Cloud of Witnesses

“WALKING ON A CLOUD”
Text: Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Faith United
August 19, 2007

I didn’t grow up around extended family
My aunts, uncles and cousins were either down in Mississippi
and Louisiana
or scattered all over the world
So I didn’t even KNOW most of them
And in New Jersey,
it’s not a cultural thing like it is in Nebraska
for parents and grandparents to go to every single game
ice cream social or music concert
that happens at their kids’ school
I didn’t grow up expecting that,
because mostly I didn’t have any extended family
who could show up if that was even the norm
When Sarah was little and started playing soccer
at the age where parents are just happy if the kids stay on the field
much less kick a goal
I loved watching her play
I loved watching her kick the ball instead of running away from it
or block a goal when she was goalie
I remember thinking during those days
what God must feel like
If I felt that proud of my little kindergartener
going on there and running up and down that huge field
chasing a ball
If I felt so overjoyed at watching her achieve something as small
as just kicking the ball…
How must God feel looking at US?
Does God absolutely DELIGHT in watching us grow and learn
and discover and get back up again when we fall?
I think so…
If I as a human parent can feel that delight,
how much more must God feel for each of us?

I tended to adopt extended family along the way
because everybody needs a cheering section
I particularly remember my high school graduation
I did ok in high school
I didn’t know I was smart
So I didn’t try too hard
but I got by with ok grades
I didn’t win any big scholarships
or even place in the top 10 of my class
I didn’t win anything for athletics or have any trophies
But I did get to go up on stage for some smaller awards
like Best Spanish Student
or Best Senior Essay
and then I think I got a nice little scholarship
from the AAUW local chapter
But they weren’t the big ones
and I wasn’t one of the top kids in my class
or one of the most popular
However, I do remember every time I got to go on stage
for those small awards
and then for my degree,
my Aunt Sandie-- who wasn’t really my aunt,
she was just my Mom’s best friend--
I remember she stood up and screamed
waving her arms like a real lunatic
shouting my name across the auditorium
while my mother looked very embarrassed
But she did it every time my name was called
and as embarrassing as it was,
inside I was grateful to be singled out and cheered for
when I felt like nothing special at the time

We don’t have heroes much anymore
the ones we might look up to
Ttnd to fall very far from grace
and thanks to the media
we know all the sordid details of their failures
So we’re more cynical, I think, about heroes
Also there’s a difference between growing up, maturing
and becoming cynical
As a child, I remember looking up to people
assuming they knew everything
assuming that they did everything right
and that they had it all figured out
I also remember different occasions
when I’d see an adult I admired or looked up to
make a mistake or show their mean side
or just do something stupid
and how disappointing that was
The image I had of them was shattered
and I didn’t think they could be my hero anymore
The media has a way of trashing people in our culture
especially public figures and leaders
nobody can live up to that perfect image
We can’t just dislike someone or disagree with them
If we don’t like them, as a culture we tend to discredit them
and tear them apart… no one really has a chance
But then we look at Scripture,
look at this list of heroes
You won’t find a blameless, perfect person among them
King David? A man after God’s own heart
who also committed adultery and murder
Samson? Had more brawn than brains, it seemed
and was easily manipulated for his power
usually by a woman who knew his weaknesses
The people of Israel who walked through that Red Sea?
All along the journey they complained,
they thumbed their noses at God
One minute God was the greatest, the next minute
they were praying to golden statues…
Rahab, the only woman besides Sarah
who is named among the greats of the faith,
and who helped the Israelite spies
She was a prostitute
None of these people’s characters would have endured
the scrutiny and arrogant analysis of our 21st century media
As a child, I banked a lot on my heroes
Sometimes they made me feel like I could be fantastic
it was like walking on a cloud
but then to find out that they were just as human as me
that they were sometimes weak or afraid
they made bad decisions, even failed
As a child it was disillusioning
and I often swore I’d never look up to them again
But the letter to the Hebrews says that we are surrounded
by a great cloud of witnesses
heroes of the faith
to look up to them, to be empowered and encouraged
by their stories and their lives
is not like walking on a cloud
but like being SURROUNDED by a cloud
at first glance, the list of great ones may look like a list of losers
instead of winners
People who got beaten up, crucified, persecuted, publicly humiliated
Not people who made straight A’s in school all the time
or won all the races, or got any awards
In our cultures’ standards, the heroes of the bible
look like a bunch of losers
And Jesus?
He was supposed to conquer the kingdoms
He was supposed to display his superior power
He was supposed to assume the throne
and make everything right again
Instead he ended up completely humiliated
treated like a common criminal worthy of execution
It looked like he let his enemies win
while he hung out with the poor and the wretched of society
and tended to avoid the bigwigs and the people that could
get him where they thought he needed to go
He had only a team of 12 disciples to begin with
and his crowd of followers was relatively small
not worth noting, really
It was quite a little ragtag army
Of course, that’s looking at it all from a human perspective
We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses
human beings that have lived and died in their faith
In the Apostles’ Creed we say that we believe in the communion of saints
which means that as Christians,
we believe that there is an ongoing spiritual relationship
between the saints who have died
and those who are still living
And all those imperfect lives point to the life of Jesus Christ
Those lives still speak to us
tThey stand as witnesses to the amazing grace of Jesus Christ
Who takes our ordinary, imperfect lives
and makes them extraordinary witnesses of the Gospel
When I first learned about the communion of saints
I was a little skeptical
I mean, it’s hard to believe
At least, it’s easier to believe
until someone we love actually dies
and death slaps us in the face
But then someone pointed out to me that
we believe Jesus died, was dead and buried
we also believe he rose from the dead
and ascended into heaven
And we believe that he is alive
sSo much so that he is guiding us, directing us, loving us
and that we can communicate with him
any time we want
even though we have never met him in the flesh
In the same way, we believe as a church
that the saints who have gone on before us
are still connected to us
they’re kind of our balcony people
cheering us on, because they’ve already been there
As I’ve grown up…
I’ve learned that nobody and no-thing is perfect
We live in a very imperfect world
We live in a great tension between what God wants
and what the world is actually like
Between who God wants us to be and who we are
Even the Church is infected with sin
because it’s made up of human beings
But the good news is that God formed the Church
a long, long time ago,
began with a ragtag army of disciples
who followed Jesus but were never quite sure
of who he was
and they got it wrong more often than not
But the Church is still going
it still takes it’s blows, it still suffers its disappointments
and setbacks
But God still calls us, the Church, to join the great cloud of witnesses
the communion of saints
in telling and living the Story of Jesus Christ
Someone else walked the road before us
And don’t shy away from the identification of saint
Saint doesn’t mean that we or they were perfect
it just means that we are the people of God
trying to figure out just what that means
The stories in the Bible don’t sugarcoat anything
they’re raw, they’re sometimes uncomfortably blunt and honest
but they witness to the power of God in Jesus Christ
It’s hard
I remember some cynics telling me in seminary
that I was about to jump onto a sinking ship, meaning the Church
because yeah, the numbers are down, the Church is still trying to
figure out how to be a credible witness in the 21st century
and we don’t always get it right
there are times that it seems all wrong
And yet… and yet…
We remember the stories that point to THE Story
and we get back up off the ground, and we get going again
We run with perseverance the race that is set before us
We may not win any ribbons
or break any records
our lives may seem so ordinary
and unexciting
We may even royally mess up and trip up along the path
And yet according to Hebrews, the point of the race
is not necessarily to win,
at least to win by the standards of our society
But the writer of Hebrews is more concerned with throwing off
whatever holds us back from reaching for the prize,
reaching for the goal, from running the race at all
from reaching higher and further
What holds us back? What excuses do we make for giving up?
For sitting on the sidelines?
Lay it aside, we’re told, shake it off
Look to Jesus as the author and perfecter of our faith
Our lives are only part of the ongoing story, the ongoing witness
but we play a part, we have a role
we have a sentence to contribute
a note to be sung
When we were in South Dakota, after visiting Mt. Rushmore,
we went to the Crazy Horse monument
they’ve been working on that monument for 50 years
and only the face is finished
The story of how the dream came to be is fascinating
The original sculptor began the project completely by himself
When it’s all completely finished,
Mt. Rushmore would fit into the hair of Crazy Horse
and the monument will be of Crazy Horse riding his horse
and pointing out to his lands…
It’s crazy..
The original sculptor is dead
His family has taken over the project
They won't live to see the final results
But they have given their lives to a dream
aA dream that may not come to fulfillment in their lifetime
bBut they know that they will have had a part in making it possible
It’s not a practical dream, but it’s an inspiring dream
aAnd little, by little, year by year, it’s taking shape
That takes faith
and vision
and a heart with the capacity to see beyond
what the physical eye can see
What we are called to live and to be as Christians
may seem absurd and may seem like a dream out of reach
But still we keep running the race, believing in the dream
keeping our eyes on the one we can’t see
but the one we know in our heart of hearts goes before us
blazing the trail, paving the way
and giving the power to keep running,
to keep reaching, to keep searching
to keep loving, dreaming dreams and seeing visions
of God’s kingdom on earth
We are not alone
We can’t see them,
but the air around us in our worship and in our living
is filled with the spirits of the imperfect saints
who shared the same dream, the same vision
and whose stories and lives give us the hope
that we’re not just walking on a cloud
but that our feet are walking on solid ground
towards the dream embodied in the face of Jesus Christ
My father was know to say in his Sunday School class
“Now we better go back before we go forward…”
And what he meant was that we had to look back
at what other people have said about what we were learning
before we could go on and learn a new thing
All that we learn is something that someone else learned before us
and passed it on, whether it’s history, geography, science
or the Bible
we are the bearers of a tradition
And no matter what we do to communicate the Gospel in our changing times
we can never let go of the traditions that got us here
the teachers that have taught us
We can modernize and contemporize,
but we can never fully let go of the past and all that it teaches
And we have the communion of saints in our hearts and memories
to be examples of lives that have fought the good fight
and finished the race,
even if we thought that they finished much too soon

In 1984, just a year after she cheered at my high school graduation
Sandie died from melanoma at the age of 39
It was horrible and devastating and I was furious with God
and even though I had faith,
I had a hard time believing that Sandie was truly alive
that she was ok
About two months after her death
I had a dream
that she came to the house with her family
with her husband and two young kids
We played games, we laughed, we ate around the table,
just like we always did when they came to visit
but we all knew that she was just visiting
from eternity, that she couldn’t stay with us
In the dream, she took me to the kitchen, off by myself
and we hugged a long time
I told her I missed her and I didn’t know how to get along
without her
She held me away from herself and looked me in the eye
She said, “I miss you too, but you know what?
someday you’ll see me again.
and when you do, we’ll never have to say goodbye again.”
I woke up from that dream
with my skin feeling as if I’d actually touched her
aAnd I knew that dream was a gift from God
I still grieved her death,
in fact, 23 years later, I still miss her
and wish I could tell her stuff
But in the midst of the tears, I had that dream
tTo keep me moving forward, trusting that she is still
up there in the balcony cheering me on the rest of the way

There is a sign on the Winchester cathedral in England that says:
“ you are entering a conversation that began long before
you were born and will continue long after you’re dead.”

What verse will we contribute to the poem?
What notes will we add to the song?
What will our story be?