“So Great a Cloud of Witnesses”
Hebrews 11:1-12;12:1-2
Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, Nov. 2, 2025
La Oroya, is a town high up in the Andes Mountains of Peru. I visited there in 2024 with a delegation from our Presbytery. The Andes are spectacularly beautiful, soaring thousands of feet into the sky, sometimes snow-capped, sometimes covered with green vegetation, sometimes showing fascinating multi-colored rock layers. Springs and rivulets of water splash down them – melted snow, or rainwater - forming small streams that become rivers as they descend, providing pure drinking water for people and animals alike. But not so in La Oroya. There the peaks are chalky white, denuded of trees and vegetation, broken shadows of their former splendor.
For over 100 years, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, and other ores have been mined and smelted at La Oroya. The process tore down the mountains and left a wasteland of toxic dust and polluted water. 99% of the children of La Oroya have unsafe levels of lead in their blood.
A side note – Presbyterians in St. Louis, Missouri, became concerned about what was happening there and were able to get a grant to study how the mining affected the health of the inhabitants, so that’s how we know about the lead.
Yet, even before U.S. Presbyterians became involved, a local mom, Toya, had an idea: planting trees. Some thirty-five years ago she began planting trees on one of the hillsides near the town. Soon, she gathered a few friends to go along. Her daughter Yolanda helped, too. Soon the mothers and their children were planting trees together. Those children grew up, but they kept on planting trees. Week in, week out, they planted. When they became adults, their children joined them in planting trees. Now there is a fourth generation of tree-planters in La Oroya. Over the decades, some 30,000 trees have been planted, all by hand, one tree at a time, all watered by hand until they took root, with water that had to be carried up the mountain in buckets, one bucket at a time. Now the mountainsides where they planted are green again. Birds sing there. You can breathe the fresh mountain air.
Not content to only teach their own children how to plant and nurture trees, the grandmothers and mothers of La Oroya started environmental clubs in the local schools, and now all of those kids are planting trees and learning how to take care of God’s creation. There is hope for a greener world after all. Long after Mama Toya is gone, her trees will remain, a testament to her faith and her hope for a better world for her descendants.
I give this example because hope and faith are nurtured by memory. Even after their grandmothers are long gone, these children will remember going up the mountain with their elders to plant trees. They will continue the tradition until La Oroya is once again a place of trees and clean water, birdsong and fresh air. What we learn from our parents and grand-parents, what we experienced together with them is not easily forgotten.
The Bible is also full of stories of memories being passed down through the generations, for example, the celebration of the Passover, as told in Exodus and Deuteronomy.
When the Hebrews escaped from slavery, Moses told them, “Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the Lord brought you out from there by the strength of His hand.” When they were about to reach the Promised Land, where they would settle and prosper, and even grow rich, he reminded them, “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors.”
And, there is the famous declaration, the Shema, which means “Listen!” the foundation of the Jewish faith: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.” In other words, remember the words I am teaching you this day,
and see that your children remember them as well.
Why does the Bible tell us so many times to remember – to remember and to pass on what God has done for us, and for our ancestors? Because we humans are so prone to forget. Psychologists have shown that negative memories stay with us longer than positive ones. In earlier times, our ancestors had to remember that a certain plant or snake was poisonous, or a particular cave was the lair of saber-toothed tigers, or they wouldn’t survive, so it makes sense that negative experiences are graven in our minds. Remembering positive experiences sometimes requires an effort.
Even Jesus’ disciples had trouble remembering what they had seen with their own eyes and touched with their own hands. In Matthew 16 they are concerned because they had no bread. Jesus reminds them, “You of little faith, why are you talking about having no bread? …Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how many baskets you gathered?” Jesus knew the human tendency to forget.
His last words in the Gospel of Matthew are “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Reading the Bible is a good way to remember what God has done. It is full of stories that strengthen our faith and give us hope. Hebrews 11 tells of Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, and many more heroes of the faith. As the writer says, “Time would fail me” to tell of them all: “who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness…”
Perhaps in your family there are memories of great heroes of the faith as well: my great-uncle, who built the church I grew up in, Joe’s father, who fought bravely in World War II and returned to become a respected elder in the church, and quieter heroes like my grandfather, a carpenter, who crafted the communion table and pulpit for the sanctuary. He didn’t talk much about his faith, but I remember seeing him often, sitting in his easy chair, reading the Bible.
He and my grandmother prayed for me and my brothers each day from the time we were born until they passed away. I like to think of them all in that great cloud of witnesses mentioned in our reading this morning. Like them, let us let us “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
Shortly we will have the opportunity to remember special people in our lives, those who came before us and have now joined that great cloud of witnesses. There is much we can learn from their lives and the heritage they passed down to us. Even if they were not perfect, there will be some lesson we can draw from their life.
In celebrating Communion, we will also have the opportunity to remember Jesus, “who, for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” Just as the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery was commemorated in the Passover meal, Jesus’ death for us is commemorated in the Last Supper. That supper was a Passover meal, celebrated with his disciples in the upper room.
Jesus gave new meaning to that ancient tradition when he took a loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me…This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
As we commemorate this All Saints Day, may we remember those who came before us and give thanks for their lives. And may all who come behind us find us faithful. Amen.
©Deborah Troester 2025