TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

[cappie]

This weekend is the Sydney 2016 city to surf fun run starting at the intersection of Park St and College St, alongside Hyde Park in Sydney's CBD before heading up William St and through the tunnel at Kings Cross. The finish line is on Queen Elizabeth Drive at the southern end of Bondi Pavilion. Very few have to run a marathon — participation is for fun. 

One person I know wrote:” I suppose it’s the finishing that really makes the difference.  The elite runners were crossing the finish line when I was about half way through the course.  They had about one hour to enjoy refreshments and rest, while I still had about 7kms of one foot in front of the other to reach my goal, and was wondering if I would really make it. But the beauty of the event is that for many of us, just finishing the race is the accomplishment, the goal.”

The author of the letter to the Hebrews asks us a similar question: Will we finish the race that is our life with faith? Will we persevere? Or will we run off course, or give up? And the race is hard. In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us, if we follow him, if we stand up for what is right, we will experience conflict.

The writer of Hebrews, like a good coach, gives four pieces of advice about how to finish the race. To finish the race: recall who surrounds us. Remove what ways down on us. Rely on strength within us. Remember who goes before us. Recall who surrounds us: “With so many witnesses in a great cloud.” The writer wants us to picture ourselves as athletes in an arena. As we strive toward our goal, to finish with faith, we run surrounded by people who have demonstrated faith — faith that persevered, people who by the grace of God overcame great obstacles, and finished the race. These are people of the Bible, the men and women of the Church throughout the ages, people known personally by you and by me whose witness encourages us. They are witnesses, people who have gone through what we struggle with, people whose testimonies of the strength God gave them can, in turn, give us strength and courage.  

Our coach tells us also to remove what weighs down on us “throw off everything that hinders us, especially the sin that clings so easily,” says our coach. Attitudes and actions, past behaviour and present entanglements can weigh us down. There are weights of sin and brokenness that we carry that cause us to stumble rather than sprint. We can set those weights down. God is ready to take them from us. God is ready to forgive and heal whatever we let get between us and God, whatever has come between us and other people, whatever wrongs we do to ourselves.

Our coach also tells us to rely on the strength within us. We are told to “keep running steadily in the race we have started.” When the going gets tough, when the road is difficult, obstacles come up around every bend, when every stretch of the road seems like another steep hill to climb, we can rely on spiritual resources within us — spiritual resources we develop in gathering with other Christians, in hearing and reading God’s word, in participating in the sacramental life of the church.

 Most important of all, remember who goes before us.  We can look “Let us not lose sight of Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which was still in the future, he endured the cross, disregarding the shamefulness of it, and from now on has taken his place at the right of God’s throne.”

We can and will finish the race strong in faith if we look to Jesus, if we keep our eyes focused on him, not being distracted by other things along the way that can cause us to lose our direction or footing and stumble. Jesus has gone before us, has shown us the way that leads to victory.  If we keep our eyes on Jesus and follow him, we will not only make a good beginning in faith we too will finish and win the race.

In the race of our life, we have people cheering us on. We have someone willing to take on our burdens. We can train for patient endurance. We have a guide who leads us and will not leave us.  Let us keep running until the prize is ours and we hear God say to us, “Well done!”