10th Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 15C: Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18

Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

The Rev'd Margaret Dyer-Chamberlain

August 17, 2025

Good morning St. Aidan’s.

In the incredible collection of readings we heard this morning, this is the sentence that most strongly jumped out at me: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…..” Perhaps this sentence resonates with me because I feel a lot of weight and sin clinging to me these days. Perhaps it’s because sometimes I feel like I’m engaged in some weird kind of race for reasons unclear to me. Am I running away from the news as fast as I can, or am I obsessed with catching up with the latest worrisome thing that has happened? I don’t know. And then - some days I feel like a tiny drip of perseverance is all I’ve got - to get me through the day.

I was a runner for 40 years (now, I walk…) and so I found myself unable to resist the urge to ponder the race metaphor offered here. I promise I won’t dwell on it for long. But what I’ve been reflecting on is - what was the most critical ingredient in any race I’ve ever been in – from high school track to 10ks over the years to the one marathon I ran in my life when I was 40. And it’s clear to me that – it wasn’t the training (although training is important), it wasn’t the shoes I wore or what the weather was like or what I ate before the race. The critical ingredient was all about focus. It was about how I would try to keep myself grounded, how I would ignore the noise around me (like the well-meaning people who thought they were being supportive by calling out things in a marathon like - “only 5 more miles.”) It was about inner strength and resolve. And at the end of the day, whether I finished or not, it was about the journey. Perseverance has a lot to do with it. The writer and naturalist Walter Eliot wrote that “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.”

I think that keeping our faith through the journey of life is like this too – it’s about keeping our focus and not letting the things of this world get us too distracted. Some days it feels like we’re running a marathon without enough training, some days we’re in a series of short sprints from one problem to another. Sometimes things seem easier, lighter. Sometimes joy lifts us up. Always there are the realities of the world around us – realities good and bad, hard and easy. Sometimes we have control over the things facing us, sometimes we don’t. We long for clarity and stability and often it’s just not there.

Paul’s letter to the Hebrews that we heard today is a description of the human condition in all of its complexity. If we ever felt that we are alone in a challenging time, all we need to do is read Paul’s words. He reminds us of our collective history – the Egyptians crossing the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho falling, times when faith conquered kingdoms, times when things were not so good at all - times of raging fire and torture and mocking and of faithful people wandering in the wilderness. Times when even the prophets weren’t at all sure what to do next.

And our reading from Isaiah describes the hardest parts of the human journey too. We learn of God’s hopes and plans for a beautiful vineyard for the people, of God’s expectations and work and care. And yet – God expected justice but instead bloodshed occurred – with wild grapes and presumably even wilder people involved. Clearly God was fundamentally upset with humankind in this scenario, because God expects us to do better, to be better, to love one another. God expects righteousness.

So how do we get from where we are now – in all of our confusion and distraction and doubt - to where God wants us to be?

This brings me to our challenging Gospel text.

In this account from Luke, we hear the voice of a passionate, frustrated, unsettled Jesus. This is not necessarily the Jesus we are accustomed to, or that we are the most comfortable with. I personally struggle with this angry kind of Jesus. Although - this also is a Jesus who is very human. All of us understand these feelings. We know what it’s like to be uncertain and frazzled and upset. We know how it feels to be unable to muster anything close to a “peace be with you” kind of vibe.

And in this text, Jesus gets our attention with his strong words – “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” he says. He is impatient about getting the change going that he wants to see through his ministry to see in the world – a change that is about a new way of being. A way of being that is about forgiveness, love and humility as opposed to conflict, hate and power. Jesus warns us that this new way of being is a big change – people will not always agree about it, and we might see divisions and conflicts and unrest as a result. It’s a sea change that is going to upend our world.

Jesus is asking us to challenge our present time in the most fundamental of ways. He’s asking us to realize, and internalize, that our key is not to just go along with the dominant cultural norms around us. He is asking us to question societal expectations and to go out on a limb to focus on following a loving God who watches over all of us. “I have a baptism with which to be baptized” he says. He’s calling on us to focus on the words of psalm 80 - “Restore us, O Lord God of hosts, show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.”

And I think maybe this Gospel encourages us to be a little impatient and angry about all of this too. I think it validates our righteous indignation at what we see going on in our world. This text brings me hope that we can, in fact, upend the status quo by leaning into our deep faith in God’s dream of peace, love and joy for our world. Because part of our work as people of faith is about holding in balance the dream of God with the pain of this world. Perhaps it is the case that the more acutely we feel the pain, the more deeply we bring in the love. And that love is the basis for our resistance to the injustices we see.

There’s one more piece, because I haven’t talked about how the thought of the cloud of witnesses spoke to me, from Paul’s letter to the Hebrews that I began with. I know I promised earlier not to dwell on running too much, but I just have to share that when I ran that marathon all those years ago, I had a cloud of witnesses around me – my husband Page who helped me train, my sons who cheered me on with those unhelpful words I mentioned before, my extended family and friends, many of whom didn’t really understand why I was doing such a thing. Most foundationally was my brother-in-law Bill – we decided that we wanted to run the marathon together. Bill happens to be a person of deep faith and as we ran the marathon we talked about life and rarely about the running. At one point, very near the end, I shared with Bill that desperately wanted to walk for a bit. Bill turned to me and said, “Marg, I think we need to keep running.” And so we ran.

There is no underestimating the cloud of witnesses in our lives. They are in our workplaces, our schools, our churches and mosques, our neighborhoods and families. They are people who are like us and totally understand what we’re going through. They are allies trying hard to support us even though they will never completely understand exactly what our lives are like. They are strangers who help us in small ways, people we might never meet again. We are all grappling with a lot, particularly given the complexities of our world, and – as was true in Jesus’ time – we face divisions and conflict and fear. But we face the journey of life together, and if we can keep our focus on God’s love and care, then we just might persevere and find strength.

So I pray for us that we remember and celebrate the cloud of witnesses around us – near and far. I pray that we can lay aside the weight of this world that threatens to get in our way – so that we can remember Jesus is our guide - the pioneer and perfector of our faith. And I pray that we continue to run with perseverance the race that is set before us. In Jesus’ name and with the love of God ever with us. Amen.