This is a basketball…

Pentecost Season runs from May 19 - Oct 20 this year. We’ll divide Pentecost Season into 4 unique focuses: the Holy Spirit/ Growth/ Discipleship/ and Gratitude. All four of these are parts of the over-arching theme of growth as disciples, followers of Jesus.

Growth can be difficult and painful. I think back to High School basketball. Each year Coach would give us the same speech on the first day of practice: “Welcome, gentleman. Last year we had a record of XX and YY. This year I aim to improve that…” At this point he would look at our student manager who was standing at the far end of the gym with a basketball. He’d run to Coach and hand him the ball. Coach would then hold the ball before us in one hand, and said these words: “Gentlemen, this is a basketball.” He’d then hand it back to the manager, who would scurry out of the gym. As soon as he was out of sight, Coach would say, “You wont see another one of those for the next 2 weeks. Get on the line.” For the next 2 hours we would run laps, ladders, wind sprints, bleachers, and jump in place. (As the “big man” I got to do this final exercise wearing a 40 lb. vest & a pair of 5 lb. ankle weights). If anyone cut a corner, we all ran more. If someone was too slow, we all ran more. If the fast guys were thought to be slacking, we all ran more. You get the idea.

As you can imagine those first weeks of conditioning (growth) were horrible. There was a lot of sweating, groaning, & often some throwing up. When Coach was feeling especially sadistic, he’d grab a folding chair and set it up in the center of the court, & say: “Gentlemen, you’re going to run until I’m tired, and I’m going to sit right here.” Then he’d sit with his clipboard, pencil, and whistle. We’d run frontwards, sideways, and backwards …until he was tired. He didn’t tire quickly.

I don’t have particularly fond memories of Coach. But I will say this, no team in the state of Indiana out hustled us. We were never beat because we were out of condition. We got beat because we weren’t as good at ball handling and shooting than many of the other teams. Maybe that would have happened less if we had seen one of those round, bouncy things in the first 2 weeks of practice. We’ll never know. But we did GROW to be in shape. And doing so hurt.

For half the calendar year the Church has historically focused on Growth. Not numeric growth; growth as people who are following Jesus in our daily lives. The readings for next several months will come from the middle of John, where Jesus tells stories and parables, heals people and then ties those miracles to spiritual discipleship. The Church has devoted so much time to spiritual growth because Jesus spent so much time talking about it.

As we hear about this we’ll also watch Peter, James, John, and the other disciples wrestle with the lessons Jesus is teaching them. We’ll witness how difficult this process was for them. We are meant to identify with that even as we, too, struggle to grow. G.K. Chesterton, the 19th-20th century author and philosopher once said: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Being a follower of Jesus is hard work. Growing as a disciple hurts. As we will shortly return to the middle part of John’s Gospel, the words of my old Coach return to my ears… “Get on the line.” As we do, remember we are in this discipleship thing together. As a Church we are a team. May we encourage one another as we all strive to follow Jesus.

Pastor Derek