The Right Shoes For The Job

One of the most popular games that they play at children’s parties in England is called the sack race.  Like any other race, the purpose is to see who can get to the finish line first.  The only difference is that all the competitors are wearing a large sack over their legs.  This makes it considerably more difficult, as you can imagine, to get up any significant speed, and the race generally evolves into a competition to see who can walk away covered with the least amount of mud.  Naturally, to small boys, this is all totally hilarious, while for their mums it’s a great way to entertain them for a while and keep them from trampling on their neighbors’ flower beds.

When these little chaps grow up, they generally get over their first experiences in athletics and become more competitive, with every walk turning into a real race from here to wherever, it doesn’t matter.  Now, speed becomes important, and the last thing they want is a sack round their legs preventing them from running as fast they can.  If they’re serious about winning these races they end up buying running shoes.  The better the sneaker, the better the edge they have over the other boys.

Today’s Epistle is all about running in a race.  St. Paul starts by pointing out the obvious—that they all run, but only one of them wins.  He then exhorts us to run so that we might win.  His racing analogy is meant to show us that the spiritual life is also a race, and if we don’t take it seriously we’re going to end up in second or third place, or simply as an “also ran”.  And if we burden ourselves with a sack instead of a pair of decent sneakers, we’re not even go to get to the finish line at all.

So the question to us today is simply this: are we wearing the right kind of shoes to allow us to finish the race and win the prize?  When our prize is the everlasting bliss of heaven we shouldn’t spare any expense to make sure we have the best running shoes possible.  And obviously, if we start out wearing a sack, that just isn’t going to cut it.  So let’s take a quick look at our spiritual feet, the things that move us forward towards that finish line of death, and let’s check on what those feet are wearing.

It’s all about loving God really.  If ye love me, said our Lord, ye will keep my commandments.  Don’t fall into sin and you’ll be assured of salvation.  Why?  Because, quite frankly, it’s hard to keep the commandments.  It’s nigh impossible not to break one or more of them, and probably on a frequent basis.  And if we fall into mortal sin, we’re doing the equivalent of taking off our good sneakers and replacing them with a big heavy burlap sack that isn’t going to get us any further than the next muddy puddle.  We will most assuredly not be winning any prizes…  So the basis of our salvation then is simply to remain obedient to God and keep his commandments.

This virtue of obedience is the most basic necessity to taking our steps forward in the spiritual life.  It is the very foundation of our loyalty to God, as basic as the shoes on our feet.  Look at the Ten Commandments God gave to Moses.  We’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating: there were two tablets, the first three commandments on the first tablet that deal with our relationship with God, and then the other seven on the second tablet showing us how to behave with respect to our neighbor.  But now, let’s note what is the very first demand on each of these two tablets.

The First Commandment tells us that we must have no strange gods before us.  There are no other gods than the One True God, and if we place anything above our loyalty to our Creator we are guilty of the very worst of crimes.  Do we make a god out of money?  Or power?  Out of material possessions, or our good looks, our standing in society, our bodily comforts, our pleasures?  Idols come in different forms, and we don’t have to worship Jupiter to be guilty of having strange gods before us.  Anything that we place above our obedience to God is an idol, and obedience to God is therefore fundamental and essential to our ability in winning the prize.  Do we think we can worship these other material things before obeying God?  Then we are ultimately guilty of the sin of pride.  And that pride is the sack dragging around our ankles.  And pride, as we know, cometh before a fall.

But what about that second tablet of commandments, the one dealing with our neighbor?  What is the first demand made on that tablet?  That we should honor our father and our mother.  In other words, we should allow ourselves to be submissive to certain other people in this world, be it our parents, our teachers, our bishops, our kings and governors.  We are not above these people, we are below them in the natural hierarchy of things.  Any attempt to overturn this natural order is ultimately a sin against God.  When we deliberately disobey our parents, we are offending God.  When we overturn our kings and claim that it is we the people who are supreme, we are offending God (consider that one, why don’t you!).

Obedience then is the equivalent of submission to the one we must obey, it is our great test of humility, the opposing virtue to the sin of pride.  And while the sack of pride will make us fall, the running shoes of humility are essential to winning the race.  Remember, there are other kinds of shoes than running shoes—stilettos, clogs, hobnail boots… but they’re not going to help you that much in a race to the finish.  And there are other commandments than the two we have mentioned.  That’s why we must make sure we have the right kind of shoes.  It’s not enough to have your carpet slippers on, figuring you’re free of the sack of pride only.  No!  You won’t get far if you have other vices dragging you down.  There are seven deadly sins, not just pride.  We must flee them all, and that means having the right shoes to flee in!  Start by submitting yourselves to God, humbly obeying each and every one of the Ten Commandments.  And if you trip up now and again, reach down and tie your laces properly.  That means going to confession now and again, making that necessary pit stop to fill up on God’s graces again.

In the Gospel today, our blessed Lord points out that we’re not racing against our neighbor.  Winning the prize doesn’t mean coming in first, before everyone else.  It just means finishing the race.  And it’s a race you can join any time, no matter how late in life it might be.  Your “ready, set, go” is now, and if you do it right you can win the same prize as your neighbor who has been running towards heaven his whole life.  Our prize is the same, everlasting life.  So let’s put our shoes on and put our right foot forward.  It’s our first step in that most important of races, the race we must run to the finish line.