A WARNING TO READERS: PLEASE DO NOT EAT OR DRINK WHILE READING THIS SUNDAY SERMON. AND PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR BLADDER & BOWELS ARE EMPTY. DON’T SAY I DID NOT WARN YOU!
The doors of the church are open. Good morning, Saints.
Beloved children of the sun, today’s scripture comes from Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1. Brotha Willie, read that scripture for us because I can’t do it without laughing my Black ass off.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
My god today! Scripture ain’t never been so damn specific. Saints, I need you to turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, lay aside every weight.”
I wanna open this sermon with the testimony of a woman, a dedicated Australian athlete by the name of Joanna Wietrzyk. She is a HYROX world champion. I had never heard of HYROX before reading this story about sister Joanna Wietrzyk so I had to look it up.
Thousands of athletes showed up recently in Beijing for four days of competition. Now HYROX ain’t no regular footrace. It’s essentially a five-mile gantlet of suffering with eight workout stations. It’s a lot of running but in between you gotta climb onto a machine, then run again, then push some heavy sled, then run again, then pull the sled back. Then you gotta do burpee broad jumps, row, carry heavy weights, do some lunging with a sandbag, and then you gotta squat repeatedly and throw a big-ass medicine ball against a wall 100 times.
Now Saints, imagine doing all that and then you get a diarrhea attack! That’s what happened to sister Joanna Wietrzyk.
Her bowels let loose and she just kept on competing. Sister Joanna pushed that sled. And she pulled the sled. She rowed. Lunged. Squatted. Threw that big-ass medicine ball against the wall. She ran past spectators and other athletes while stinking up the place and the diarrhea streamed down her legs. She endured to the end and she won the race!
Saints, in Philippians 3:14, the Apostle Paul said, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling.”
Church, Sister Joanna certainly pressed toward the mark of victory. She pressed against the gut bubbles. Pressed through the cramps and her loose bowels. And when she finally reached the finish line and got her prize, she had the gall to look back upon the trail of tribulation she had left behind for the other athletes, the workers, and volunteers and said, “A win is a win.”
Apparently, her determination to win trumped any consideration for the health of the organizers who had to disinfect the venue, replace the contaminated materials and equipment. They had to apologize to the athletes and offer people refunds. Later, Joanna’s sponsor, Puma, dropped her, she apologized, withdrew from the race, surrendered her points, and said she regretted not quitting.
Now Saints, tell me what would you do if that happened to you?
Lissen church, I know what the hell * I* would do. Y’all know me. I’m a Black woman and I have been a germaphobe for
I would not have pushed another sled. I would not have pulled another sled. I would not have rowed, lunged, or squatted. I would not have thrown one more big-ass ball against anybody’s wall. I would have abandoned that course with the speed of Harriet Tubman leaving southern Maryland.
Ohhh, Y’all don’t wanna hear me preach today.
Baby, I would have hurdled the barricade, found the nearest restroom, disinfected myself from the waist down and burned that entire outfit in a small private ceremony. Then I would have apologized to Beijing, changed my name, deleted my social media and entered the Witness Protection Program because Y’all would never see Rev. Dr. Staceypants in public again.
Yes Saints, I know the Apostle Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7: *“I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” *But Paul was not running a 5-mile gantlet with diarrhea and with all kinds of unholy bacteria streaming down his damn legs and feet!
Me? I would be like: “Dear lord, I have abandoned the good fight. I have forfeited the race. But I have kept my dignity and protected the public health.”
Give the lord a praise, Y’all.
What is the lesson here Saints? When your bowels say, “Sis, this race is over,” you got to believe them! The lesson is that sometimes, the Lord does not call you to finish. Sometimes the Lord calls you to flee. To quit.
Let’s go back to our opening scripture. “ . . . surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.” And she was. Then Hebrews warns us about that which “clings so closely.” The photos showed us what drew nigh unto her garments, Saints. And finally, the scripture tells us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us.” And yes, she ran the race set before her, but the problem was that she did not lay aside every weight first!
Beloved children of the sun, this story reminds me of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. Queen Jezebel had threatened to kill him after he had slaughtered the prophets of Baal. So he runs away in fear after her death threat. We see him in the wilderness, physically and emotionally depleted. He collapses under a tree and prays to die there.
When he reaches Mount Horeb, god meets him through a gentle whisper. God does not scold or shame Elijah’s fatigue or his depression. God does not preach to him about the need for him to keep hustling, to get up out his pain, and he doesn’t command him to finish the course. You know what god did? God met Elijah in his burnout. God sent an angel to give him some food, and told him to sleep so that his body could recover and he could fulfill his next assignment.
Give the Lord a praise, Y’all.
As I close out this sermon, I want Y’all to think about this symbolism of this athlete and what her story reveals about our culture. A culture that too often teaches us that stopping to care for the body is failure, even when the body is begging us to STOP. The message to keep going is all around us, every which way. Capitalism says work through the pain, through the sickness, through grief and humiliation, work your fingers to the bone and produce until you die.
We live in a zero-sum western culture that constantly romanticizes domination over the body. You’ve gotta conquer it. You gotta discipline it. You’ve gotta do all you can to force your body across the finish line. We spend so much time praising folks for resilience when what they need is relief. And in this culture, we applaud endurance and determination even if it becomes a hazard to other folks, and even when other people have to clean up the trail of tribulations we leave behind.
But Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Beloved children of the sun, this was an invitation to do some self-care. Jesus was telling us don’t keep running, producing, and performing while everything inside you is falling out. Sometimes most liberated thing you can do is stop running when the Holy Ghost, your intestine, and everybody running behind you are begging you to sit down.
Let us bow our heads and pray.
God of grace, mercy, functioning intestines, rest and restoration.
Give us the strength to finish what you have called us to do with our lives. But also grant us the wisdom to know when to stop and. sit down. Remind us that every race ain’t worth winning.
Keep our bodies safe, o lord. Protect our dignity and the health and dignity of everybody running behind us. And dear lord, when trouble stirs in our lower kingdom, remind us to lay aside every weight and come unto you for rest.
And let the church say Amen, Amen, and Amen.
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THIS CONTENT IS WRITTEN IN THE AUTHOR’S PERSONAL CAPACITY. ANY OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THE AUTHOR’S OWN AND SHOULD NOT BE ATTRIBUTED TO HOWARD UNIVERSITY OR MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
