If you want to run fast, I am told, you should find a way to compete in Bislett Stadium in Oslo, Norway. At the Bislett Stadium more track and field records have been broken than in any other place in the world. Well over 60 records have been broken in there … a remarkable statistic for a single athletic venue.

Runner and writer, Kenny Moore, proposes that the reason for this phenomenon – the difference between this stadium and others – is the proximity of the crowd.

The track is narrow, with only six lanes. The grandstand is so steep that the fans are practically on top of the runners. “The sound of 21,000 screaming maniacs rakes your reflexes,” writes Moore, “forcing you to keep your rhythm, the crowd’s rhythm, for one more stretch, one more turn. The frenzied fans keep you going.”

Tomorrow when the starting gun goes off in Hopkinton, 20,000 athletes will begin their long, 26.2 mile race to Boston. But they will not be alone. Five hundred thousand spectators will line the route. That’s twenty-five spectators for every one runner. The spectators will yell and cheer and urge the athletes on, on through Hell’s Alley, up and over Heartbreak Hill, and especially in the final stretch down Boylston Street when the finish line is in sight.

The fact is that we run faster and are challenged and inspired to do better and to achieve more when others are cheering us on. Running, like much of the very best of human endeavor, is a symbiotic thing. We are fundamentally social creatures. When we run – or, do whatever it is we are doing – we do it not only for ourselves, but for our team or family, for our nation or tribe … or even, for our world and for our God. Indeed, as Kenny Moore concludes from what he calls “the Bislett Effect”, “we are at our most majestic when we do for others.”

The Search Institute, a Minneapolis-based think-tank, has discovered the same phenomena relative to children and youth. Children and youth who are surrounded by supportive adults and peers – adults and peers who want them to succeed, who cheer them on, who give them encouragement – these young people are most likely to become healthy, contributing, thriving adults.

Through millions of interviews and social science research, the Search Institute has discovered 40 “developmental assets”. These are essential to raising successful young people. Half of those developmental assets are described as “external”. These are positive experiences young people receive from the world around them. Like the competitors in Bislett Stadium, this positive encouragement need not come (indeed, should not come) only from those whom young people know by name (i.e., not only from their own parents and aunts and uncles) but also from other adults: neighbors, teachers, coaches, mentors, tutors, church members, the grocer, the crossing-guard, and even from strangers.

In response to the encouragement of others, young people typically try harder, dig deeper, and do better.

Conversely, we who are spectators, are at our most majestic, when we urge on the young people of this world: the young of our neighborhoods, churches and communities: encouraging them, congratulating them, cheering them on.

William Shakespeare famously quipped that “all the world’s a stage and the people merely actors.” The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews uses a different metaphor. For him, all the world’s a stadium and all the people are runners.

The biblical writers were accustomed to watching Greek and Roman athletes train and compete. They admired their discipline and their grit in practicing and competing even when they were in pain. They admired the athletes’ respect and care for their bodies … as well as the athletes’ endurance and perseverance, their courage and stamina.

The biblical writers observed these qualities in local athletes and then compared the Christian life to the life of athletic competition: both require training, commitment, focus, courage, perseverance. As necessary as these are, however, they will add up to little if, at the end of the day, the athletes receive no encouragement or support from others.

The author of Hebrews writes to a community that is suffering and struggling. They are tired, weary, flagging, and ready to quit. And so he takes this community in their imagination to a sports arena. He drafts them as the final runners in a great relay race of faith.   He informs them that the baton has been passed on, from runner to runner, from the beginning of biblical history: from Abel to Enoch to Noah to Abraham … each runner handing it to the next. Now it is this community’s turn to run.

But they are not alone. The previous runners have taken their seats in the stadium. The community is surrounded by them … by this great cloud of witnesses and they are cheering them on, urging them to the finish line, willing them to complete the race, supporting and applauding them. It is this cloud of witnesses, this crowd of supporters, who give the runners the encouragement they need. They are running not only for themselves, but for their forebears, for the saints, apostles and martyrs who preceded them. They run for others. And is it when they are running for others that they rise to their highest potential, that they are at their most majestic.

We do not run this race alone.

Like the Bislett Stadium, this planet that we share and inhabit together, is remarkably small. We are crowded together on a beautiful and fragile planet. Although many of us are strangers; although we come from different places, speak different languages, worship different gods, we find ourselves in a small stadium with the opportunity and responsibility to cheer each other on, to support one another, to pray and work for each others’ successes.

In marathons there are competitors and spectators and, by and large, there is no confusing the two. But in the race of faith, in the contest of life, we are each both: spectator and participant. We are both encouraged by and, in our turn, we encourage others.

And so it is that Old South Church in Boston, one of the oldest churches in America, salutes the Boston Marathon, one of the oldest and greatest races in the world. Sport is a language that every culture and nation, every race and tongue can speak and understand. The Boston Marathon brings together people from across the globe in a peaceful competition that celebrates individual achievement without regard to nationality, class or caste.

The banners flying from our Tower and overlooking the finish line, are a salute to the race, to the athletes, and to the international spirit of sport. Another banner blesses the athletes in the words of the biblical prophet Isaiah: “May you run and not grow weary, walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40.31).
This morning we have blessed the athletes. We have acknowledged that no one runs or wheels the race alone … whether it be athletic competition, the maturation of young people, or our various races against disease, or addiction, or poverty, or loneliness, or grief, or any of the demons that haunt us by night. We do not run any of these races alone. We are surrounded, upheld and supported by a great cloud of witnesses, by those who have gone before us and by each other. We are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The congregation is now invited to sing, “Siyahamba,” a South African song about marching together in the light of God. In honor of the international spirit of the Boston Marathon, in honor of so many athletes from the continent of Africa, and in celebration of the beauty of the colors of the skins of God’s people, we will sing in the Zulu language. The choir will sing the first stanza in Zulu for us to hear. Then we will repeat it with them. Finally, we will end with the English translation.

As we curl our tongues around this unfamiliar and beautiful language, may our efforts to support, and cheer each other on, be blessed by God.
 

---

Copyright © 2005, Old South Church and by author.
Excerpts are permitted as long as full accreditation is made
to Old South Church and to the author.