldest daughter to be married instead

and required Jacob to work another seven years in exchange

for marrying his younger daughter.

He worked for Laban for a total of 20 years.

And during that time, Laban kept cheating him out of his wages.

He kept changing the rules. The Jacob was in charge of the

flocks. And it would be one, one season.

It will be well, Jacob, any, any flock, any, any lambs or, or, or

goats born that are speckled, those are yours.

And I'll keep the others. And, and too many would be born

speckled. So Laban would change the rules.

No, no, no, it's not the speckled ones, It's the striped

ones. No, no, it's not the striped

ones. It's the plain ones.

And he kept changing the rules to try to cheat Jacob over and

over and over and over and over again.

Rachel and Leah shared in this suffering.

Their father literally sold them for 14 years of Labor from Jacob

and then squandered the work that Jacob did.

So he had nothing left to leave them as an inheritance in any

meaningful way. Rachel and Leah struggled in

their relationship with each other.

Rachel in particular being barren for so many years, unable

to have children and doing everything she could to make

that happen and not being successful.

Leah knowing that even though she had lots of kids, that it

was her younger sister that her husband really loved and really

wanted to marry and never wanted to marry her anyway. 20 years of

this, a long struggle and God. God could have bypassed all of

that. God could have avoided all.

God didn't protect them. God made sure that that Jacob

didn't get cheated even though Laban was trying to cheat him.

That however, Laban changed the rules.

God made the baby sheep and goats be born in a way that

would benefit Jacob. But but the lies, the deception,

the dishonesty, the, the, the, the, the, the tension between

them was very real. The suffering, the pain, the

heartache, all of this very real to the point when they finally

did leave, they snuck off. Jacob invited his wives to meet

him out in the fields where all the flocks were and shared with

them that it was time to leave. And they packed up and left

there and never went back and told Laban.

Laban chased him down later and confronted them.

We might get to that another day.

But God didn't keep them from experiencing the suffering.

He didn't keep them experience from experiencing the heartache

and the pain. He didn't because that's part of

the life that we are living. The long struggle of faith

requires patience, perseverance through pain, not insulation

from pain. Jesus said very He was.

Jesus was not out there recruiting recruiters.

They, they, you know, whether it's college or work or

whatever, they'll tell you how wonderful everything is.

It's like, you know, time shares at a condo.

Oh, it'll all be perfect and it'll all be wonderful.

And no, it's not James. When he was being recruited for,

for the military, they told him a whole bunch of stuff just

wasn't true, just wasn't true to get him to sign up.

That's how recruiters work. Jesus does not work that way.

Jesus told folks up front in this world, if you're my

follower in this world, you will have trouble.

You will have trouble. Take heart, he said.

I've overcome the world, He said.

If you want to be my follower, if you want to be my disciple,

you need to deny yourself and take up your cross daily and

follow me. He said.

Animals have nests and dens and Burrows to sleep in.

But me, the Son of God, the Messiah, I'm homeless.

I sleep on the ground outside. If you want to follow me, there

will be suffering, there will be pain.

That just comes with the territory.

Part of that is when we decide to follow Jesus, when we get

baptized, when we give our life to Jesus.

We are picking sides in a cosmic battle and we now have an enemy

because Jesus has an enemy. The other part of it is, is that

the work God has given us to do is hard work.

Loving people, including our enemies, is hard work.

Laying down our lives so that others have enough.

Making sacrifices, financial and material sacrifices, so that

people that have less can have enough.

This is hard work, giving up power and position and privilege

in order to elevate those who have less.

This is hard work. It requires suffering, it

requires sacrifice, and it requires perseverance through

the pain, not an insulation from pain.

Paul compared this life of faith to training for a contest, races

and and fights, boxing matches, wrestling matches, and how when

you're, when you're preparing for that, when you're preparing

for the contest, you go into training, you make sacrifices,

you suffer to be prepared to compete in the hopes of winning

a prize, a crown, a medal in today's Olympics, a trophy in

school. Well, we're in the Olympics.

Full disclosure, second part of Full disclosure this morning, I

have not watched a single minute of the Olympics.

Not at all. I used to watch the I used to

just love the Winter Olympics. And for whatever reason, this

year, I haven't been interested. That's not a statement about the

value of the Olympics. It's a really cool thing.

And, and I have been able to read and learn some of the

stories, which is I think one of the funnest things about the

Olympics anyway, is the stories behind the competitors, the

backstories. And I've heard a few really cool

ones about this patient's perseverance through pain.

I mean, first of all, anyone who for every triple Luts or

whatever they're doing on that ice skating rink, every amazing

flip and maneuver and a half pipe on the snowboard, everyone

that's landed beautifully, gracefully and successfully.

There's been 150 or 200 or 1000 that have been crash and burn,

pain, bruises, broken bones, twists, sprains, Ouch, hurts,

suffering for every single one. That's been good.

But then there's the other kinds of sufferings.

Do you hear? There was, I, I think this guy

is from England and he was a skeleton is what he competes in

which you have to be a little bit crazy to do that anyway.

And, and, but he didn't start out and, and that level guy, he

started out in Taekwondo. That was his preferred area of

competing until he broke his back.

He broke his back, ended his Taekwondo career, picked

something much safer, I guess skeleton, and he broke his back

again. And now competing in the

Olympics, he has had to recover from 2 separate breaks in his

back. There's a German ski jumper.

I kid you not, I'm not sure if you've heard of this or not.

A German ski jumper. Afraid of heights.

So, so afraid of heights that there have been times in his

competition on the really high ones, he's gotten up there and

he hasn't been able to do it. And he, he, he's gotten

counselling and therapy and psychological help to be able to

push through that fear and focus on what he's doing.

But it's amazing level of perseverance.

I think most folks that afraid of heights would say maybe

swimming is my sport. Golf.

The men's US men's hockey team had two goals invalidated and

called back early on. Goals mean a lot.

I'm not a hockey person. I don't understand at all, but I

know how many goals you scores is important, almost as whether

you win or lose. And they had to call back and

they've pushed through and they've persevered.

There's another person, I believe she's a cross country

skier. And again, I don't know why.

I don't know how anyone could enjoy cross country skiing.

I can understand the scale. There's at least an adrenaline

rush with the skeleton thing. Cross country skiing to me is

punishment. Like if I wanted to punish

someone I would say you need to go ski on flat land or uphill.

People do it for fun. Go figure.

There's one woman, I don't remember which country she was

from, and I had a 10K that she did at the Olympics, medal then

I believe, and the week before she had taken a bad fall and had

bruised several ribs. I fell down the steps a few

weeks ago and I didn't bruise any ribs and I was in my easy

chair for three days. She fell, bruised a bunch of

ribs, and did a Ken K on her skis the next week at the

Olympics. Pushing through, persevering

through pain and through suffering.

Maybe the most heartbreaking story from at least the American

side this year is what, Ilya Melanin, I think I'm getting his

name right, Figure skater who had won 14 competitions in a

row, I understand, and was the long favorite to win the gold

and then fell and fell again and stumbled and his long

performance, long program. Now he's got to decide how he's

going to respond to that with the perseverance and the

patience and the pushing through and the continuing.

Maybe a very different experience than he's had before

losing in that way. But there he is.

It's part of competing. It's part of competing.

But all those folks are competing for is a little bit of

glory, a medal and maybe some money.

And within 10 years, 25 years, almost every single one of them

will be forgotten. I don't remember who won most of

the Olympics 25 years ago. Certainly within 50 years most

will be forgotten, if not all. Paul says we are competing for a

very different prize, the high calling of Christ Jesus, of life

with him forever, of being part of his mission and his ministry

in the world. This is what we are training

for, and this is what we are persevering for.

For that calling, for that relationship, for that

connection. My favorite story of

perseverance doesn't come from the Olympics.

We're one week out from what in my opinion, is the most boring

Super Bowl in history. I haven't watched all of them,

so I could be wrong, but it was a pretty boring Super Bowl.

And football story wasn't a Super Bowl story.

College football story. Do you remember Rudy Rudiger?

Remember that name? Yeah.

I love that movie and I know I've done this twice.

No one's gotten this joke yet. Rudy.

In the movie, Rudy was played by Sam Wise Gangi, which was very

interesting. I see.

I knew you would get No one else has gotten that joke.

It's funny. Trust us.

We're it's funny. Rudy was an undersized, under

talented kid from Indiana that was desperate to play football

for Notre Dame and was determined.

And everyone told him he was crazy.

Everyone told him he was nuts. Everyone told him he didn't have

a chance. And normally you could ignore

naysayers when you've got a dream.

But when the naysayers are the coaches, who will be the ones

that decide whether you get on the team and they're telling you

you don't have a chance, normally you should ignore that

or you shouldn't ignore that. But Rudy did ignore it.

He also had academic problems. He wasn't smart enough, didn't

have good enough grades to get into Notre Dame as a student.

But he worked and he persevered, and he hired a tutor to help him

with his schoolwork. And he trained and he practiced.

And he never did make the starting team, but he made the

practice team, and he spent four years getting the snot beat out

of him by the starters day in and day out on that practice

field so that other people could get glory In the final game of

his final season. He got to go on the field, made

a tackle, was a wonderful moment in his life.

His dreams come true. His dreams come true never could

have come true without the willingness and the patience to

persevere through pain. And the goal we are striving

for, the reasons we persevere as followers to Jesus, are so much

more important, so much more significant than trophies and

glory and money. It's for the love of God and the

love of neighbor and the Kingdom of God in this world.

That's what we're asked to persevere through.

Now here's the fact is we, we can't attain those things on our

own. We can't win these competitions

on our own. We, we have too many weaknesses

and frailties. The good news is, is that with

all of our weaknesses and all of our frailties, God accommodates

them. We're maybe here I hear a lot

about these days about accommodation and it's talked

about more than it used to be. And that's a very good thing.

And we, we accommodate people with physical limitations.

The new sidewalks being put in, I believe all have ramps on

them, right? So that if you can't walk up a

step, you can, your wheelchair can go up steps.

New buildings being built, if they're more than one floor,

need chair lifts or elevators to accommodate people that can't

walk up steps. The whole program of Ieps in

school, though, and implementation seldom seems to

be perfect, at least expresses in a very meaningful way the

real desire to accommodate students who need to learn in

different ways. Other accommodations for other

kinds of things, whether physical challenges or mental

challenges, emotional challenges.

We, we are increasingly as a culture willing and able to

accommodate, or at least recognize the need to

accommodate. Nah, we've got a long way to go,

but it's there. God was doing this long before

any human beings ever thought of it.

God accommodated Rachel, God accommodated Jacob, God

accommodated Leah. Jacob.

When, when, when Laban was cheating him, when he kept

changing the rules and whether he's going to get the speckled

sheep or the street sheep or, or whatever sheep he was going to

get for his payment, whatever was born, Laban would change it

to make the other. But, but Jacob had a strategy

and his plan. So there was a widely held

belief in those days that whatever a mother was looking at

when she was impregnated affected the looks of the child,

the baby. And so so yeah, I know it's,

it's kind of nuts, but that's what folks believed.

And, and it had some pretty sinister takes on it because

when a human baby was born with dramatic physical differences

was often assumed that the mother had done something wrong.

So, so it's funny, but it's also sinister when it's sheep.

It's funny. We can laugh at the sheep.

Is it where sheep and goats? So Jacob's strategy, he got

sticks. He knew where that the that the

sheep and the goats did their breeding near where they did

their drinking, their water. And he got sticks and he made

them striped and he made them polka dotted and he put them up.

So all of those ewes, all of those goats that were getting

bred at that point, we're looking at striped and spotted

or speckled things. That was Jacob's plan.

We know that's nuts. It's ridiculous.

It doesn't work that way. We understand genetics much

better than Jacob did. Much better.

God knew the Jacob strategy was not meaningfully productive, but

God blessed him anyway. He didn't scold Jacob for not

knowing what he didn't know. When Rachel got the Mandrake

roots to try to increase her fertility so she could have a

baby, God didn't scold Rachel for not knowing what she didn't

know, for picking a different strategy than just just praying.

God bless them. God accommodated their

frailties. God accommodated their

weaknesses. God accommodated their the the

flaws and brokenness broken. This is in their life.

Jacob himself was a liar and a cheat and a manipulator of

people at times. God looks at looked at them and

looks at us and our brokenness and in our frailties and in our

weaknesses. And God says, you know what?

I can, I can work with that. I can work with that.

Jacob's wasting time making striped and speckled sticks, but

I'm not going to punish him for that.

I'm going to bless him. And he did bless him with the

livestock that he needed, the wealth that he needed that would

move the mission forward that God had planned for him.

And this is what God invites us to as well, to be patient with

our own frailties and our own weaknesses, and to be willing to

accommodate frailties and weaknesses and others around us

too, and allow them to be who they are, warts and all, flaws

and all. And that's, that's part of the

work sometimes that's part of the sacrifice and part of the

suffering. It's finding ways to accommodate

folks that need to be accommodated.

It's, it's it. There's always an element of

self-interest in that though, because all of us at some point

always are going to need accommodation.

If only when we stand before Jesus at the final judgment,

we're going to need accommodation.

We're going to need that. So it's good to practice it now

too. But this is this is the life

that we have and the life that we're called to one of human

struggle as we live out God's divine purpose for us of sharing

his love and practical and tangible and meaningful ways

with people in this community around us.

And it's not going to be easy. It's not going to be simple.

There's going to be struggle, there's going to be pain,

there's going to be suffering along the way.

Thank God that our God accommodates our weaknesses and

frailties and teaches us how to do the same for each other.

And thank God that God's purposes and power transcend and

redeem all of our brokenness, all of our weaknesses, and all

of the pain and suffering that comes our way.

In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.