Proper 15 Year C 8/17/2025
Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
There is one guarantee in life…
That at some point…
At some ordained time…
We will die… It is inevitable.
And, I believe, all of us want to be remembered by family and friends when we die.
We want to leave some kind of mark on this earth before our time is finished.
A friend was talking with three others and asked,
“When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning over you, what would you most like to hear them say about you?”
The one replied,
“I hope they mention that I was a great doctor and a family man.”
The second said,
“I hope they say I was a loving husband and father, and a devoted school teacher.”
The third friend thought very seriously for a moment and then said,
“I would like to hear them say…
‘LOOK! He’s moving! He’s still alive!’”
The well-known leadership expert John Maxwell states that there are three things that you leave behind when you die:
One is Souvenirs.
All the stuff we pick up from places we have visited and places that we have lived.
Souvenirs are a record of where someone travelled, what they enjoyed, what they did.
People also leave behind Trophies.
Trophies are a record of achievements…
Awards for hard work.
They, too, tell a bit of the story about a person’s life.
The third thing people leave behind is a Legacy.
Legacies are different than souvenirs and trophies because they don’t just leave a record of the past… legacies impact the present.
A legacy can be a gift to the next generation.
Like leaving an inheritance.
A gift to an endowment.
But when a legacy is created by a leader, it is more than money or possessions… it involves the passing of the leadership baton.
Legacies are often talked about…
Think of sports figures (like Jackie Robinson)…
Or business leaders (like John D. Rockefeller)…
Or a great politician (like Abraham Lincoln).
I’m not just talking about a good PR department…
But a true legacy.
Legacies are created by risk takers…
People who believed in what they were doing despite what “might happen.”
Our New Testament reading in Hebrews 11…
Our text and the whole chapter reads like a legacy list…
A legacy list of the heroes of the faith…
They made their mark on history and they made an impact on society.
By faith Abel sacrificed to God
By faith Noah constructed an Ark
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called
By faith Moses led the people out of Egypt
By faith Rahab helped the spies of Israel
All of these people left a legacy…
Hebrews 11 was carefully picked…
not just anyone in the Old Testament made the list.
But the stories do not end there…
the story of faith continues…
Imagine, what would the follow up chapters look like?
What if we continued on through the New Testament and then through the history of the Church?
By faith St. Thomas (sometimes called doubting Thomas) preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Persians, the Medes, and Parthians until his death all the way in India.
By faith St. Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India and translated the Gospel of Matthew into their own language.
By faith St. Andrew preached the Gospel until he was crucified on a X shaped cross – now known as the St. Andrew’s Cross.
By faith St. Peter preached to the Jews and the Gentiles until he was crucified upside down in Rome.
By faith St. Paul went all over the Roman Empire preaching the Gospel of Christ and writing almost half of the New Testament…
being faithful all the way to his martyrdom.
By faith St. John pastored the church in Ephesus and continued to preach even though he was tortured for his faith.
By faith Bishop Polycarp served the church in Smyrna and even just before his martyrdom where he was begged to recant because of his age his reply was, “86 years I have served God, and He never once wronged me. How can I blaspheme my King, who saved me?”
By faith Monica prayed for her son though he followed strange philosophies and lived an indulgent life.
Through 32 years of prayer God answered the mother’s cry and her son St. Augustine was converted and his writing became theological pillars in the church.
By faith St. Edward the Confessor avoided a civil war in England and brought awareness and strength to the church.
By faith John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English so that common people could read it and study it even though he was threatened with violence and eventually was martyred.
By faith Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg igniting the Reformation.
By faith Thomas Cranmer wrote the Book of Common prayer during the English Reformation and kept his faith in the most difficult of times under Queen Mary.
He too was eventually martyred.
By faith David Livingstone gave his life to the villages of Africa as a missionary.
He was found dead kneeling beside his cot in the early morning.
His body is buried in Westminster Abbey but his heart was buried under a Mpundu tree in Africa.
By faith Maude Cary a single woman gave 66 years to the mission work in Morocco.
She passed in 1967 with a small funeral, but gave her life in service to God.
And I have not time to mention William Carey, Elisabeth Elliot,
John Calvin, Thomas Becket, St. Patrick, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa and many, many, many others…
These heroes of our faith have a lasting legacy…
influencing people,
challenging the world’s perspectives,
being people of faith and walking in faithfulness.
This is not just a history…
This is our heritage…
Our story…
We are the offspring of the saints who have gone before us…
Who have walked by faith.
So what about us?
How do we leave a legacy?
The saints before us have a number of things in common:
They had a vibrant relationship with God… we can see this through their writings.
They focused their life on people…a legacy is only a legacy if it impacts people.
Because of their faith they sacrificed many things… everyone in Hebrews 11 sacrificed something.
Of course, the biggest legacy that has ever been left for humankind has been given by Jesus Christ.
Jesus walked by the Holy Spirit and prayed to the Father…
He knew the Holy Scriptures…
Jesus focused his time on people…
he was always teaching, healing, talking, and praying for people…
And he spent the bulk of his time with 12 disciples (who went on to transform the world)
Jesus also paid the ultimate sacrifice by giving up his life for our lives by dying on the cross.
And through the grace that God gives us in the sacrifice of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit we can live in faith and in faithfulness.
Knowing that we have received eternal life through faith in Jesus…
Knowing that we have a loving and caring eternal Father…
Knowing that the Holy Spirit is with us and will never leave us.
So this is where our faith is measured up…
this is where are faithfulness is in full view…
Listen to the next chapter of Hebrews…
The writer of Hebrews does not hold back in chapter 12…
(as paraphrased in The Message):
Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way,
all these veterans cheering us on?
It means we’d better get on with it.
Strip down, start running—and never quit!
No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.
Keep your eyes on Jesus,
who both began and finished this race we’re in.
Study how he did it.
Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever.
And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.
When you find yourselves flagging in your faith,
go over that story again,
item by item,
that long litany of hostility he plowed through.
That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
What a pep talk! Right?
This is our day – what legacy will we leave?
Will we cower in fear because of the news of the day?
Will we run to hoard our goods because of the economy?
Will we never step forward because all we see is our own faults, our weaknesses, and self-condemnation?
Putting away the things that bind us…
Resisting the things that could destroy us…
Pressing on toward the mark of the high calling of Jesus Christ…
Let us live by faith and impact the world around us…
Not that we can impact the world in our own abilities and might…
But because the Spirit of God within us – can use us – for His glory and for His purposes…
If you are a baptized believer, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.
You are an heir of the Almighty…
A child of God.
Let’s live in that reality… of who we are in Jesus Christ.
May we leave a legacy impacting the future for the sake of Jesus Christ.
Because with God all things are possible!
Amen.
