It’s been a summer of people making long and arduous journeys.  Some of them are, frankly, a bit pointless and even rather crazy.  For example there’s the journey made by Ed Stafford, a former British army Captain who last week completed a rather long stroll.  It was the entire length of the Amazon River, actually; from its source high in the Peruvian Andes across Colombia and into Brazil to its entry into the Atlantic Ocean 4,200 miles later.  It took him 859 days, 50,000 mosquito bites, encounters with 15 foot caimans, anacondas as long as a bus, sickness and hunger.  But as he stood on the beach with the Ocean lapping against his feet he said, "I did it simply because no one has done it before.  It proves you can do anything — even if people say you cannot. I've proved that if you want something enough, you can do anything!"  Another rather eccentric Englishman is currently 10 months into a casual little bike ride, from London to Brisbane, Australia.  He plans to get there for a cricket match due to start on November 25^th.  His name is Oliver Broom and he’s cycling 15,600 miles across 20 countries.  The last I heard a week ago he was in Pakistan.  Before setting off last October he said, "I'm excited about going through the Middle East, Syria and Sudan - it'll be very exciting.  The toughest part will be keeping myself sane for 14 months in the saddle on my own.”  Well, frankly, I suspect that questions about Mr Broom’s sanity (or not) ended when he decided to cycle to Australia.  And just to show it’s not only those wacky Brits who are at it, a 14 year-old Dutch girl called Laura Dekker is about to set off on a trip around the planet in a 37-foot sailboat all alone.  It comes as no surprise that Laura was born on a boat, during a 7-year trip made by her parents, and she spent the first four years of her life at sea.  “I’m not afraid”, she said just before setting off.

Well, today our epistle reading talks about a journey.  Not a leisurely stroll or a gentle bike ride or a relaxing sail, but a run.  It’s the run of faith.  Often we talk about the journey of faith or the walk of faith, but the writer of Hebrews calls it a run.  He says, “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.”  Like the exploits of Ms Dekker and Messrs Broom and Stafford, the run of faith requires perseverance, discipline, and hard work.  Again like those three adventurers, if we’re going to take part in the ‘faith-run’ we are going to need to prepare ourselves for the rigors of the journey.  So he gives us some advice:

1          Lay aside every weight

The other night after Vacation Bible School I cycled home, and Cindy drove.  Now, my competitive streak can’t resist a challenge, so when I became aware that Cindy was on my tail I felt the uncontrollable urge to race her home.  So I stood up out of the saddle, built up speed, put the bike in top gear and sprinted as fast as I could up Pine Street.  Now at any point of course Cindy could have overtaken me, but she just pulled alongside and humoured my fragile ego.  When I got home she told me that I’d gone at 25 miles an hour, which I was pleased to tell her was the average speed they go in the Tour de France.  Any faster and I would have been breaking the speed limit!  Of course, I only did it for half a mile, and they do it round an entire country, including going up mountains that resemble the side of a house.  However, I did have my battered old bike (not the sleek featherweight machines they use); and I did have a rucksack on my back.  I don’t mean to brag, but we would never have even heard of Lance Armstrong if he’d had to ride my bust-up old bike and carry a rucksack on the Tour.  A heavy bike and a backpack would have been just too much weight.  That’s kind-of what the writer of Hebrews had in mind when he wrote this – let us lay aside every weight, or let us throw off everything that hinders us in our faith journey.  Now what specific things was he thinking of?  Well, I don’t know.  But I think I can guess at what it might mean for us today.  It would be things that are not bad, not what we’d call ‘sins’, but things that make it hard for us in our faith – the unnecessary stuff that causes us to take our eyes of Jesus.  Things like money, and the things it buys; hobbies and entertainment that might take up too much of our time; our over-attachments to our careers or our relationships.  And his advice is quite ruthless – lay these things aside if they are distracting you on your faith journey.

2          Lay aside the sin that clings so closely.

Now if the first instruction dealt with discarding good things that get in the way, this one is about bad things that derail us in our faith journeys.  And you don’t need me to list examples of sins; we all know our personal weaknesses and failings.  So this is an encouragement to address those shortcomings in our characters.  When was the last time you took an inventory of yourself, and faced those areas in your life where you struggle with temptation?  Perhaps God is calling some of us to do that afresh.

3          Run with perseverance.

The faith journey is not a sprint.  It’s a life-long process of becoming more like Christ.  We achieve it by making progress each day.  Some days it’s easier than others.  Some days we find prayer natural and are eager to read the Scriptures.  On these days we have a desire to do what we know God is asking of us.  On other days things aren’t as straightforward.  So it’s crucial when we experience those hard days that we remember that it won’t always be like that.  There will be another day with a fresh vision and new hope.

4          Look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

With many things in life we can’t really achieve our goals unless we are focused on them.  If Laura the Dutch sailor, or Oliver the cyclist, or Ed the Amazon walker had just set out from their starting point without a definite destination in mind and a clear idea of how to get there, they would not have made it successfully.   Well, they might have, but it would have been by luck.  And this is what Hebrews is getting at here.  The compass we have on the journey of faith is Christ.  When we keep our eyes on him, in other words keeping his example in our minds, we will make progress, little by little.

Now, the challenge may be long and arduous, it requires discipline and focus, but the epistle reading say we have some resources to help us.   The writer gives us three really good reasons why we can be throw off the things that hinder us and run the Christian race.  First, we have the example of Jesus.  Second, we also have the promise of joy and rest one day when we have finished the race of faith.  And we have a third resource to help us on the way.  We have a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.

He begins chapter 12 with, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us…” etc.  When you read a sentence that begins with the word ‘therefore’ you know that what comes next flows out of what you have just read.  And what we have just read in chapter 11 is a glorious list of God’s people who have lived and died for God.  Chapter 11 starts with some of the great Old Testament saints like Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses.  This is the Old Testament Hall of Fame.  Then, where our reading picks up this morning, some of the lesser known heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures – Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, plus the great King David and the prophet Samuel.  And then he refers to others who are too numerous to name, but still their names are known to God.  These are people before and after Christ who “shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight; women who received their dead by resurrection; others who 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.  They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.  They were people of whom the world was not worthy.”  And so after giving this long and moving description of God’s followers both before and after Christ who had suffered and died for their faith the writer says this, “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.”

I find that an inspiring thought.  We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.  People who have died in the Faith are watching us.  If we could be given the gift of supernatural vision so that we could see things we can’t see with our physical eyes then we’d see all those who have died in the faith watching us.  Look there’s St Paul, and there’s St Mary, and there’s Luther, and Mother Theresa, and there’s my granddad, and there’s my friend Steve.  And what are they doing?  They’re watching me, and they’re watching you.  And not in a bored or anxious way, either.  Neither are they looking disapprovingly at us waiting for us to mess up.  No, they’re cheering us on.  The saints are on our side and they’re our fans.  And although it’s not actually stated clearly in the Bible, many people in the Catholic and Anglican traditions have taught us that the dead saints are interceding on our behalf with God.

So the writer of Hebrews says think about this vast and mighty family of God that has gone before you and be inspired by their faith, their passion, and their sacrifice.  And with that thought firmly in your mind to urge you on and give you courage, throw off all that stuff that hinders you in your journey of faith and that sin that prevents you from living joyfully in your discipleship, and let’s run – free of the material baggage that weighs us down, released from guilty consciences that sap the life from our souls.  And run with a purpose.  With our eyes fixed on Jesus.