And the List Goes On…
Hebrews 11:29–12:3
August 19, 2007
University Christian Church, Seattle, WA
Rev. Sandy Messick

• “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”
• My family was planning a getaway for next weekend and thought it would be great to maybe go to the beach. So we looked at hotels on the beach in northern Oregon thinking maybe Cannon Beach or Seaside. But guess what! No rooms available! I found out why as I was working on this sermon. Next weekend, Seaside OR will be the ending point for the granddaddy of all relay races. It’s the Hood to Coast relay and it starts on the top of Mt. Hood and it ends some 197 miles later on the beach in Seaside. It is the largest running relay race in the world.
• 1000 teams of 8–12 runners each will attempt to finish. Each runner will run at least 3 legs of the race and each leg is somewhere between 3.7 and 7.4 miles long.
• One runner was quoted as saying, “It’s rare that running is a team sport. Hood to Coast makes that possible.”
• And that’s my segue into this Hebrews passage. Running as a team sport. Surrounded by the cloud of witnesses we are to run with perseverance the race set before us. The passage reminds us that this race we call faithful living is no solitary marathon where even in a pack of other runners it’s still really all about us. No instead, it’s a relay race, and we are running just one leg, one segment of a much longer race.
• For me, the passage teaches us two things: 1) It’s not all up to us to finish the race, but 2) Even we can make a difference.
• It’s not all up to us.
• There is reportedly a sign on Winchester Cathedral in England that reads, “You are entering a conversation that began long before you were born, and will continue long after you’re dead.”
• Hebrews 11 has been called the role call of the saints and it’s true. The writer seems to want us to remember every significant, and maybe not so significant character in the Old Testament, reminding us of their great deeds and their sacrifices for their faith. Last week, we heard about Abraham and Sarah, the patriarch and matriarch of the Judeo-Christian tradition who stepped out in faith and went to a new place with nothing but a U-Haul trailer and a promise from God.
• This week we hear about others: Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel. People who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises and shut the mouths of lions.
• And things didn’t always go well for them, according to Hebrews. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. And we think times are tough!
• The Letter to the Hebrews was written to a church being persecuted, and the writer wants the hearers to know that yeah, things are bad now, but they’ve been bad before, and even then the faithful stood firm because even then, God was with them.
• It’s not all up to us, because we stand in a long line of faithful witnesses. We are running just one leg of a much longer race.
• Of course, like us, they didn’t always get it right. Like us, sometimes the relay baton was bobbled, or even dropped. The faithful mentioned in Hebrews sinned, committed genocide at times, doubted, ran away, turned away. In the name of Christianity, terrible sins have been committed: The crusades of the 11 th and 12 th centuries when Christians invaded the Holy Lands ostensibly to save the Holy Land from the Muslims but in fact was more motivated by power and greed than faith. More recently, in the name of Christ, we justified slavery in this country, using the Bible as a weapon and a reason to enslave our African brothers and sisters; using scripture as a tool of oppression rather than a word of liberation and reconciliation.
• Like us, those who have gone before at times needed to confess the things they did, and the things they failed to do, as we do, when we drop the baton.
• But despite the failings, despite the regrets and the hindsight that is always clearer than foresight, Hebrews presents us with a long line-up of faithful followers who carried the baton for us and to us through the centuries and passed it on to us.
• And God will no doubt, provide another line-up of followers who will take the baton from us, people who will make a difference in the world, perhaps even the children who sat on these steps this morning, and they will take the baton and run their own race, and make their own mistakes, and sometimes, by the grace of God, they will get it right, just as sometimes, by the grace of God, we will get it right.
• And holding all these generations together will be the everlasting arms of God. The message of the cloud of witnesses is the good news that it’s not all up to us, thanks be to God; that the kingdom of God, God’s vision for the world of peace and justice and shalom is not dependent solely upon our inept hands but…
• Thanks be to God, it also reminds us that even with our inept hands, we too can make a difference.
• That’s the second part of the message. It’s not all up to us, but even we can make a difference.
• The roll call of the saints tells about people who weren’t perfect. But who led their people in faith and did their best to follow God.
• And people are still doing that. And that difference is still being felt.
• Nameless individuals who when the bridge collapsed in Minneapolis risked their lives to rescue school children from a bus or helped other people to safety.
• Work groups that even now, nearly two years after Katrina, are rebuilding houses and churches and bringing life to a devastated area. In her “State of the Church” address at General Assembly, our General Minister and President, Sharon Watkins, asked people to stand if they had participated in work trips to hurricane devastated areas. And then she asked for people to stand if they had supported work trips from their churches. And then she asked people to stand if they had sent money to Week of Compassion to help hurricane victims. And then she asked people to stand if they had prayed for hurricane victims. And by the time she was done, everyone in the convention center, all 7,000 people or so were standing in body or in spirit. A great cloud of witnesses. Even we can make a difference.
• John Shelby Spong, the controversial Episcopal former bishop, tells the story of 2 influential people in his life. The first was David Watt Yates, rector of the Chapel of the Cross. Spong describes him as "a unique human being, and a single man in every sense of the word. A militant low churchman, a courageous, if not always inspiring, preacher, and a man of deep convictions, he was a total abstainer form alcoholic beverages and a dedicated pacifist." At the end of WWII, when other pastors were leading their churches in services of thanksgiving. Rev. Yates was leading his church in a service of confession, asking forgiveness for taking up arms against fellow human beings. He was outspoken against racism and segregation and was never afraid to offend others, both inside and outside the church. This was a powerful witness for Bishop Spong. But there was another powerful influence in Spong’s life. An atheist by the name of Louis Katsoff, a professor of philosophy. When Spong told him that he was taking philosophy in preparation for ministry, Katsoff told him that “Christianity was a helpless hangover from another age and that he should not waste his life". Years later, Spong ran into Katsoff only to find that this committed atheist had converted to that worthless religion, Christianity. “What happened?” Spong asked. “David Yates got to me.” Katsoff replied. Spong was surprised. “How could that be?,” Spong asked, “You can think rings around him.” “David didn’t outthink me,” Katsoff replied, “He just outlived me.” What a difference one person can make.
• We are part of a great cloud of witnesses, participants in a story that started long before we were born and will continue long after we are dead, but for this moment, in this moment, we run with perseverance the race set before us. It’s not all up to us, but even we can make a difference. Amen.