Mt. Carmel Baptist Church
August 19, 2007

Sixty years ago, in 1947, Walter Morrison and Warren Franscioni met in San Louis Obispo, California. The following year, they started a business venture together, marketing a toy they called “Flyin’ Saucer.” They had some ups and downs, and parted ways in the early 1950s, and Morrison began selling a new, slightly different version of the toy, this time calling it the “Pluto Platter.” Finally, in the mid-1950s, Morrison was hired by a company called Wham-O Toys, which eventually began marketing the Pluto Platter under the name “Frisbee.”

The name came from Yale University, where — ever since the 1920s, — students had been throwing pie tins at each other. The pie tins came from the Frisbie (spelled with an IE) Baking Company, and so the Yale students called their pastime “playing Frisbie.” Wham-O changed the spelling a little bit, BEE instead of BIE, so that they could have their own trademark.

In 2003, I was working with a missions group called Mountain T.O.P. on an enrichment program for teenagers for some remote communities up on the Cumberland Plateau. Some of our students and volunteers were killing time before the program started by throwing Frisbees back and forth. I stood there and watched them and I started thinking about the Frisbee. One estimate says that over the last 50 years, more than 200 million Frisbees have been sold — more than baseballs, footballs and basketballs combined. Why? What is so special about the Frisbee? What are the spiritual secrets of the Frisbee?

First off, the Frisbee is stable. When you throw the Frisbee, you spin it, and that spin works on the same principle that keeps a gyroscope level. If you throw a Frisbee correctly, it will fly level and straight. God also wants us to be stable.

Luke 6:46-49 (NRSV)

46″Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. 48He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Our stability comes from hearing and puting into practice the Word of God.

The Frisbee is also sturdy — it’s resilient. It’s made of a soft plastic, hard enough to keep its shape but soft enough to have a little give to it, and it seems almost indestructible. Little scrapes or collisions don’t stop it.

Romans 8:37-39 (NRSV)

37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We will run into our own little scrapes and collisions in life. But nothing that happens externally can separate us from God’s love. Our own little crises can’t do it. During the camp week at which I was watching the teenagers throw the Frisbee to each other, I was scheduled to teach two different creative writing workshops – one in the morning, and the other in the afternoon.

In the morning, I was working with some teens who wanted to be in the workshop and who listened and participated. But in the afternoon, I had some teens who weren’t interested in writing and who were being disruptive. Normally, we try to take an easygoing approach with this particular program. It’s summer, it’s fun, and we don’t want to force the kids to participate. We try to make what we’re doing different from their normal school curriculum. But in this case, they were miserable, I was miserable, and I didn’t really have anything else I could offer them. Finally, after the second day, the leaders of the camp agreed with me that the best thing we could do was shut the afternoon creative workshop down and let the kids go to one of the other afternoon workshops. I felt really bad about it, and I agonized over it. After all, that creative writing workshop was the reason I thought I was in camp. I felt like I had let the teenagers down, or they had let me down, or we’d all let God down.

But this wasn’t school. Everything worked out. The teens who had been in the afternoon writing workshop had a great rest of the week, and I went in to assist one of the other workshop leaders. Actually, I helped a man from Smyrna who was teaching women’s self-defense, and so I had teenage girls punching me and kicking me for the rest of the week. But we all had fun.

Earlier this summer, I went on a mission trip to Bolivia. It was a real challenge — we were in a different situation than what we’d expected, or what we’d planned for, and it felt at times like there was no reason for us to be there. There was a great temptation for us to be discouraged. But in the end, God blessed us and, I hope, the people with whom we were working.

The fact of the matter is that no situation or calamity can separate us from God’s love — and while we are capable of rejecting the effects of that love, we can’t run away from God’s love itself. Like a Frisbee, God’s love can survive the scrapes and the rough treatment.

One reason for both the Frisbee’s stability and its resilience is that it’s simple. A Frisbee has no moving parts, except that the Frisbee itself is a moving part. There’s nothing to wear out or break down. How many more complicated games or toys did you have in your childhood, or your teenage years, or your adulthood? But the ones you remember most fondly may have been the simplest ones. For my generation it was things like Frisbee, Slinky, Lego blocks. They lasted the longest, and they probably gave you the most fun.

Luke 12:22-31 (NRSV)

22Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 26Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

27″Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”

Our lives today have become so complicated. We’ve made many improvements, of course; I don’t mean to look at the past with rose-colored glasses. A few years back, I spent a week in a small town in Nicaragua, in a dirt-floor shed with no running water, and it made be grateful for some of the complexity of modern life. But so much of what we’ve added in the past century has been thoughtless complexity — complexity for the sake of complexity, change for the sake of change, worry for the sake of worry. Some of our modern advances haven’t really made our lives that much better.

I think being away from our normal routine on a short-term mission trip helps remind me of the simplicity of true faith. We strip away the office and the TV and the computer and we remind ourselves of what’s really important. And part of what’s really important are the relationships we have with each other.

Think about what you do with a Frisbee. You seldom see people playing with a Frisbee by themselves. That would be a lot of work. No, to play with a Frisbee you need two people, or at least a person and a dog. Although there are competitive games you can play with Frisbee — “Guts,” Ultimate and even disc golf — when I think of Frisbee I think of a purely collaborative activity — two or three or twelve people enjoying each other’s company. Nobody gets upset if the Frisbee is thrown long, or short. You can always run after it; that’s part of the fun.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (NRSV)

24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

One of the things that God calls us to do as the body of Christ — and one of the things we don’t do often enough — is to encourage each other, and support each other. One reason I love going on mission trips or to Mountain T.O.P. camps is the sense of Christian community you get in a situation like that. People write each other notes and give each other neck rubs and tell each other what a blessing they are. We don’t do enough of that in our daily life as Christians, and we should.

To me, there’s something beautiful and fascinating about a Frisbee in flight. Let’s pattern ourselves after the Frisbee this week: stable, because we’re grounded on the word, and on principles even more trustworthy than centrifugal force; sturdy, because we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God; simple, recognizing that sometimes less is more; and social, helping each other to fly straight and true and being flexible enough to catch our partner’s occasional wayward throw.