Rev. Dr. E. Scott Winnette
Called to be a Cloud
A Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Winnette
August 19, 2007
We are surrounded, always surrounded by the support of God’s material world. If we pay attention, we will see, hear, smell, touch, and feel her encouraging beauty. We will sense that every element of creation contains a love spark of our Creator. We are surrounded by God’s community of nature. I wrote yesterday on my balcony and was surrounded by beauty, a peach tree with scampering peach-gathering squirrels, a garden below of elephant ears and caladium. My cats never wandered far from me. The wind caressed, the sun danced, a tiny tree frog serenaded. I was embraced by tangible goodness.
Our text today gives us another Gospel news; we are also surrounded by an intangible, spiritual goodness. We are surrounded by a supportive cloud of witnesses to God’s love and glory. We are embraced by the good will of our ancestors. They encourage us to finish our part of the race. To keep running the faith race they ran in their lifetimes. And they are not just passive bystanders; they expect a great deal from us. For they know we have rich resources of goodness around us. Not only are we surrounded by God’s good natural world. Not only are we led and encouraged by Jesus the Son and the very Spirit of God. We are embraced by the spiritual whispering of theirexperience, and passion. The saints, who were definitely good, bad, and ugly practitioners of human life – surround us.
I watched the fantasy movie, Stardust, last week; it is packed with love-story, good-versus-bad adventure. One of its subplots is the ascension to the throne of a magical kingdom. Traditionally, the throne would go to the son of the king who was ruthless enough to kill all of his brothers. Until the throne has been achieved by one of the brothers, the ones who had been murdered were cursed to be watchful ghosts. So, throughout the movie 3-6 bitter ghosts hovered. They represented a humorous but negative energy. Remember the ghosts of The Sixth Sense, they also were held as spirits in our world because of vengeful and mournful negative energy.
Now I am a faith idealist, so I believe that in God’s ultimate Providence, the spirits that surround us are presences of positive energy, not suffering fragments of past lives. As I reflected upon theologian Paul Tillich’s thoughts of afterlife, I grew to trust that after we die, our Spirits are purged of our deathly selfish and sinful motivations[1]. Our beauty, our faithfulness, our goodness shines forth. What the eternal heavens offers is a closer walk with our God of love. We are invited to commune with God and to join God’s great crowd of faithful people. I deeply believe that we continue living - the best of who we where. We continue living with God as gardeners planting seeds of potential that God’s world grow into its promised Shalom. We continue as part of the saint-mob of God.
Biblical scholar, Walter Brueggeman defines saints within three categories. One, saints are people through whom God’s light shines. We are saintly when God’s wholeness and love beams forth from our lives. Two, saints are people who know the languages of the “other.” Saints understand people of difference due to race, age, class, culture, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. These saints know that God may meet us in the others. These saints seek justice for the others. Three, saints are those who don’t scatter and hide when they smell death. These saints are not afraid of suffering. They stay present in love and mercy when there is dying and illness and violence.[2] So according to Brueggeman’s faith, we are saintly when God’s light shines through us, when we value others, and when we do not run from death but hold fast in dark places as beacons of hope.
Unfortunately, saintliness is birthed in times of insecurity. Saintliness is birthed in situations of darkness, and injustice, and suffering. And, thank God, saintliness is birthed in spite of sinfulness. The preacher of the book we call Hebrews provides us with a genealogy of faithful ancestors. We know most of their stories, their situations of insecurity, their personal sinfulness, their successes and failures. We can remember the stories of how they courageously responded to situations of insecurity with bold faith in God. Remember Moses running from pharaoh; Rahab, the prostitute, providing a dangerous hospitality to God’s servants; the judges Gideon & Samson who fought to reform and protect the people; King David good and warring, faithful and adulterous; the prophets faithful, fearful, power-hungry and petty; the martyrs who suffered greatly to witness to their faith.
They brought light into the world, they valued the unloved, they stood fast before death and violence – but they did not complete the race. The preacher of Hebrews in our text today has a message for us. “Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God has provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.” God’s saint-mob depends on us. The cloud is not a crowd of passive watchers – not resurrected people who have completed their lives and who watch us with mild interest as we muddle through ours. The saint-mob desperately hopes that we will catch God’s vision and strive to make the work and sacrifice of their lives continue to make a difference.
The preacher told the first audience, those second-generation Christians, that they needed to catch the baton and run their leg of the race of faith. We who have the advantage of Jesus Christ’s revelation and support have even more responsibility to run the saintly challenge of life.
We continue to live in a world of insecurity. Today, maybe more-so than in past generations, God needs us to run hard, to race with perseverance. We watch, our bodies, spirits, and minds ready; we watch for that baton of faith to come flying towards us. We jump again and again for that baton and we run with faith. The preacher of Hebrews teaches that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Brueggeman defines faith as, “our willingness to trust our lives and our future to God, even when God does not appear to be as reliable as other, more immediate supports. Faith is readiness to risk life on the promises of God without holding back.” You know, faith is really spiritual courage. So , let’s jump for the baton of faith trusting our lives and our futures to God.
Let’s race to spite our insecurities of health, relationship, and future. Race to spite the anxieties of our government, our fears for the environment, our weariness in combating the burdens of God’s children in the world. Countering our country’s warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan we are called to catch the baton of peace and to shine as saints with God’s love for humanity. Facing the growing racism and classism of our country due to the insecurity of our borders, let’s grab the baton of hospitality and welcome the stranger. Catching the baton of hope all of us can enter into the still bullet-torn streets of Anacostia and Baltimore with prophesies of change. We race into the lives of the poor of Bethesda with prophecies of love. We jog into the halls of Washington power, with prophecies of justice. Courageously, we move into each other’s lives here at Bradley Hills with prophecies of happiness, growth and life for our church. We share our hope that a new pastor will be found who we can love, and who will love us.
“Therefore, 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, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” We are surrounded by the saints of old, Abraham, and Moses, Sarah and Rahab. We are surrounded by the love of God and the mercy of Jesus. We are surrounded by the saints of history known and unknown – St. Francis and the small faithful farmer. We are surrounded by the saints of our families. You name them, your grandparents and aunts, your children who are with God shining with goodness. We are surrounded by the saints of Bradley Hills, those friends who built this church sacrificing that a new witness to Jesus Christ thrive in Bethesda. We are surrounded by saints who hope we will race well. They cheer us and demand that we catch the batons of peace, and hope, and prophecy. They whisper for us to drop our fear of ridicule and to speak of our faith. They whisper for us to drop our sins of financial insecurity and wanton wastefulness and to give more than we think we can. They whisper for us to cast off the things of our lives that hinder our movement so that we can catch the batons of faith and run wildly towards God’s Kingdom.
God’s saint-mob sees the great spiritual and physical resources available to us and calls us to use them boldly. They want us to join them someday with pride. They call us to be a cloud too. Be a cloud of might. Be a cloud that the powerful fear. Be a cloud that the hungry welcome. Be a cloud that shines forth God’s gospel that calls people to bow before God rather than security, popularity, comfort, and wealth. Be a cloud that welcomes the stranger. Be a cloud of life not death, of peace not violence, of hope not despair, of courage not fear, of sacrifice not selfishness. They urge us to run well, so that we too will become a great witness to the world.
Bradley Hills - someday we will all die and join the saint-mob, but for today let’s compete with them. Let’s make sure our legacy is one of great faith. No – even greater faith.
May it be so. Amen.
[1] Paul Tillich’s theories of essentialization include contemplation of God’s judgment. Humanity is not just simply stripped of it’s sinfulness. Tillich projects an afterlife with a human continuance of growth.
[2] Walter Brueggemann, Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayer of Walter Brueggemann, “On People Who Do ‘Great Things’”, pp41-47.
