Shoes:
(#6 in the series “Try THIS on for Size!”)
As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready
to proclaim the gospel of peace.
(Ephesians 6:15)
A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 2007
Surely in the entire history of humankind, since Adam and Eve first stitched together that infamous earth-tone wardrobe of fig leaves, using clothing to send messages has never been more possible, more profitable, and more popular. We emblazon our clothing with messages.
Our clothing transforms us into billboards, from Old Navy to Mary Kate and Ashley, from FootJoy to Ping, from Christian Dior to Tommy Hilfiger, from Big Creek Country Club to the Nike swoosh. The list is virtually endless.
Careful trying this at home, though. Floridian Mike Goodell tells Readers Digest of his wife’s experiment in cross-cultural advertising. Enjoying Chinese food at a new restaurant in their town, she thought she would help the restaurant. She knitted a sweater with the restaurant’s name on the back (in English), and on the front she stitched a set of lovely Chinese characters she’d copied from the restaurant’s menu. Having no idea the meaning of the characters, she picked ones that appealed to her. The sweater was fine in town, where no one read Chinese, but when she wore it to the restaurant the staff had a good laugh. The Chinese characters, she was told, read across the front of her shirt, “Cheap, but Good.”
Among the most popular types of clothing advertisements is that of community pride, whether it be a local festival or displaying one’s team devotion. Most of our closets are not sparse on items sporting pride -- ranging from the Razorbacks to the Bombers to your child’s Little League team.
Of course, many use their clothing to share their faith. Companies contact our youth program regularly offering T-Shirt fundraisers. From bible verses to the insignia of one’s denomination, such as the United Methodist Cross and Flame, our clothing can bear witness to our faith.
When in January I conceived this sermon series, I asked Shirley Argo to gather a montage of images that would, in a glance, sweep us from the Fig Leaves of Genesis to the Wedding Gown of Revelation. I asked her to include a pair of shoes with the famous Nike swoosh. Nike is a Greek word meaning Victory. When Paul said that we are “more than conquerors” through Christ, he used the word, ‘uper nike, literally, “Super Nike!”
I planned for this sermon to fall on Pentecost, a wonderful image of the Pentecost message. At his Ascension, Jesus told the disciples that when the Holy Spirit came upon them they would be empowered to take the message to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world. These, the ever-widening circles of witness rippling out from that Upper Room at Pentecost, require shoes to reach. Imagine the shoes which have been worn in the enterprise begun at Pentecost. No wonder Paul, the early church’s most famous missionary, said, “as shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” Shoes provide us this morning with an image of the outward thrust of the gospel imperative.
Shirley, however (as you see on the back page of this sermon), in putting together the montage, did more than she knew. She chose a picture of an old, worn and soiled Nike to place alongside that of someone lacing up a new pair of Nikes. It’s perfect for this message, for this special day. Today is not only Pentecost in our church calendar, but Memorial Day in our nation’s calendar. The old Nike is a fantastic image to remind us that ours is not the beginning of the journey, but the continuation of a mission for which the groundwork has been laid by those going before us. Others have trodden the path, blazed the trail, have been pioneers paying the price. This is true of our nation, and it is likewise true of our faith. Let that old shoe signal our awareness and our thankfulness for those who have gone before us, making our way possible.
I had us begin today by thinking about a very old pair of shoes indeed, the dusty pair of sandals worn by Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. At the burning bush he heard God say, “take the shoes from your feet, for the ground whereon you stand is holy ground.” It’s a suggestive image. Imagine Shoes as a nexus point, a link between two opposites – divine and human, earthly and heavenly. Shoes constitute a threshold between our earthly existence of dust and the heavenly nature to which our immortal spirit aspires. Shoes are the point where we connect to the earth, yet where we begin our ascent toward Something Other, as ones created in the image of God. Shoes are to remind us that however much we crave to know what lies beyond, to lift our eyes high, we are yet grounded to the dust from which we have come.
“Take the shoes from your feet” serves as an example of how shoes symbolize humanity’s walking between two worlds. Moses was in the presence of that which is Holy, that which is Glory, that which is Mystery, that which is Transcendent. But what is the thrust of this encounter with God? Not to be snatched heavenward. The ecstasy of the moment wasn’t to be the goal of the encounter, but rather Moses was moved by the encounter with the divine to move Outward. At the bush he was offered the responsibilities of mission. “Go to Egypt, to Pharaoh, and tell him to let my people go.” God is saying, “Moses, I’ve given you a glimpse of glory. Now put your shoes back on. Lace them tight. Go.”
Those of you who attended my first series of Tuesday Studies last Fall heard me on one night mention the narrative mechanisms of the movie, Forrest Gump. Those who weren’t among the 100 or so in that group will require a bit of explanation. My graduate studies in ancient literature focused on narrative structure, exploring and analyzing the mechanisms of literature from the Hebrews, the Canaanites, and the Babylonians. During the time I was most intensely involved in research and writing on that topic, an amazing movie was released, Forrest Gump. I came deeply to appreciate the film, teaching numerous classed through the years in school and church, in which I highlight the film’s structure, held together by a rich symbolism of the shoe, which becomes a symbol of Forrest Gump’s journey through life.
Let me give you a whirlwind tour of the movie’s many shoes. The film opens with Forrest and an unknown lady waiting at a bus stop, sitting on a bench. Disinterested in Forrest’s chatter, she’s reading a book while Forrest talks non-stop. Forrest looks down and notices that she is wearing white nurse’s shoes. Complimenting the shoes, he offers, “My momma says you can tell a lot about a person by the shoes they wear. Where they’re going. Where they’ve been.” He looks up and squints, saying, “If I think real hard, I can remember the shoes I’ve worn.” The movie flashes back to Forrest as a child in a doctor’s office being fitted with heavy, ugly braces. Those braces, while restricting Forrest as a child, were strengthening his legs, preparing him for his next pair of shoes, running shoes. Forrest could now “run like the wind.”
His serendipitous journey takes him next to be a star for Alabama’s Crimson Tide, running up and down the football field. Forrest is drafted and sent to Vietnam, reporting for duty to Lt. Dan, who emphasizes the chief rule, in the jungle you must maintain your shoes and socks. Shod with those military issue boots, when his unit is ambushed, Forrest runs, back and forth from the jungle to the extraction point, saving his fellow soldiers who had been ambushed.
Recovering from the wounds he received, he takes up ping-pong and becomes a world champion. While there are no shoes in that image, we again have the visual of back and forth.
Returning home, Forrest receives a pair of jogging shoes as a gift from Jenny, who would later become his wife. He puts on those shoes and begins to run, criss-crossing the country from coast to coast, from Atlantic to Pacific, wearing out one pair after another pair after another pair of shoes over many months.
There’s a great deal more intricacy to this theme, but that’s enough for you to see that Forrest Gump is all about the journey, the different shoes we wear, a journey with unexpected, serendipitous twists and turns, the back and forth movement of life. Playing in the background of the film was the 60s War or Peace song by The Byrds written by Pete Seeger, based on Ecclesiastes 3, “To everything -- turn, turn, turn -- there is a season -- turn, turn, turn -- and a time for every purpose under heaven.” While the image of the shoe eloquently showed the back and forth rhythm of Forrest’s life, it’s true of all of us. We might say the same of Moses. Born a Hebrew. Raised an Egyptian. Refuge with Hebrews. Called to go back to Egypt. Leaving with the Hebrews in search of the Promised Land. Turn, Turn, Turn.
If there’s a gospel which is all about the journey of Christ, it’s Mark. Jesus, in Mark, is ever on the move, criss-crossing between Galilee and Jerusalem, wearing out shoes in the outward thrust of mission. While Matthew and Luke begin with genealogy, Mark wastes no time getting to the story, engaging the reader in the movement of grace. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God, as it is written in Isaiah, See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, to prepare the way . . .Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
As full of movement as John the Baptist was, however, he predicts even more movement when the Messiah appears. “I am not worthy to stoop down and to untie the thong of his sandals.” In other words, “You think you’re seeing movement and change now? When the Messiah comes, THEN you will see movement!”
Before Mark finishes the first chapter Jesus has appeared and called his disciples from the Sea of Galilee. “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Mark says that they immediately left their nets and followed Jesus. Immediately is a favorite word of Mark, a word used to show that once these disciples leave the nets and lace up the shoes of discipleship, the pace is accelerated. And so the disciples stumble after Jesus like Forrest Gump in braces. Mark presents Jesus in breathless tempo, always on the way to somewhere else. The image one gets of the disciples is puffing and panting, trying to catch up, always a step behind Jesus. Two weeks ago I talked about the Tallith, the Prayer Shawl, and we read from Mark 5, Jesus turning, spinning from one need to another, when a woman with a prolonged bleeding problem barely catches him, managing to touch the fringes of his shawl as he passes.
Even at the end of Mark, as the women come to the tomb they are greeted by a man in white who says, “You just missed him. He’s on the way to somewhere else. Tell the disciples that he is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him, just as he told you.” Imagine that! You would think that, Jesus in the tomb, the disciples would finally catch up. Isn’t that typical of Jesus? Just about the time we think we are going to catch up, he is on the move again! It’s all about Movement.
The front page of this week’s Arkansas United Methodist reports on Bishop Janice Huie’s message in South Carolina as the President of the Council of Bishops. Bishop Huie told her colleagues that we must reclaim our heritage as a Movement, saying, “we must be led more by a clear vision and mission than by rules and regulations.” She said that her vision for the United Methodist Church in the 21st century is to be “guided by more movement than by institution,” even though movements can be, as she noted, “downright chaotic and messy.”
Our challenge, it seems to me, is nothing less than overcoming the natural evolution of a Movement. The church, as it expanded in the early years of the United States, was Movement oriented, chaotic and messy and difficult. These were the circuit rider days. Gradually the church crystallized into the Institution on the corner. In most cities the Methodist church is on a very important, downtown corner.
It’s the natural evolution of any Movement to burn itself out as it ossifies into rhythm and process, rules and regulations. Movements, when successful, become Institutions, and Institutions are guided by rules and policies. When that happens, the ones who were there at the beginning look back on the chaos – and they miss it, they miss the serendipity of discovering unsought blessings along the journey to Somewhere Else.
So it happens, I suppose, in all human relationships. For example, consider marriages. Comes a time often when the sense of adventure is replaced by the ordinariness, day-to-day rhythms. Comes a day when husbands and wives have arrived and are successful, living in the house of their dreams, taking the vacations of their dreams. Yet, they often look back on earlier days, and sorely miss them, miss the adventure of the Unknown, even though they had virtually nothing. This is a process played out, not only in marriages, but in businesses, in churches and their denominations, and even in countries.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s something to be said for Institution. I’m not suggesting that the church need sell our buildings and go back to horses. On the contrary. But one way to respect the soiled shoes worn by our ancestors in the faith, is to lace tighter our own Nikes in mission, to look for new frontiers of ministry, to engage the culture in which we live by utilizing it’s opportunities in order to be more effective as witnesses for Christ.
Sources and notes:
For comments about The Journey being so critical to Mark’s gospel, I am indebted to a sermon by William Willimon, “The Journey,” in Pulpit Resource, Volume 28, Number 3.
“Bishops’ President Calls for New Church Movement,” The Arkansas United Methodist, May 18, 2007.