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Crossing the Rubicon is a cliché indicating one has made an irrevocable decision; that is one from which there is no turning back. The cliché has its origin with Julius Caesar. Caesar was headed south to Rome to battle and seize power. The Rubicon is a river in northeastern Italy. When Caesar and his troops crossed the Rubicon, there was no turning back. It was on to Rome!

Irrevocable decisions are both to be admired and feared. Making such decisions can take great courage. Making such decisions can get one in deep trouble if they are wrong decisions. Many times they can bring great rewards if they are good decisions.

To live is to cross many Rubicons. Not making a decision can be its own Rubicon at times. Many times as we wade through the waters of our Rubicon we emerge to discover we have made a huge mistake. Other times there is the reward of having chosen wisely, and occasionally we discover the decision over which we anguished produced nothing significant good or ill.

What Rubicons have you crossed? Is there one now before you over which you are struggling to decide? Caesar had horses and soldiers to accompany him. His decision to continue south would only be as good as the quality of the troops which he led and the forces that would oppose him.

The Rubicons which you and I pass through do not carry the weight of empire with them. They may affect people in a workplace, family, or an organization to which we belong, but the fate of the world does not ride upon them. Nonetheless, we worry. Some Rubicons we cross, others we decide to stay put.

God knows something about crossing the Rubicon. God crossed a Rubicon. God decided to hang in there with Adam and Eve. Every decision God made to stick with God’s creation, in particular, God’s human creation, was a result of his decision to stick it out with Adam and Eve. There was no turning back.

God decided to let David remain king and called Peter to be a leader in the early church. God decided to be hung with Jesus on a cross. It would seem from scripture God has had no regrets with God’s decisions. God continues to make the same kind of decisions with God’s people…hanging in there for them and with them.

I have learned a long time ago that it is better to make a wrong decision than no decision. Leaders are often those good at making decisions. They do not allow bad decisions to hold them back nor do they spend time glowing in the spotlight of a good decision. They simply move on looking for the next decision.

Leaders can do this. Those who are led can do this. Trusting in God’s decision to stick with God’s creation and God’s people we have hope and faith that God will have our back in any Rubicon we decide to cross.

Think of so many things that loom over us now. Climate change. Environmental issues of earth, water, and air. Gun violence. Hunger and poverty. What is certain is standing on the banks of these Rubicons will not help these issues. We have to first step into the waters and resist the current that would prevent us from crossing. When we have decided wrongly, we cannot give up. We must march on. When we have decided rightly, there is no time to gloat, other Rubicons await. We must not be afraid to get our feet wet. We cross armed with God’s decision to not give up on us. There has been no turning back for God. As a result, you and I can move forward. You and I need not give up on ourselves.

Heroes, generally speaking, get their due. They receive name recognition, credit, praise, and sometimes even develop a following. At times we learn some not so heroic part of their personality or life, but typically those things are not enough to knock them off their hero’s pedestal.

Jackie Robinson, for example, is someone baseball fans and people with no interest in sports recognize. Most people are aware of his legendary status as major league baseball’s first African American in the 20th Century (baseball did have African American players in part of the 19th century). Jackie earned his fame the hard way. The pressure he went through may have led to his death at only 53 years old.

Most of us, however, are not aware of many others who had to endure something similar. Imagine for a moment the very first African Americans in minor league baseball in the South where it was often illegal for races to play together on some fields. The African American players could not eat in the same restaurants or stay in the same hotels as their teammates. Sometimes they were not even allowed to ride in the same bus. The abuse often directed at them from fans, players on the other teams, and occasionally their own teammates, was horrendous. Yet who knows the name of any of these? They were heroes despite their anonymity.

The church has heroes. Usually they are called saints. Some in the Protestant fold have never acquired that churchly prefix but are honored just the same: Martin Luther, John Knox, Menno Simons, John Calvin, Martin Luther King Jr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to name just a few.

The world could not survive if all it had were heroes. The world needs day to day people who do ordinary daily tasks. The world needs people to prepare food, collect trash, wash windows, build buildings, work in retail, clean hospital rooms, and so on. During the pandemic we have called some of these “essential workers.” Indeed. Their value has risen if not in wages, certainly in our collective and individual esteem. Heroes are helpful. Day to day often anonymous people are essential.

So it is in the church. It is nice to have statues of St. Francis feeding the birds, Mother Theresa reaching out to a child, and stained glass images of Luther and others. They would merely be works of art with little value were there not lesser known and mostly little known followers of Jesus in the church around the world. We need always remember Jesus came to earth in a barn, not a palace. Jesus was born to a very ordinary couple who only later became known and understood as extraordinary.

The typical follower of Jesus may never have a church or college named after them nor a statue commissioned. For a typical follower stained glass church windows will be something to gaze upon and appreciate but never display their countenance. But a typical follower has exactly what the saints had: Jesus Christ, the one who seemed often to prefer the unheralded. The one who transforms the day-to-day person and day to day life into the extraordinary, the one who turns anonymous ones into saints.