I AM LEAVING, I AM LEAVING,
BUT THE FIGHTER STILL REMAINS
Isaiah 40:1-11 2 Timothy 4:6-8
Sermon presented on December 7, 2008
Fresh off the presses is a book titled, Paul Simon: Lyrics. It includes the lyrics of all his songs, from Simon and Garfunkel’s 1964 debut album through this year’s unrecorded songs, almost 400 pages of magnificent, provocative poetry. Now that I’ve got this book I’ll be preaching from it for the next year or so . . . no, not really, but it’s hard to disagree with the reviewer who wrote that the poetry is so good that Barack Obama’s first act as President should be to declare Paul Simon our national “poet laureate”
One of my favorites is “The Boxer,” from 1971. Some of you may remember it. Many of Simon’s lyrics are filled with angst and despair, but “The Boxer” is hopeful. Here he tells of a young man who left home and family and came to the city, to make a new life. But it hasn’t gone well.
He hasn’t been able to get work:
Asking only workman’s wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers, he sings.
Without work, he’s forced to live on the streets:
Laying low,
Seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know.
People deceive and take advantage of him:
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles
Such are promises
All lies and jests.
But he’s too headstrong to heed the wise counsel of others, admitting:
A man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.
As another brutal winter descends on the city, he decides to return home. But though he’s disappointed, he’s not defeated. He likens himself to a boxer who . . .
Carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
“I am leaving, I am leaving,”
But the fighter still remains.
Like the mythic boxer of his imagination the singer is forced to accept the fact that life in the city hasn’t worked-out the way he’d hoped, so a change has to be made, but though he’s leaving, the spirit lives on, his human spirit outlasts the present setback. “I am leaving, I am leaving/but the fighter still remains.” Life may knock me down, but it can’t knock me out. I stand bloodied but unbowed, humbled but not humiliated. I’m still in the game.
In an interview Paul Simon once said he wasn’t sure where exactly the idea for this song came from, but he’d been reading the Bible a lot, and was pretty sure the idea came from there.
Well, that makes sense to me, because the theme of the song is resilience, and resilience is a central theme of the Bible, start-to-finish. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the fight,” declares the Apostle Paul (2 Timothy 4:7). What a bold declaration of resilience in the midst of setbacks. John Calvin wrote of this verse, that although the Apostle Paul was counted-out by others as defeated and wretched, “he does not rely on the corrupt judgment of others, but on the contrary, with magnanimous courage, he rises above every calamity.” “I have fought the good fight.” The fighter still remains.
Resilience is an important feature of healthy faith and life. Resilience is the capacity of people to cope positively and recover quickly from adversity, change or misfortune. Dr. Dennis Charney, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, has been studying resilience for years and is considered a leading expert. Charney’s research leads him to believe that “religion and spirituality . . . provide a valuble boost toward the building of resilience.” That’s because faith offers a glimpse of a promising future beyond a difficult present, he proposes. And thus equipped with hopefulness about the future, the person of faith resists defeat, refuses to give-up, and activates such traits as creativity, optimism, and resourcefulness.
And resilience is a key theme of Advent. Hear again statements of hope declared by the prophet Isaiah, chapter 40:
Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God . . .
Prepare the way of the Lord . . .
The glory of the Lord shall be revealed . . .
Lift up your voice with strength . . .
Say, “here is your God . . .”
See, the Lord God comes . . .
Words of hope tumble-out, on-top of one another, offering a glimpse of a promising future beyond a difficult present. For centuries this hope aroused resilience among the people of God. And this hope still arouses resilience, as we cope with the world’s madness and mayhem, and with adversity in our own lives, as well.
The towering and abiding message of Advent is that God promises a future that’s infinitely and eternally better than the past and present. This promise helps us keep daily problems in perspective, enabling us to bounce back from reversals, mistakes and misfortunes. And we catch a glimpse of this promised future at Christmas, when we call to mind God’s beauty, God’s peace, and the beauty of God’s peace.
May we dedicate these days to living from the power of God’s hope, such that our every earthly setback and frustration might yield to the joyful expectation of “the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give . . . to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).
