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There’s a sign at the Winchester Cathedral in England which reads, “You are entering a conversation that began long before you were born and will continue long after you’re dead.”

This could well be said as we begin each and every worship service. It calls attention to our faith heritage and legacy. It reminds us that we are part of a timeless cloud of witnesses, generations past, present and to come that grapple with the demands and consequences of following Jesus.

This sign could also preface the story of any one of our lives. It could be the re-occurring chapter heading as we move from birth, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. “You are entering a conversation that began long before you were born and will continue long after you’re dead.” All things are connected, subtly or front and center.

This sign may well have been on a billboard as I entered Galesburg, Illinois last week. Treks to the hometown of one’s youth are generally a mixed bag. I was struck by how my own aging informs my musings as I traveled familiar brick and asphalt streets. I rejoiced when I graduated from the Blair size Galesburg Senior High, eager to move away from “Dodge.” I graduated one year ahead of Susan Henderson, our soon to be interim senior minister. What a small world, heh? We are Silver Streaks, a white Catholic and black Baptist. We have similar and different stories to tell of growing up in west central Illinois. We didn’t know one another but she kept her yearbook. I hope she can dig it out. Was Susan on the pom pom squad? Or maybe in drama?

This trip was to help mom further downsize to apartment living. She has successfully lived alone 4 years in the brick home she and Dad shared. It was time to get out from the responsibility of home ownership. Mom initiated the transition. She wanted to do it while she still could. What a gift to all of us – the stuff and the treasures would be sorted, given away or labeled for the recipient when she no longer needed it. (her words) Mom has taught and continues to teach me about living and dying. Her personality and nursing career embody the interconnectedness of life and death. We are surrounded by those who have gone before us and those who follow our passing. (I must have gone through 1,000 pictures chronicling one hundred years.)

Last Sunday was the Howe Reunion, a gathering of my mother’s family. My childhood memory of these park picnics is lawn chairs of old people, boring old people. This year the old people numbered a half dozen – a major reduction. They were my aunts, uncles and mom. My cousins present had young adult or almost young adult kids. Most are grandparents! The majority of attendees were under the age of twelve. We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses pointing to a future in which God also will act.

We were surrounded by a diminishing core that knew the stories and ancestors of our homesteader roots. Thankfully, a few of the old timers have collected names, dates and pictures into scrapbooks. In the scheme of things, I am becoming one of those old people, at least in the minds of the children. I am one of those paging through the scrapbooks, tracing the lineage of Minnie and Amos, John Henry and Victoria. In these lives are testimonies of faith. If not faith in God, faith in the human spirit.

Today’s New Testament scripture, the Letter to the Hebrews, begins with a litany reciting the famous and not so famous saints of the faith. We have Moses, Rahab, Samson and Samuel. We have Barak who is not the presidential candidate and Gideon who did not write the Bible. We have the many unnamed that died or suffered for their convictions. It is a paragraph frozen in a certain time but a paragraph that represents all time. It is a hard hitting reminder to those Jewish Christians struggling to keep the faith midst persecution and doubt to persevere. It is a reminder that many never live to see the promised land, whatever that might be. The journey was what mattered, how one dealt with the valleys as well as the mountaintops. It is a reminder to us that two things are certain – the suffering of the faithful, faith filled people and God’s steadfast presence.

This is a motivational letter urging the discouraged to persevere. To run the race that is set before us. From where does one get the strength? By looking to the hills; listening to the still strong voice within; recalling the saints, alive and dead, who have mentored us.

In Jeremiah, the boy prophet sounds a warning to those listening to false prophets, those misleading concerning the ways of Yahweh. Listen to the words of The Rev. Martha Sterne,

There was a land of great beauty and promise, flowing with milk and honey. The people formed a nation in the wilderness where strangers were shown hospitality. They came to build a holy land where children could laugh and play without danger and old people rest and remember in safety. They came to build a just community where the able could work for fair wages, the sick receive care and the frail eat their fill.

But the people forgot. They forgot that the good life in the promised land depends on promises made and kept to God and to each other. They forgot the first promise: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, which is tied to the second promise: Love your neighbor as yourself. They ignored these promises, which are not just religious lore, but are as much a part of the will and purpose of the Creator as DNA or the law of gravity or the speed of light.

And the ones who were supposed to remind them of the promises, the leaders, the priests, the ones to whom much had been given, they forgot too. And so there was no vision, and without a vision the people perish. The weak and poor and marginal perish first but not last, because anger and hopelessness mingle into rage and the perishing spreads.

Into the amnesia came the voices of prophets, those individuals who interpret the past, clarify the present and point to the future. And some of their voices spoke truth, although not whole, not seamless truth.

Nobody likes prophets; there are other, more soothing, more entertaining voices uttering less demanding words. These are the voices of dreams, claiming to speak the will of God but not holding the dreams up to the light of the promise; few people ask if the dreams speak to love of neighbor. Instead they listen to voices of blame raised against whoever is not the listener and voices of painless solutions saying peace when there is not peace, but only cheap grace.

These false prophets, soothing voices, seem to know God well. They preach god of a nearby, controllable presence. God is marketed as a manageable commodity. What can God do for you? versus What can you do for God?

Jeremiah heard something different and said so. The Lord says “Am I a God near by and not a God far off? Who can hide so that I cannot see them? Is not my word like fire? Is not my word like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” (I’d hammer out danger, I’d hammer out warning. I’d hammer out love between my brother and my sister, all over this land.)

Last Sunday in the words of Old Turtle, we heard what happens to the earth when the people forget. When people forget who gives us life, when we forget the one upon are lives depend, all creation suffers. Rousting us out of amnesia takes prophets and saints of the faith.

Our task is to remember. Our task is to remind ourselves and one another of the promises made to God. Remember? To love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And to love your neighbor as yourself.

Again in the words of Martha Sterne,

So we try to help each other remember the promises which are our way and our truth and our life. We try to help each other stop expecting faith to be soothing. We stop trying to mostly entertain each other in church and instead help each other find faith that will deepen into sacrificial love.

We try to help each other listen for truth. We remember the wisdom of humility, which is to claim not whole, seamless truth, but some truth, some vision of the common good.

Finally, we try to point each other toward life, the really good life. Can we imagine ourselves seeking together the good life in this land of promise? Can we see ourselves as a great cloud of witnesses, willing to run the race that is set before us, following Jesus, who is the pioneer and perfector of our faith? Through that dream is the way and the truth and the life of the One who is both very far away, beyond our grasping and very near, to hold us up and lead us on.

I think God is telling Christ Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, to be bold. In this time of leadership transition and renewed vision may we remember stress is a natural consequence of doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God. Always has been, always will.

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