A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA
by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025
Tenth Sunday After Pentecost/C • August 17, 2025
Jeremiah 23:23-29 • Hebrews 11:29-12:2 • Luke 12:49-56
…since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us [Hebrews 12:1]
What witnesses surround you? We all live with them, we remember them in stories, we are guided by examples. Do you have a favorite recipe you got from your mom? Maybe a teacher helped you imagine your adult life. Sometimes those witnesses are very present; sometimes we’re not even conscious of how they influence us. Our church has a family story as well and Susan Nelson works so hard at gathering and maintaining the materials that tell that story; we all owe her a great debt. I often take a moment to look at the model of the log church, our original meeting house, and wonder about the people who worshiped there. I wonder if one day another pastor of this church will look back at this time and wonder about it as he or she hears stories about Pastor Sue and how she was such a blessing here after a long search. It’s good for us to share stories and that’s just what the writer of Hebrews is doing in today’s reading.
This section actually started back with what we read last week. Even before that, the writer begins, “Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” [Heb 11:1] Then the writer begins all the way back with Abel, moves through Noah and Abraham, includes Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Moses and the Exodus, and then through all those mentioned in today’s reading. Hebrews is part of the earliest church and most of the Christians for whom this was written are Jews; this is their family story. Not all the names and stories are as familiar to us: do you remember Rahab? She helped Joshua spy out Jericho. Gideon defeated the Midianites and tore down altars to Baal. Samuel was the judge in Israel who first anointed a king and David is the great emblem of a godly King. These are the family stories; these are the witnesses, the ones who stand behind these Christians who are hearing this just as we heard it read today. “This is who you are,” the writer is saying—to them, and to us.
Who is hearing this sermon? We think that Hebrews was written about 60 AD, so it’s about 30 years after Jesus has ascended. There may have been about 6,000 Christians, mostly in Jerusalem and the eastern Mediterranean. There are churches in Greece, probably in Rome. They’re having a tough time. Most are Jews; some are converts from the worship of other gods. Now Roman gods weren’t simply religious; they were part of the civic life of places. Each city had a patron god and, they were worshiped at festivals. We see the same thing today in many places where the label is Christian, but the real theology is politics. So Christians were seen as unpatriotic.
Being unpatriotic means you could get in trouble with the Roman authorities. Christians were persecuted in some times and places; we have legends of martyrs from the period, beginning with Stephen who was stoned to death. This is part of the family story too: Hebrews says,
Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. 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— [Heb 12:35b-37]
This is the family story: it goes way back to Abraham and Sarah, it comes forward to friends in prison, friends stoned, friends who have died for their faith. They know that faith in Christ is not easy; they know it can mean division.
These are the people for whom this was written; these are also the people for whom Luke is offering the sayings from Jesus we heard this morning. It’s a strange passage, isn’t it? Luke in particular goes out of his way to call Jesus, “the prince of peace”. Yet there’s nothing peaceful here. “I have come to cast fire upon the earth,” he says. Wow! Umm… no, thanks? What we’d really like is just to live out our lives peacefully? Fire is scary.
Yet there’s a great truth here. Fire can be violent and deadly, but in the ancient world especially, it’s thought of as a way of purifying. We still do this; if something happens with the drinking water in the pipes, we’re told, “Boil water” and the way we do that is by lighting some kind of fire or heat. Jesus talks about division as well, and that can scare us. The Roman world was patriarchal; families were ruled by the eldest male. I can’t imagine he was pleased when some family members became Christians. I remember the early 1960s when boys grew their hair out to look like the Beatles. Just long hair was enough to set off my dad and most other dads.
So here is the little group of Christians, some divided from families, some afraid to go to family dinners like Thanksgiving because they are divided from the family. The writer of Hebrews is reminding them that there is a long family story of faith of which they are a part. They are not alone; they are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.
Now that’s a lesson for us as well. We are living in a time of great division. Churches have divided over issues like marriage for all, over politics, over whether to have a praise band and so many other things. In the midst of the arguing, Hebrews wants to remind us: we are not alone, we have a cloud of witnesses, watching, sustaining us. And they hope we will simply look to Jesus, Hebrews calls him the pioneer and perfecter of faith. It doesn’t matter that we don’t agree about the length of hair, or the type of music; it doesn’t matter that we vote for different people; it doesn’t matter that we don’t agree about other things. What matters is one thing: are we following Jesus?
In a few moments, we will share communion. I hope you see the others here sharing this symbolic meal. I don’t mean just the people in this room but the others as well who are sitting with us. The few who came here so many years ago and began this church; the ones before them, who inspired them, taught them. The one who will come after us. I hope you see the cloud of witnesses.
…since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us [Hebrews 12:1]
So indeed: let us run that race, following Jesus, knowing we are part of the cloud of witnesses to the love of God in this place.
Amen.