When the Boat Finds Its Swing

In 1936, nine young men from the University of Washington did something no one expected. They won Olympic gold in rowing at the Berlin Games, beating elite teams from around the world. What made them remarkable was not individual talent — most came from logging towns and dairy farms. Their secret was what rowers call "swing."

Swing happens when every oarsman pulls in such perfect harmony that the boat seems to lift out of the water and fly. Coach Al Ulbrickson spent years trying to forge it. As Daniel James Brown recounts in The Boys in the Boat, the breakthrough came only when each rower surrendered his ego to the rhythm of the crew. The strongest oarsman, Joe Rantz, had to learn that pulling harder on his own actually slowed the boat. It was only when he trusted the seven men beside him — matching their cadence, breathing their rhythm, pulling not for himself but for the whole — that the shell found its swing.

The apostle Paul saw something similar when he wrote, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'" (1 Corinthians 12:21). The body of Christ finds its swing not when the most gifted among us row hardest, but when every member trusts the others enough to pull together.

Some of you are rowing alone this morning. You are exhausting yourselves trying to be strong on your own. The Almighty did not design you to row solo. Find your crew. Match your rhythm to theirs. The boat is waiting.