All Saints Sunday, November 2, 2008 “Series A”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, for all the saints, redeemed by the death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus the Christ, we give you thanks. For all those who have cared for us, nurtured us, shared their faith with us, and gave us an example of discipleship to follow, we give you thanks. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, inspires us to follow their example by passing the mantle of faith on to others, trusting in the timeless dimension of your redeeming grace and the hope of life eternal in your heavenly kingdom. This we ask, in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
I would like to begin by sharing a story with you that I had heard several years ago. It goes something like this. Emily and John had been married for even years, and Emily was growing increasingly concerned about the way their relationship was going. She believed that John was becoming less attentive to her, less appreciative of the things she did for him. Nothing seemed to please him anymore.
But Emily kept on trying to gain some expression from John that would reassure her of his love for her. And so, one morning she asked John what he would like for breakfast. He answered, “I’ll have orange juice, toast, coffee, and two eggs – one fried sunny side up, and the other one scrambled.”
Emily hurried into the kitchen and put her best effort into making a breakfast that would evoke some word of recognition from her husband. She went into the garden and picked fresh flowers for the table. She fixed her hair and put on her prettiest robe. She graced the table with lighted candles and her best linen. Then she called to the bedroom, “John, your breakfast is ready. Come and eat.”
John walked into the dining room and sat down. Emily stood beside him, waiting for the words of appreciation she longed to hear. John looked at his plate, then looked up at his wife and said, “Emily, you’ve done it again. You scrambled the wrong egg.”
I think we can agree that John’s response to Emily’s breakfast was not exactly what she wanted to hear. And perhaps, if John could avoid the frying pan colliding with his head long enough to convince Emily that he was only joking, that he really does, not only appreciate all that she does for him, but also her as a person, it could become an opportunity for growth in their relationship.
And I’m sure that Josie can resonate with this story, for I know that I have often failed to express my appreciation to her for all that she does for me, and to let her know how much I dearly love her. And this brings us to crux of the issue on this day that we celebrate the lives of All the Saints. None of us are perfect. In fact, if we can fail to express our love and appreciation for the persons closest to us in the life that we share together on this earth, how much easier it is to fail to live our lives in appreciation and love for God, and his gift of redeeming grace that we receive through Christ’s death and resurrection.
One of the famous statements of Luther, which has special meaning as we celebrate All Saints Sunday, is that we are, at the same time, both sinners and saints. Luther realized that being faithful disciples of Christ is always the goal, never the reality, as long as we live in this world.
Thus, Luther stated that as a Christian, he daily fought the battle against sin, that he recognized within himself, day in and day out, aspects of his life that were not as he thought God would desire. This manifest itself, not only in his lack of respect for God, but also in his relationship with those whom he loved.
But Luther also recognized, day in and day out, that God’s grace and forgiveness in Christ’s death and resurrection, was sufficient to overcome his guilt, that he might stand before God as a saint, redeemed by the blood of Christ. If there is any celebration in remembering the saints, in remembering those who have gone before us into the Church Triumphant, it rests not in our recognition of their sainthood, but in the sainthood they received through their faith in the crucified and risen Christ.
Just think of those great, historical saints, whom the church has honored for centuries. Think of the Apostles, Peter, James and John, who were arguably Jesus’ closest disciples during his earthly ministry. Peter would have prevented Jesus from accepting the cross for our redemption, yet when Jesus was arrested, he denied he even knew him – not once but three times.
James and John seemed to be more interested in obtaining political favor from Jesus, wanting to sit at his right and left hand when they thought he would bring about an earthly kingdom, failing to realizing the depth of our Lord’s ministry, and the sacrifice he would make for their redemption. Even Paul, who wrote close to half of the New Testament, and whose theology has shaped the Christian church to this day, once prided himself in persecuting those who believed in Christ.
And we could go on and on, throughout the pages of Scripture, and find that there was not one of those hallowed saints, that did not fail to truly love and express their appreciation to God, at some point in their lives, for all that God had done for them. Even the revered saints, not recorded in Scripture, such as Augustine, Mother Theresa, etc. have had their faults.
As we read and understand the lives of the saints, this is what gives each of us hope for the future. Through the lives of the saints, we come to understand that God, through the power of his Holy Spirit, can overlook our sin, and through the power of his Holy Spirit, enable us to witness to his redeeming grace in Jesus the Christ.
And so, today we remember, not only those great hallowed saints of years past, those who have contributed in a major way to the theological formation of Christ’s church, but also every individual, who through their faith and baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, have contributed to our own life of faith.
Although I have presided over the funerals of over 130 persons since becoming your pastor 21 years ago, this is the second time that we have not celebrated one of our members attaining the end of their journey of faith, and entering the church triumphant as a redeemed saint of God. But that does not diminish our remembrance of those whom we have lost and their contribution to our faith.
Given this, let me close with the following thought. The Festival of All Saints is really a celebration of the faith of the Christian Church. And as I think about the various church buildings that I have visited in Canada and the United States, there is one congregation that chose to uphold the promise of All Saints through its decision to remodel. The church that I am referring to is Trinity Lutheran Church in Wexford, on Brandt School Road.
Trinity Lutheran Church most likely started as a rural congregation, which has since seen the land surrounding it develop into one of the more modern and expensive suburban areas of the North Hills of Pittsburgh. As a result, membership in the congregation expanded, requiring additional seating for services. Trinity faced a difficult decision. To build a new nave attached to their education building, which was isolated from their nave by over 100 yards, or to do a limited expansion of their current nave, since it was completely surrounded by the church cemetery.
It surprised me what the decided. For against the logic of building a new nave attached to its educational building, which would have made it so much easier for those who attended Sunday school and worship to not have to go outside in the rain and cold months of the year to go from one building to the other, they decided to remodel their existing nave.
At issue was convenience versus symbolism. After years of debate, the congregation voted to expand its former worship space and preserve its unique identity of being completely surrounded by its cemetery. Their rationale was that their present congregation not only rested on the witness of the saints in Scripture to the grace of God in Jesus the Christ, but also through the witness of all who had contributed their own witness to the faith in the life of their congregation.
As one member put it to me, when I visited that congregation, no one can enter our building for worship, without walking past the graves of those who have served this congregation in the past. And on almost every Sunday, weather permitting, various people from our congregation can be seen standing before tombstones after the service, remembering those whom they have loved, and who have contributed to their faith.
Personally, I have to agree with the long-range planning committee, that it would be so meaningful to for us, at St. John’s, to invest in an outdoor collumbarium, in which the cremated ashes of our loved ones might be placed in a garden or meditative space next to the church, for us to remember their contribution to the life of our congregation. In fact, I would be the first to purchase a crypt.
Nevertheless, on this day we remember that all the saints, all those who have in one way or another, sinful though they be, who have been redeemed by God’s grace, and who have passed on to us the hope of our redemption.
For as John says in our second lesson, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; for that is what we are… Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him…”
Amen.
