Training in godliness involves the 4-step fitness program outlined in the Shema: Heart, Mind, Soul, Strength.
Last spring, there was only one "athlete" on everybody's minds and every sportscaster's lips. In 1997, Tiger Woods became the youngest player ever to win the Master's golf tournament and he did so by setting a record low score. The most prestigious tourney, a record-setting score not a bad start for a 21-year-old's first full year on the pro golf circuit.
Golfers on the pro tour are sighing and saying they see the future of golf and it's all Tiger Woods. One golfer wondered how long (not if, but just how long) it would take Tiger to win professional golf's four-tournament "Grand Slam."
Other athletes struggle to make an analogy of Woods' phenomenal win with a comparable event in their own sport. One baseball player likened Woods' accomplishment to a kid going from high school directly into the majors and then hitting home runs in his first 10 games. Sportscasters clamor to outdo one another with their glowing analyses of Woods' win. One national broadcaster gushed, "It's the most remarkable thing any human being's ever done!"
Although Tiger Woods is very young and is very good, he has worked long and hard to achieve his moments of triumph. Woods' father, obviously a man with long-distance vision, put a golf club in his son's hands the moment the child could be classified as a toddler. From the age of 3, he has been constantly nurtured and schooled in the sport of golf. He played every day. He practiced for hours on end. He competed in every tournament that came along usually as the youngest player on the course. Despite his youth, he has been the dominant force and figure in amateur golf circles for years.
Because of this history, there is virtually no way to tell how much "natural" talent for golf Tiger Woods may have. His whole life has been so steeped in playing, practicing and perfecting the game it is impossible to distinguish his talent from his training. They are one.
This is a culture that takes as much delight in putting professional athletes up on pedestals as it does in watching these icons topple off their lofty perches usually as a result of some combination of overindulgent lifestyles and overactive egos. In this respect, Tiger Woods also seems to be different from many others, at least so far. He is soft-spoken and polite, he was an excellent student, and he enjoys a close relationship with his parents, whom he obviously loves and respects. The Woods say they didn't set out merely to raise a golfer, but to raise a son. Their training regimes for both projects were extensive and intensive.
1 Timothy 4:7b-8 offers all who are "in training" to be better Christians (and that should leave out nobody) this succinct reflection: "Train yourself in godliness, for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." This observation, however, leads to a prior question: "How do we train ourselves in godliness?" "What do we do first?" "Where can we go to find a good trainer with an impressive success record?"
The answer lies in today's gospel text, where Jesus recites the training mantra of the Shema. As an observant Jew, Jesus recited this combination of confession and prayer to God twice a day during his morning and evening prayers. While sticking to this twice-daily ritual was itself a training regime, it is the message of the Shema that Jesus embodied so perfectly and which offers all of us a way toward complete and genuine "godliness."
Shema training builds up the heart, soul, mind and strength. No element of human existence is excluded from this training in faith. The exercises of the Shema allow no parts of our being to remain flabby or unattended.
Does love of God overwhelm and overcome your heart, making every heartbeat keep pace with God's love for you?
Does love of God inform your mind, making love the mainspring of all your thoughts?
Does love of God penetrate your soul, making your every prayer a plea not for yourself and your own desires, but an offering formed and normed by love?
Does love of God flow through the strength of your body, making your every step a step toward love in action?
As admired as Tiger Woods' accomplishments are, it is hard for us non-golfers to think of someone who strolls around the manicured links of a golf course hitting a tiny ball with a lightweight stick as an "athlete." We need a more muscled-up, worked-out, blood-and-sweat example of athleticism.
Enter Mark Allen six-time "Ironman" winner and holder of the title "The World's FittestMan." "Ironman" competitions (there are also Ironwoman competitions in fact, Allen is married to a retired Ironwoman triathlete Julie Moss) include a grueling triathlon of swimming, bicycling and running, designed to push the capabilities of the human body to their limits. To compete as an Ironman/Ironwoman, one must be in superb, all-round, peak physical condition. If there is an ideal form for the human body, a "body canon" if you will (see George L. Hersey's The Evolution of Allure: Sexual Selection From the Medici Venus to the Incredible Hulk [Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997]), the Ironman is it.
Mark Allen has devised a 16-week program designed to get us into "ultimate fitness" (This is most fully described in Outside magazine, XXII, February 1997, 40-54). But Allen also claims that if you follow his complete training regime for as little as five hours a week, you can transform yourself from a chump to a champ. Perhaps even more startling is that Allen prefers to call his training regime a kind of "meditation" for the entire body.
To be an "Ironman" athlete, Mark Allen divides his training into four components. These include "heart training" for endurance; "mind training" for attitude; "nutritional training" for internal (what we might call "soul") fitness; and "strength training" for muscle mass. Sound familiar? Allen has physicalized, but not trivialized, the Shema mandates for reaching in, shaping, and even transforming the entirety of a human being. Translating Allen's training regime into a believer's attempt to "train in godliness" is natural and unfolding.
1. Heart Training or Endurance Routines: Remember that in the Hebrew Scriptures the "heart" was not viewed as the location of our emotions (that was usually the bowels). Heart training must focus on building endurance, not mere emotionalism. To be able to love God and love neighbor takes a constant, steady stream of commitment. Mark Allen urges his athletes to train slowly, train easily, and be patient. "Go for long-term gain, not immediate gratification," says Allen. Building endurance, building up the stamina of your heart, depends on steady, incremental gains not flurries of heart-warming activities followed by weeks of uncaring sloth.
The key? "Get faster by going slower." Building up the heart for feats of faith takes long, slow cardiovascular workouts and training. We must start our workouts slow. To bolt out the door and take on the world is to fumble and fall. Only by staying below our aerobic threshold can our bodies chew up those fat reserves for fuel instead of our day's carbohydrate intake. Our aerobic threshold is that point where our bodies stop consuming fat and dip into muscle, which explains why so many runners who get into extreme exercise are so thin and appear so emaciated. "Your body has up to 50 times more energy dammed up in its fat stores than the measly 2,000 carbohydrate calories that can be stored as glycogen," Allen reminds us.
Spiritual fitness is not going to happen by doing an hour of prayer push-ups every day, and reading 20 chapters of the Bible a day, or attending five meetings at church every week. More plausible is the kind of heart training suggested by James, who counsels us to accept the irritations and trials of life with joy, "because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance" (James 1:3).
2. Mind Training or Mental Toughness: An Ironman/Ironwoman course is daunting. Just thinking about it can shake your confidence. Allen's training recognizes that sometimes attitude is everything. When we do not see any way we can love a particularly unlovable neighbor, sometimes we must simply exercise our mind-muscle, focus on the goal of love, and get through it. Having a disciplined mind does not mean a narrow, closed or muscle-bound mind. A mind trained in godliness can control its selfish or hurtful thoughts and instead choose to focus its thoughts and energies on what love demands.
3. Soul Training or Molecular Strength: As with every good exercise regime, Mark Allen's includes a nutritional plan. But instead of advocating some sports drink with his name on it, Allen suggests we stop and listen to our bodies, for the body will tell us what it needs.
What Allen's physical focus does not recognize is that the internal structure of the human being that is in the greatest danger of malnutrition is the soul. We must tune the rest of our being so that we can hear and understand the language of our soul. Allen is right to insist that genuine fitness begins at the molecular level. But what those of us training for godliness must recognize is that there is much more to our insides than biology and chemistry there are the cravings and callings of the soul. An untended soul sours. It grows surly. Its bile seeps out and gradually pollutes the heart, the mind and the body. Tending our soul means intentionally turning it toward God, regularly bathing it in love, and exercising it through daily deep-knee bends of prayer.
4. Strength Training or Muscle Routines: To look at Mark Allen and other Ironman/Ironwoman triathletes, you wouldn't know it, but the point of strength training is not to get bigger muscles, but to get better muscles. The issue for these athletes is performance, not bulk.
When the Shema advocates loving God with all our strength, it recognizes that a big part of human existence is sheer physical. We have bodies we must feed, clothe and care for. We are subject to injury, sickness and death. It takes a certain amount of brute strength just to get through each and every day. To deny that God's presence and love need be involved in this physicality would exorcise godliness from our existence.
As Christians, we have our own "body canon," our own "Ironman" to look to as a perfect example of "fitness." Jesus Christ perfectly embodied the mandates of the Shema reflecting God's love and loving the neighbor with all of his heart, mind, soul and strength.
Let Jesus coach you as you train in godliness. Love God and neighbor with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.
Alternative Sermon Idea
In the hit movie, Apollo 13, "the astronauts discover that they are quickly running out of breathable air. The round filter that scrubs their oxygen has reached its capacity, and the only replacement is square in shape. Responding to this crisis at mission control, the director of operations grabs a box of everything that the astronauts have available to them in their capsule (things like duct tape, socks and plastic notebook covers) and runs to a room where several engineers wait. 'Folks,' he says, holding up a version of the square filter and the round receptacle, 'you have one hour to make this fit into this using only these materials.'"
Only Christians with serious soul-training can do the impossible to provide oxygen for a suffocating world.
Cited by Ronald J. Allen, Barbara Shires Blaisdell and Scott Black Johnston.
Theology for Preaching: Authority, Truth, and Knowledge of God in a Postmodern Ethos, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997, 174.