Call to Worship: Helen Keller
As the heat is in the sun,
As the scent is in the flower,
As the light is in my darkness,
As the voice is in my silence,
So may God be in me.

Unison Prayer
May we be good soil.
May we be fertile earth.
May God’s seeds sprout within us.
May we produce good fruit.
May we become God’s garden.
May we become God’s field.
Amen.

Words of Assurance: 1 Corinthians 3:16, NLT paraphrased
One person plants the seed, and another waters it, but God makes it grow.

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;
for thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory forever.
Amen.

Opening Song: Building 429, “Press On”

Scripture Reading: Philippians 3:10-14, NIV abb.
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal. But forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Sunday Sermon

Note: This sermon was written before Saturday night’s Knicks win so the live version will be even happier!

We begin this week with a report on Annual Conference, which took place in Stamford this past week. In fact, most of the delegates are still there and will be there until lunchtime.

The Bishop’s main message seemed to be that the New York Conference of the United Methodist Church is in big trouble. This year we have 389 churches, down from 409 last year, and many more are in danger of closing. And we have a shortage of pastors, which is why so many are serving more than one church, and we have a shortage of office help, which is why our Conference just merged with another Conference and why it’s hard to get anyone above us to answer a phone call. And we have a shortage of funding, and the Bishop estimated the Conference will run out of reserves in eight years. And we have a shortage of youth and young people.

The Bishop admitted that Cooperative Parishes are not a new idea being pushed on the congregations, but a last ditch effort to save what is left of the United Methodist Church by getting churches that won’t merge to at least work together to save time and resources. He said like it or not, this is our future.

All of this may seem surprising because our church is a bit insulated from these problems. We’re one of the increasingly rare exceptions to the rule. We’re a healthy church, with solid attendance, stable giving, positive energy, active missions, great volunteers and a sense that things are going in the right direction. We’ll be healthy for a while. Our new Cooperative Parish is just us, St. Paul’s and Northport, three churches, each with their own pastor. But as of July 1, right next to us will be four churches – Commack, Dix Hills, West Hills and Huntington-Cold Spring Harbor – sharing Won Tack and Roselyn, two pastors who are married to each other, and one of them is having health problems, and they are raising two teenagers, so they are definitely in need of our prayers.

The Bishop’s message seemed to be that everything is terrible here, we’re all going to get old and die and our property will be sold but at least we’ll be in heaven. And then he said some nice things about John Wesley and how the church is doing well in Africa and the Philippines and how God is still good and we must love each other and end racism and listen to people who are different from us. And then everyone but me went to the $45 lunch.

And this brings us to today’s sermon, because through all of this I kept thinking, “Bishop, how can you not be talking about the Knicks?!!! Because seriously I have not been able to think about anything else this week. Now think about this: we studied today’s Scripture on Wednesday morning and printed the bulletin on Wednesday afternoon, and the Scripture says, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize. And THAT NIGHT, the Knicks, who had already done things in the playoffs that no other team had ever done, came back from a 29-point deficit, the first time this has ever happened in the Finals, and a 27-point halftime deficit, the first time this has ever happened in the playoffs, and won the game by 1 point with 1.2 seconds left.

According to statistical analysts, the chances of this happening were … zero.

Since then I have watched the second half of the game multiple times. I’ve watched it from different angles. I’ve watched it with TV announcers and with radio announcers and with no announcers, just the crowd noise. I’ve even watched it with the Spurs announcers. I’ve watched slow motion replays and music videos of the highlights and listened to three hours of talk radio on the way to Annual Conference and watched interviews and read tweets and have been basically obsessed.

So at Annual Conference, I’m like, Bishop, did you not see the Knicks game?

Because Bishop, if you’re not going to use it for your sermon illustration, I’m definitely using it. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize. Forgetting that you are down so bad that no one in history has crawled out of a hole so deep. Putting the first half behind you. Putting everything behind you. All the doubt, all the mistakes, all the missed throws and blown coverage. Michael Robinson publicly confessing that he has been going through mental health problems and praying for just one thing to go his way, and then it did Thanking his teammates for not considering him a liability, but a friend.

The website Manhattan Wellness credits the starting five and says that each one has something to teach about mental health. Jalen Brunson offers consistency, giving the same effort whether the team is up or down. Mikal Bridges has had to come back again and again after defeats in his life, putting the past behind him and straining toward what is ahead. OG Anunoby (who my friend’s wife calls “Obi-Wan Kenobi”) is even-tempered, deflecting praise in post-game interviews, giving credit to his team. He told Scott Van Pelt that the team said they were always positive, no matter what the score, telling each other, “just stay with it, keep pushing,” which is just like today’s Scripture. Karl-Anthony Townes talks frequently about his mother, whom he lost from COVID, and wears his grief on his sleeve. Josh Hart “takes care of everyone and never complains.” With a minute to go, he missed a crucial shot that could have cost the Knicks the game and maybe the championship, but OG Anunoby bailed him out. Hart said, “he saved me from a lifetime of regret.”

And this is what keeps many of us from pressing on: a lifetime of regret. Many Knicks fans turned the game off because they knew the Knicks couldn’t win, because no team had ever won in these circumstances. Some even left the Garden and their $7000 seats. And yes, the chances were zero.

I know you are expecting this, and I will not disappoint you. Do you know of anyone who was hanging on a cross, completely dead, and whose chances of coming back were zero, and who came back anyway?

One of the most often quoted lines in sports is “so you’re telling me there’s a chance.” But it doesn’t come from sports; it comes from the movie “Dumb and Dumber.” Lloyd wants to go out with Mary, and asks her to level with him. “What are my chances?” he asks. “Not good,” she says. “You mean like one out of a hundred?” he asks? “More like one out of a million,” she replies. To which he says, “So you’re tellin’ me there’s a chance!”

We are tempted to give up on other people. We are tempted to give up on politics, on peace, on the world ever getting it right. We remember bad things that happened to us once upon a time, and to protect ourselves, we withdraw. I had a couple in a former church who had been seeing each other for 17 years, and he’d been proposing for 14 years, and she kept saying “I was hurt once before.” We let the past hold us back and weigh us down. We fail so many times we stop trying. We say, “I can’t get out of this hole; it’s too deep.” Meanwhile someone else, somewhere else, has been in a deeper hole and already gotten out.

Paul says, “Press on.” Press on through all the trauma and all the hurt and all the pain. Press on through all the worry and the anxiety and the fear. “Walk on through the wind. Walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown.” Shake the past off you like a winter coat that you’re still wearing in the summer. It is time to let it go. Don’t say, “I might get cold.” And run straight toward that goal, which is the call to the life above. You may think, “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’ve messed up too much already, I know I’m going to mess up again.” Who’s saying these words? It’s not God. God is saying something else. God is saying there’s a chance. God is saying miracles happen on a daily basis. God is saying, “Press on.”

I’m going to close with a story that I was sure I had shared before, but when I shared it at Bible study this week, no one remembered it, which means either I didn’t share it in church or all ten women in Bible study weren’t in church that week. A couple people from the church had invited me over for dinner. It was my first time there. They didn’t ask me what kind of food I liked, but that was okay because I like almost anything. But they served … spinach liver quiche. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. Spinach liver quiche is VERY NOT GOOD. It is also – personal opinion – something you should not serve without asking.

But I also saw on the stove a fresh baked cherry pie. It looked delicious. I really wanted that cherry pie. But in order to eat that cherry pie, I was going to have to press on. And I did. And it was hard. But it was worth it. And for obvious reasons I could not share this story in that church, but I can share it in this church. Sometimes life is like a spinach liver quiche. And some people’s entire lives are like this quiche. There is no getting around it, there is no sugar-coating it, it is just bad. But heaven is like this pie. And if we just bear with it, push through it, knowing we’ve got to go through the bad thing to get to the good thing, we just do it. We press on. And at the end, there is a prize.

May God bless us as we press on. And let’s go, Knicks! Amen.

Closing Song: Bob Dylan, “Pressing On”

Benediction: Hebrews 12:1-2, NIV
Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.