Audio Mp3 John 16:20-24, 31-33
Introduction: Ticket sales for movie theaters have been on a steady decline for many years now. People are just not going to theaters to be inspired anymore as they did in the silver screen days of Carey Grant and Carol Lombard, before cable TV and Netflix came along. There is one exception. Hero movies are raking in the big bucks. The Avengers: Endgame broke more than a dozen records in its debut weekend, including biggest worldwide opening and the first movie to reach $1 billion worldwide in its first weekend. A few years ago there was The Black Panther. Captain America. Wonder Woman. Spider Man. People are going to watch heroes save the world, fight evil, overcome injustice.
Becoming an Everyday hero in the real world
When I was a kid I lived and breathed Superman. I had his comic books, his poster on my wall. Every afternoon, I watched an episode of the old black and white TV Superman with George Reeves. I even had Superman Underoos. But it was all a fantasy in my head. I dreamed of saving the world from bad guys, of saving the lady in distress. But it was all in my head. That’s all it every could be, that kind of superhero. The larger than life superhero. Eventually we have to grow up and put aside such fantasies. We must realize that being a hero in the real world is a whole different proposition.
Few of us will ever have the opportunity to save someone from a burning building or swoop in a save someone dangling by one hand from a bridge. Besides, Jesus is not looking for larger than life heroes. He is looking for everyday heroes. He is looking for everyday disciples who live by faith, a faith that is grounded and lived out in the Spirit. He is looking for everyday disciples who are a hero to others even when they themselves are carrying a burden of grief. Just as Jesus said would happen, we are all scattered about in our lonely, disconnected lives. We all find ourselves living with heart bearing grief and sorrow.
But Jesus tells his disciples not to be defeated in their season of grief and sorrow. Instead, he tells them, “Take Heart! For I have overcome the world.” Or as clergyman Douglas Horton said, “Be your own hero. It’s cheaper than a movie ticket.” The world needs everyday heroes who take heart even in their own struggles, knowing that they have overcome the world in Christ.
Our lives are not building up for some fantastic culmination, where we will have an amazing chance to be a superhero. And there is not a single day coming in your life when on that day you will know you have arrived and will be validated before everyone by your character and your virtue. You will not have a graduation party when you are 85 or 90 years old, where you receive a certificate that says, “Congratulations! You made it. You have arrived. You are validated.”
No, every day is the opportunity to validate your commitment to the teachings of Jesus the Christ. Every day is your calling, your spiritual vocation, to take heart. In your comings and goings, opportunities will be placed before you, typically in the form of an inconvenience, a badly-timed unfortunate circumstance that takes place when you were planning on doing something else. Those are the opportunities to take heart and be an everyday hero.
Everyday heroes do not stop at good theology but put faith into action
Jesus is not primarily looking for disciples who have solid doctrine about Jesus figured out in their minds but then do not manifest that doctrine in their everyday live. He is looking for the everyday variety disciple, the one who puts into practice every day a little bit of the way of Jesus. In this way, we are not called to be fantastic heroes who save the world in one big splash. We are called to be everyday heroes. We are called to take heart. We are to be faithful in the little stuff every day, and that practice of holiness, one deed at a time, cultivates a life of personal and social holiness.
Jesus’ chief foils in the Gospels were the priests and the Levites who were of the first mind that I spoke of. They carried around in their heads a beautiful, holy idea of God, but that is all it was – an idea. They carried in their heads a notion of purity, but pure thought is of no value if it does not translate into acts of service, deeds of mercy, hands and feet of compassion. Pure ideas that do not translate to dirt on your hands are pretty but they are of not use in the kingdom of God.
In this sense, Jesus is not so much interested in what you believe. He is interested in what you have faith in. There is a difference. Rea Nolan Martin writes, “Belief is a product of the mind…Faith is a product of the Spirit.” I can believe a lot about God in my mind, but until I have faith to put those beliefs into action, they are merely thoughts, at best, a potential for my life. The difference between belief and faith is that belief is in the mind. Faith is live in the Spirit. Jesus says even the demons believe, and they shutter. But they do not have faith. They do not have trust in God.
To Take Heart means to have courage by living in the Spirit
And to trust in God you must take heart. Being a disciple of Jesus requires you dig into a deep reserve of courage. In fact the word courage has the same root as coronary, or heart. To be courageous means to take heart. So when Jesus says to his disciples, “Take Heart!” he is telling them to be courageous.
How do we find such courage? How do we take heart when there is so much in our lives that causes us to want to give up and give in to defeat? It all comes down to the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. If you are going to overcome the world, you had better be carrying with you the powerful, bountiful, courage-producing Holy Spirit.
The everyday disciple, the everyday hero, is open to the Spirit and lets the Spirit guide him or her to acts of mercy and compassion. Belief says it would be a good idea to help, but doesn’t necessarily act upon the thought. Jesus wants people who not only believe in his way, but who have faith in his way. Such are the true superheroes of the kingdom of God.
“There is a superhero in all of us,” someone once said, “We just need the courage to put on the cape.” That kind of courage to put on the cape is only possible in the Spirit. To be in the Spirit means to be in a constant awareness and mindfulness and abiding in the presence of God.
Put on the full armor of God by walking in the Spirit
Paul says in Ephesians 6:13-18, “13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”
Life is hard. We need the full armor of God protecting our mind, body and soul if we are to take heart and live the hero’s courageous life. When you are in the Spirit, you will want what God’s wants. So much so that whatever you pray, Jesus says, it will be granted to you. “In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”
Conclusion: It takes practice – discipline – to get to that place of which the Psalmist speaks where deep speaks calls unto deep, to get to that place in Romans 8 where Paul says the Spirit prays for me. To get to the place where Jesus says do not worry about what you say, the Spirit will give you the words to say. You do not get to that place by accident. You must engage in practice. But as Emerson wrote, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” Once you decide for Christ and begin to walk in his way, the Spirit comes upon you in baptism and you begin learning the mind of Christ, the ways of God and manifest that mind and those ways in your life. Then, no matter what your grief or sorrow, you can take heart, knowing that you have overcome the world in Christ. That frees you to be an everyday hero for those whom God places in your life.
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