The Tortoise and the Hare

I imagine everyone is familiar with the fable attributed to Aesop about the tortoise and the hare. It’s about a race between a hare, who is very fast, at least over short distances, and a tortoise, who is not fast at all, but who is steady and persistent over long distances. In the fable, of course, the tortoise wins the race. In some versions, the hare gets distracted and side-tracked. In others, the hare is so full of pride and self-importance, he decides to take a nap mid-race and falls behind. Or, I think in the popular imagination, we just generally assume that ultimately endurance trumps energy. I suppose that this fable is so popular and universally known because it does reflect a deeply held feeling, or conviction, that many of us have. Endurance, we believe, is indeed more valuable than short bursts of speed or energy. A steady persistence with respect to long-term goals is a more commendable character trait than grasping after instant gratification or racing to achieve short-term success. We think the tortoise should win the race. He is the more deserving and should be rewarded. The fable is not just descriptive of reality; it imparts a moral that we share.

Ken Callahan is a church growth guru. He does consulting and gives seminars on congregational development and church growth. I attended one not too long ago here in the Diocese of Chicago. He talks a lot about contemporary culture and how, if congregations are to be conduits of God’s grace into the world, we must understand and connect with contemporary culture. Callahan does not talk about Aesop’s tortoise and the hare. Instead, to describe the same issues, he talks about marathon runners and excellent sprinters. Those who win with endurance and those who win with speed. Within the world of sport, I think it is fair to say that there is no value judgment between those different sorts of athletes. Marathon runners and excellent sprinters are both very impressive athletes. They are different. Very different. They train differently; they compete differently; they think differently. But taking two examples from my own generation, I would be hard pressed to value either Carl Lewis or Joan Benoit Samuelson one above the other as an athlete. Callahan goes on to say (and I don’t know where he got his statistics) that 30 years ago, 7 out of 10 people approached life as marathon runners. Now, today, 6 out of 10 people live life as excellent sprinters. Today, the hare beats the tortoise. The races that make up life today are races that the hare will win. Contemporary culture values and trains excellent sprinters over marathon runners. Six out of ten people today think the hare should win the race.

There are a couple of points to ponder in all this. One is Callahan’s point. If all of us tortoise people wonder why there aren’t more people under the age of 30 in the pews maybe it’s partly because we who laud the tortoise haven’t learned to speak the language of the hare. And if we expect or hope to be heard, we must. If we want to be heard, and surely we do, we must speak in a language that is understood, whether or not it is our first language. We must speak the Gospel in the language of the hare (and the Gospel is translatable into any language.) We must offer ways to live the Gospel, ways to serve God, that a hare or an excellent sprinter can do and do well. Carl Lewis, metaphorically speaking, has a lot to offer the mission of the church, but not if we keep telling him the only way to be a Christian is to run marathons. Excellent sprinters excel at repeated, focused, short term bursts, not ten-year plans or open ended commitments.

But the more complicated point I want to explore has to do with this morning’s readings. Both the Old Testament and the Gospel readings this morning are about waiting. About the long term. They are about human perseverance even, and especially, in the face of God’s apparent indifference. God promised father Abraham that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars; that the descendents of Abraham would become a great nation. Abraham retained faith in God’s promise the Scriptures tell us, and he did then have the one son Isaac… but that was it. Then Isaac had twin sons Esau and Jacob. The average person would have been forgiven for still wondering, though, when or if God was going to come through. Esau, the elder son seemed a bit lacking in wisdom and leadership, to put it mildly, and Jacob was an all-out cheat. And yet God’s promise would be fulfilled. Generations later, as described in this morning’s passage, Jacob, maintaining his faith in God's promise, demanded that God fulfill that promise and Jacob struggled with some manifestation of God all through the darkness. Jacob struggled with God throughout the literal and metaphorical darkness until dawn came and Jacob became Israel. Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham became the father of a great people, more numerous than the stars in the sky.

The parable of Jesus that we heard read from Luke this morning is often titled the Parable of the Unjust Judge, but it is really about the persistent widow. The persistent widow.  A widow who hammered at God day after day after day after day, never abandoning her faith that God’s promise of justice would be fulfilled. In God’s good time it was.

These stories don’t tell us much about God, and what they imply is unsettling...  that God can be very slow to act and may even appear to us to be unjust. These stories don’t tell us anything about why God acts when God acts or why God acts how God acts. They do tell us what we are supposed to do in the mean time. Persist in faith. Regardless of when or how God acts, we are to persist in faith and act in our lives full of the faith that God’s promise will be fulfilled. At the time much of the New Testament was written, including Luke, people expected the return of the Son of Man any day. We no longer stand on tiptoe in expectation of that day right around the corner. But we are still people of expectation. People who wait in expectation.

I put myself in the category of people who think the tortoise is a more commendable creature than the hare. I value endurance and long-term vision in myself and others. And yet, paradoxically, I really would rather God be a bit more hare-like. Wouldn’t you? When I need God’s help or the assurance of God’s promise or the comfort of God’s presence with me, I’d like one of those excellent sprinter angels to show up right away. Maybe that’s just human nature, or maybe it’s the influence of contemporary culture rubbing off on me, but I’d like God to act in my world with the speed and skill of the swiftest human sprinter…

But God doesn’t always seem to sprint to my side. God doesn’t even always make it in a good marathon time. Jacob waited two generations. God’s time is not our time. God’s ways are not our ways. God’s purpose is not our purpose. God is neither tortoise nor hare; neither sprinter nor marathon runner. The Scriptures tell us all these things, more or less. The Scriptures also tell us that God is good; God is trustworthy; and God’s promises to God’s people are true and will be fulfilled.

So what are we to do? How are we to wait? Especially when we may not see signs of God’s action in our own lives. Today’s collect reminds us that God’s glory has been revealed in Christ. The full glory of God has been revealed in Christ Jesus.  The works of God’s mercy have been shown throughout history again and again in the lives of the faithful. We pray that we may preserve the knowledge of those works, preserve the awareness of that glory, and that we may persevere with steadfast faith. Persevere with steadfast faith, regardless of anything else. Persevere with steadfast faith. Jacob did. The widow did. Persevere with steadfast faith.

Continue to act and live in the expectation that God’s promise of mercy and justice and life will be fulfilled. Persevere in living faithfully. The baptismal covenant tells us how. Pray the prayers, study the Bible, confess our sins, work for justice and peace. Bang on God’s door. Regardless of who God seems to be or whether God seems to act. Regardless of who you are or how you’re feeling. Persevere in living faithfully. Sometimes that perseverance itself will be transformative; sometimes it won’t. Persevere anyway.

Back to sprinters and marathoners… I think it is more challenging to preach and to live perseverance in today’s sprinter culture than it might have been thirty years ago when we all knew that the tortoise would get to heaven first. But it can be done.  It is possible to proclaim and live perseverance even in this sprinter culture.  For sprinters perseverance comes in repetition, in multiple opportunities, rather than endurance… life is a theme and a series of variations rather than one grand sweeping symphony. For us as individuals I don’t think it matters whether we persevere as a sprinter with repeated short bursts of high energy or as a marathon runner chugging along slow and steady. In the end, the church needs and God loves both. But we all must persevere.

Whether it is the sprinter’s schedule of a Habitat blitz-build this week, a hunger walk next week, a one time special event in Christian Formation the following week, and a hundred different spontaneous prayers in between, or the marathon runner’s life long commitment to chair the same parish committee for decades… In either case, persevere. Persevere with steadfast faith. Even when you don’t think God is listening or God does not appear to be acting. Persevere.