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This Sunday’s Sermon
TRINITY 11
“Crowd of Witnesses”
Rev Patricia Fogden
15th August 2010
Today’s reading: Hebrews 11: 29 -
(Click on reading title to view readings)
“Therefore, 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.” (Hebrews 12:1)
We don’t know when or where the Letter to the Hebrews was written, but it was evidently
sent to a persecuted Gentile Christian congregation,
quite
possibly in Rome, maybe around 60-
The unknown writer was evidently familiar with athletic competition –
perhaps even
the ancient Olympic Games as the Olympics were alive and well throughout the New
Testament period.
It is maybe fanciful to imagine our author had ever attended the Olympics as such,
but he was clearly aware of what went on at such events, and he uses the imagery
of the games when he encourages his readers in the Christian life –
“let us throw off everything that hinders...
and let us run with perseverance the
race marked out for us.” (Heb 12:1).
Athletes at the ancient games quite literally threw off everything that hindered
–
they ran naked.
So the writer of Hebrews says of the spiritual journey -
This is not a stroll to the beach, it is a striving after the goal of Christ and
his Kingdom –
it is giving your all as you strive for the love and joy and peace
and justice of Christ and his Kingdom.
And that demands the same focus and commitment
shown by an athlete on the day of the big race.
“At the 1968 Olympics, an hour after the marathon's winner crossed the finish line,
Tanzania's John Stephen Akhwari limped across the finish line, injured in a fall
early in the race.
Asked why he didn't quit, he said,
"My country did not send me
7,000 miles to start this race.
My country sent me to finish."”
“Let us run the race with perseverance”, says Hebrews.
Nothing less than sharing in
Christ’s victory over sin and evil and death will do.
However hard the race
may be.
In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Britain's Derek Redmond was running in the 400-
About 100 meters into the race, he collapsed with a torn hamstring.
The medical team rushed out to help him, but Redmond waved them aside, struggled
to his feet, and began crawling, hopping in a desperate effort to finish the race.
Up
ahead the race had already been won, but then the crowd saw what was happening behind,
and they begin to cheer this man still hobbling on half way around the track.
Suddenly a big man jumps out of the stands, avoids a security guard, runs to Redmond's
side, and embraces him.
It is Jim Redmond, the athlete's father.
Father’s arm around his son's waist, son’s arm around his dad's shoulders, they continue down the track until, finally, arm in arm, they cross the finish line to the cheers of the crowd.
If that's the way an earthly father responds to his son who is determined to finish
the race,
how much more does God, our heavenly Father, run to the side of his son
or daughter to aid us?
So the author of Hebrews encourages us to run life’s race, a race in which God is our aim and also our strength.
And as he imagines the race in the stadium, so he sees too in his mind’s eye, the
spectators.
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, he says,
“since
we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses”
And the writer of Hebrews lists some of them up there in the stands -
Rahab, Gideon,
Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets,
those who through faith
conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut
the mouths of lions – and so he goes on.
What a crowd! –
Our writer is concerned here with those of Faith in the Old Testament –
but we might
see also in the stands those of the New Testament also –
Today is 15 August, the day when our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers celebrate
the assumption into heaven of the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
That is perhaps a story which most Protestants would see as poetically powerful rather
than literally true, but Catholic or Protestant we might all look amongst the great
cloud of witnesses and see there in the crowd Mary the mother of our Lord there.
Mary who gave her life to be used by God in his saving work, at one with us as we
too struggle to make God’s Word known in our age.
Mary & James & John & Peter & Andrew & more –
all part of the cloud of witnesses
– names as familiar to us as to the writer of Hebrews.
But perhaps as we look around, we spot others in the stands not known to our writer,
people like,
Luther and Wesley,
Bonheoffer, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King….
And so we could go on.
Of course each competitor at the games is especially cheered on by those near and
dear to them, parents and friends specially cheering for the one close to them –
and so our stadium contains the saints, family and friends, that we have known.
It has been said that there is no such thing as a small Church congregation, for even at the smallest village church or chapel, still there is gathered a great cloud of witnesses at every tiny service.
Therefore, to conclude with the words of our text,
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.
(Hebrews 12:1)
Last Week’s Sermon
Sunday 8th August Hebrews 11.1-
William James, 19th century
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt
is theoretically possible.
Elie Wiesel, 21st century
The opposite of faith is not doubt, it's indifference.
Kahlil Gibran, 20th century
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach
of proof.
Mother Teresa, 20th century
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I
just wish He didn't trust me so much.
Martin Luther King, Jr., 20th century
Faith is taking the first step even when you
don't see the whole staircase.
Life is difficult.
Do I need to prove this statement to you?
I suspect not.
To each of us here this morning, life at one time or another, and for many of us, perhaps at most times, has brought pain or illness, loss or loneliness, fear, defeat, worry, doubt, anxiety, hardship of one kind or another.
And yet, for people of faith, there is a knowledge, a feeling, an assurance that even in the midst of that pain or doubt or suffering, God is good.
Today's readings, of course, are about faith.
The author of Hebrews, uses Abraham as one in a series of examples of faith in a "letter" that is really a sermon encouraging an early Christian community to stand fast in the midst of difficulties and challenges to their faith.
It's the experience of real people in a real relationship with God that can help us to grasp the meaning of faith.
The author of Hebrews does give something of a definition: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
Faith, then, is the ability – or the openness – to see the invisible in the visible, the eternal in the earthly.
When I was a little girl at Sunday School I had to memorise several creeds and many, many answers to catechism questions – yes, I am that old, and I do remember the 1950’s, just!
Every week in our services we say either the Nicene or Apostles creed, or perhaps some other creedal statement or song to affirm that we stand together in this community as part of a larger community that shares common beliefs.
But we do not hold these statements as complete, perfect, final statements about God and God's mercy and love.
Nor do we use them as tests to determine who is in and who is out of our community.
A statement of faith represents our effort to give expression in words to our beliefs about God, but it's the experience of faith that keeps us going in the difficult times, isn't it?
For faith is the willingness and the resolve to trust God – to trust in the goodness of God's purposes for us and for all of creation.
I know that each one of us here this morning can think of people we have known as people of faith.
Perhaps it was a parent, a grandparent, a family member, a teacher, a vicar, a friend, a spouse.
Can we number ourselves among them?
Do we trust in God and in God's infinite mercy and love?
Do we believe in what we cannot "see" or – in modern, Scientific terms, in what we cannot prove with scientific certainty?
My grandmother was a woman of faith.
I don't say that because she went to church all of her life, I say my grandmother was a woman of faith because she was a strong woman who endured much with the help of the trust she had in God.
She suffered many illnesses in her life, including breast cancer.
But my grandmother never wavered in her trust in God's loving care for her and for those she loved.
She had a friend who was dying, and she sat with her through her dying moments.
At the very end, surrounded by her daughters and my grandmother, she suddenly sat straight up in her bed, lifted up her arms toward the end of her bed and looked beyond them all, saying with a wonderful smile on her face,
"Oh. . . it's so beautiful!"
And then she died.
Now I'm not saying that all people of faith have such a beautiful experience of death.
For many people, death is much more difficult.
What I do invite us to think about, however, is what happened that day to my grandmother’s friend.
My grandmother and the others there didn't see anything at the foot of the bed.
But her friend did.
You might say that she "saw" something that day that was "invisible" – and that is what my grandmother did all of her life – she had faith, she had conviction in what was not seen, she had the assurance of things hoped for. I have a feeling that my grandmother would have said that God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good.
Trusting in God means setting out on a journey, like Abraham and Sarah – and so many other people in the Bible – a journey of faith toward a future where God's design for creation will be fulfilled – toward the "Heavenly City." Trusting in God means seeing God's goodness in the worst of times, and believing that God's blessings will outnumber the stars in the sky, even if we could count them.
Trusting in God means seeing beauty and grace in what may seem like the smallest of wonders.
It is faith that gives substance to our hope.
When it looks like life is just too hard to bear, when we struggle with that pain or loss or loneliness or doubt,
faith enables us to reach out and feel the grasp of God on our lives, to know that we are headed on that journey to the heavenly city where all of God's purposes will be fulfilled.
Faith is not agreeing to a doctrine, rather, as someone has put it, faith is a "sunburst of truth, it is the behaviour of someone who allows God to be God, trusting in someone other than oneself."
In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we believe that God has conquered sin and death.
We believe in our hearts that what we see is not all that there is.
We believe that we will come to our journey's end that we will once again be with those we love, those who have loved us.
We believe that we will be with God.
There are days, along the way, when this faith is what carries us through.
Life is difficult, but we believe that God will help us along our way.
We know, of course, that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., suffered a lot on his journey.
He endured physical attacks, verbal abuse, threats to him and his family, the bombing of his home, and, finally, death itself.
On that motel balcony in Memphis, just before he was killed, he turned to his musician friend who was to play that evening at the rally for the sanitation workers, and asked him,
"Play 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' for me tonight – play it real pretty."
A few seconds later, shots rang out.
But that was not the end.
He knew where he was headed.
He knew whom to trust along the way. Amen.