“The Convoy”

Hebrews 12: 1-2     english standard version

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  †

NOT Going it alone

[radio static—voices break through: “Breaker, breaker, this is the Bandit looking for Captain Crunch—you got your ears on?” “Breaker 1-9 for 10-36—okay? What’s your 20—we got a cherry top taking pictures at 134 mile marker.”]

For a very short period of American cultural history, it was almost cool to be a trucker. Remember CB McCall? Did anyone have a CB in your car? [hands] For those of you born after the Carter administration, CB is short for Citizens’ Band radio. Long before cell phones, the CB was the only way to communicate from car to car while in traffic—a standard among truckers. Many of us little 4-wheelers got in on the game for one and the same reason: to avoid Smokeys (that’s Highway Patrol Officers, to you Millennials).

The fascinating thing about CBs is that they immediately translated the world of lonesome travel—of being a lone, defensive driver out there protecting yourself against the world—into a team, a community, a wagon train that could circle up at any moment to watch each other’s backs against those sneaky, pesky Highway Patrol officers greedy to catch speeders and fulfill their ticket quotas.

For those of us in normal cars (4-wheelers), those giant semi trucks that had long been considered obnoxious annoyances were now our friends, our Good Buddies who would help us in traffic. To mix metaphors with basketball terms, they could set up screens, block offenders and enable pick-and-rolls, by which we might bypass bad drivers or avoid radar detection. Truckers became our large, good guardians—loving big brothers on the wicked road.

There is certainly something to be said for not going it alone on the long, lonesome road of this life. It is good to be part of a convoy.

Getting into convoy

A convoy was a team—a group of vehicles in relatively close proximity, say within ten miles—who communicated on the same channel of the CB. Channel 19 was kind of a home base. Simple questions could be asked in the trucker code (and you had to use the code, because if you were to say, [affected, Mid-western Dad voice] “Excuse me, but can anyone out there tell me what time it is?” You would be met with absolute radio silence. No, you had to say, “Breaker 1-9 for a 10-36,” and it helped if you could affect something of a Texas drawl (and I would defy you not to do so). Back would come, “I got 14:26 good buddy.”

Good buddy? Ah, gratification!—you begin to feel like an insider—like you belong in the company of the road warriors. Again, you had friends on the road, so if you should get a flat, an engine breakdown, or just wanted to know if there was a decent choke & puke (that’s a restaurant) in the next town, you could get full reviews and knowledgeable advice—all from your CB.

Of course, now there’s Google Maps, Siri, Yelp, and Waze to answer these questions for you—all wondrously available in the ubiquitous Cloud, and all pronounced with the bloodless, robotic substitute for humanity we know as Siri or Alexa.

The CB community was like a small group—a local neighborhood of fellow drivers. The new voices from the Cloud once again keep us separated—each of us tending to our lonesome journey. 

A Great Cloud

Speaking of clouds, our text calls our attention to another community: a great “cloud of witnesses.” We might be expecting the word “crowd” instead of cloud, but we remember that so many of the early Christians went to early, violent deaths for their faith in Jesus.

The question we asked our new members today—Who is your Lord and Savior—does not originate in the church or with Christianity, but was the standard interrogation in the first-century Roman world. The question was as common as today’s “License and registration please” we hear from Smokeys…er, Highway Patrolmen. The stock answer—the expected answer—was “Caesar is my Lord and Savior.” The question was one of loyalty. Roman interrogators were on the watch for seditionists and rabble-rousers. They were after people who would disrespect their order. Those who followed Jesus heard the question as an invitation to idolatry, so they could not answer “Caesar.” Instead, they answered: “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” We use the same formula today to establish membership.

The difference is that in the first century, professing Jesus Christ as Lord was as likely as not a death warrant. The word “witness” is literally “martyr” in Greek. We are surrounded by a “cloud of martyrs.” Thousands upon thousands of Christians—as young as 12 and as old as 80—all of whom knew less about Jesus than you or I, but who had the Holy Spirit in them—all were slaughtered for their faith. These constitute OUR CLOUD, and they are not a crowd because they are not here.

The imagery in the text is Olympic. People running on a track, surrounded by the stands of spectators. We are the runners and are encouraged to “run with endurance” while the cloud of spectators looks on.

I probably should keep the driving analogies consistent, so think of NASCAR. We are on the track, driving the loop again and again as we race through our years on Earth, but the stands are jam-packed with fans—loving advocates cheering us on.

We know people in that cloud. Grandparents, parents (for some of us), departed friends and acquaintances, and all those saints of old who would not compromise their faith in Jesus for a few, temporary, worldly benefits.

Think of them—think of someone you know who was in Jesus that now is part of that crowd surrounding us, looking down on us, and cheering us on.

Who is it for you? A friend? A relative? A whole bunch of relatives? Church folk you’ve known for years? Can you imagine them for a moment? Can you see them, transformed and radiant with God’s reflected glory—even beyond the angelic—looking down at you, encouraging you?

Ever feel tired? Discouraged? Like you want to just give up? Ever feel doubtful or wrung-out by life? Then look with me to the stands for a moment—see their joyous, radiant faces and hear their cries:

Come on! Stay in there! You can do it!

You’re doing great!

Keep on—I know it seems hard, but it’s eternally worth it!

Never doubt. Never, ever doubt!

You’re winning—and you’re going to win HUGE—just believe and never quit!

What they are watching as we circle the track—what they are cheering on and celebrating with every fiber of their souls—is something we do not see at all; namely, the way we are being conformed into the image of Christ through all the hardship, blood, sweat, and tears.

Better Together

We do not run—or race—alone.

We cannot grow alone; we need each other.

You and I cannot achieve humility—we can’t make ourselves humble by effort.

We cannot make ourselves good by trying really hard. We cannot become more loving by pumping up our good intentions.

For all things, there is no human capacity for creating goodness. All goodness is God’s, and the only way we are grown at all is by attending to Commandment #1:

Love the Lord God with all your heart,
all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.

It is only by attending to God that we are changed. It is only by steeping our souls in the constant acknowledgement and praise of God’s goodness that we become anything other than self-absorbed.

All else is vanity. All our efforts, all our good works, all our loveliest, heartfelt,good intentions—all worthless, if they are not first grounded in our worship of the Lord.

The second commandment—loving our neighbors as ourselves—must ever remain second in priority. Many have tried to make it the first priority, but this is also is vanity,  because any love that does not issue from our acknowledgement that God is God remains a kind of self-love, albeit projected to others. 

Real love happens when we love God above all else. Only then do we come to value all that God has made as truly valuable. Only when we love God above all else can we begin to see and love more as God loves.

We are surrounded by a cloud of love. We are loved, and the knowledge of that love keeps us going, running with endurance.!

A Place to Belong

We acknowledge today that we never run alone even when we feel like we’re alone. The long drive of this life is not a solo run, but a convoy. We travel with others who are also beloved by God and cheered on by the cloud of witnesses.

We also confess the vanity of denominationalism. All denominations—including ours—are an ugly necessity of human vanity and fallenness.

Yes, I tell you in Jesus’ name: God hates denominationalism. He loves his churches, but his heart breaks at our lack of unity.

Granted, were we to attempt a “one world church” it would be equally disastrous, equally grievous to God’s heart, because it would be like a worldwide DMV.

We grieve that we must remain somewhat separated because of our own weaknesses, but we must profess and proclaim loudly our essential oneness in Christ. The table is all about that oneness.

There can be no Catholic table, no Baptist table, no Orthodox table, nor none Lutheran, Methodist, or Presbyterian—there can only be the table of Christ, or else it is a false table: idolatrous, heretical, and eternally toxic in vanity.

At least once a year, we must roundly proclaim that all who are in Jesus Christ—whatever denominational stripe—are one in Christ, and that our denominations are all to be grieved instead of celebrated.

Not to be a Debbie Downer here, but what I’ve seen of most of our institutions’ fervent efforts to reunite churches appear equally vain.

So God help us!

As we come to the table this World Communion Sunday, let’s remember for every communion Sunday that this table is not a Presbyterian table. It is Christ’s table.

We need to see this table with new eyes. We need to see the top of this table extending well off its ends, shooting out through the walls on either side, meeting and connecting with the table tops of every church in town. These tabled tops commingle, spread out, and gather across county lines, time zones, and oceans. Can you see it? Can you see this table as part of a fabulous tapestry—a worldwide network of tables that are represented by every denomination but named by none?

This is Christ’s table, and whenever we come to it, we sit with all who are in Christ.

THIS is our convoy, and denominations be damned! We are connected—a community of unity—unified by the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name. We are all Good Buddies, rolling down the road of this life together, cheered on by the celestial cloud/crowd, and racing with our eyes on The Lord—who alone is the author and perfecter of our faith.

Come on! let’s stay in there! We can do it!

We’re doing great!

Never doubt. Never, ever doubt!

.†