All Saints Sunday
Revelation 21:1-6a
"Who is a saint"
21:1 ¶ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband;
3 and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."
5 And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."
6 And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end."
Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour who is the Christ. Amen
All Saints Sunday may mean different things to different people. If we were in a Roman Catholic Church we would reading about the Pope this week making Mother Teresa ready for sainthood. For some the word saint means someone who has led a Godly life far surpassing the average church person. Others, but think of the saints in the Bible, St. Paul, St. John, etc.
But I think the definition that fits us as Lutherans comes from a little child.
A small child who had for some time observed the sun shining through the stained glass windows of the church sanctuary. There he had seen brilliantly illuminated the colored forms of evangelists, patriarchs, and prophets. When his Sunday school teacher asked him to tell who the saints were, it was altogether logical that he should say, "Saints are men the light shines through "
Yes, for us as Lutherans that phrase is correct, for Saints, you and I who are believers in Christ are saints. A saint is a believer.
Our second lesson speaks about belief as one who is in Christ.
"Behold, I make all things new." " I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end"
As believers in Christ we are made new through our Baptism and that means that Jesus is the beginning and the end of our lives. Our lives begin in Christ in our Baptism and they end in Christ when we dwell in the heavenly home he has prepared for us.
We are saints who have the light of Christ in our lives and that makes us new. We are new people in Christ as we are part of the body of Christ the church. We cannot be the saints of Christ a part from the church. For the church is the body of Christ and we are members of it.
As we gather together as the body of Christ, we help each other in our faith life.
It is like the trees in the following:
The huge redwood trees of California amaze mankind. They are the largest living things on earth and the tallest trees in the world. Some of them are 300 feet high and over 2,500 years old. One would think that trees so large must have a tremendous root system that reaches down hundreds of feet into the earth. But not so! The redwoods have a very shallow root system. The redwoods root system all intertwine. They are locked to each other. When the storms come, the winds blow, and the lightning flashes, the redwoods still stand. They are locked to each other. They are not alone for all the trees support and protect each other.
Each tree is important to all the other trees in the grove. In the Church, fellowship with one another and with Christ. Without Christ, the church is nothing. Without fellowship, the church is useless. By our love, we must show the world the difference Jesus makes!
In the church we are intertwined with each other at the very core of our being through the body and blood of Jesus Christ. That intertwining is what holds the church together and what gives us at saints the courage to live our lives.
In his book"`Life Together" Dietrick Bonhoeffer says on page 23
"God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother/sister, in the mouth of a man/ woman. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him/her. He/she needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he can’t help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother, his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure."
According to Bonhoeffer we need each other’s faith so our will remain strong or when it does falter, someone will be there to help it get on the right track.
Not only are saints people who the light of Christ shine through, but saints are people who reach out a hand of hope, courage, love and faith to another saint.
But not only do we reach out to another saint, but we reach out to those who have not found the love of Christ in their lives. As Luther says we are to be little Christ’s to one another.We are to extend the hand of Christ to our brother/sister saint and to those who would become saints.
The following poem says it well:
WHAT IS A Saint?
A saint is a sign of contradiction - a living symbol of the Cross.
He or she is a person who:
believes the unbelievable,
bears the unbearable,
forgives the unforgivable,
loves the unlovable,
is perfectly happy not to be perfect,
is willing to give up his or her will,
becomes weak to be strong ...
and finds love by giving it away.
We who are saints are people who reach one hand up to the Lord so that we may always be in His grace and we reach another out, out toward those who stand next to us in the body of Christ, the church and to those who are not here but who could be it we reach out a hand to them.
As Bonhoeffer says, Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him/her. We need one another so that we can believe the unbelievable, bear the unbearable, forgive the unforgivable and love the unlovable.
We need each other to remind ourselves who we are. This reminds me of something I heard many years ago.
Many years ago my family and I attended an Institute for Renewal at Luther College, one of the morning speakers was Dr. William Willimon who is a pastor and a professor at a southern seminary. During his talks, which were always good, he mentioned something his mother always told him when he was leaving home for a date, or to go to a party, or out with the boys, or to meet a group of people to find something to do, she said,"Will, don’t forget who you are."
What did Dr. Willimon’s mother mean by that phrase? Surely, she didn’t think her son would forget his name, or where he lived, or who, his parents were? Hardly, she was reminding him that alone on a date, in the midst of some party, or in the presence of some strangers, or fooling around with a group of boys, he might forget who he was. She knew he might in a moment of fun, under pressure of his peers, in an effort to be accepted and approved by the group, he might forget who he was.
He might forget the values, the priorities, the faith, the discipline, the love, the acceptance that he had received from his parents and from his God. She knew he might be persuaded to take on a another name, to add to his identity by doing something in a moment that he might regret later, so she told her son whenever he left the house, "Will, remember who you are"
Remember who you are is a good slogan for us as saints of God. Remember who you are as you reach out a hand to a neighbor, or to a fellow saint. Remember who you are a person who the light of Christ shines through. Remember who you are as Luther says, a little Christ to those around you.
A closing story sums this all up very well.
Listen:
There was a monastery, a religious community, that had fallen into hard times. Once a great order, it was now but a fraction of the size it once had been. Now there were only five members left, all of them over seventy in age. It was obviously just a matter of time until their community would die out completely.
In the woods surrounding the monastery there was a hut that a preacher from a nearby town occasionally used as a retreat. It seems the members always knew when the preacher was there. As the leader, the abbot, of the monastery agonized over the future looming large on their horizon, it occurred to the abbot to go visit this preacher at his place of retreat. Perhaps he could offer some word of advice to save the monastery.
When the abbot arrived he was warmly greeted and welcomed. The abbot explained the purpose of his trip. The preacher could only commiserate with him. "I know how it is. The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no-one comes to church anymore."
The abbot and the preacher wept and prayed together. They read portions of the Bible together. They quietly spoke of deep things. Finally the time came for the abbot to leave, to return to the monastery for evening services. The embraced, and agreed that they had experienced a blessing in this meeting. The abbot asked once more: "Is there anything you can tell me, any piece of advice that might help me in my work?"
The preacher responded, "No, I am sorry. I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."
When the abbot returned to the monastery his brothers gathered around to ask what he learned. "We wept. We prayed. We read the Bible. The only thing he said was just as I was leaving, something cryptic. He said that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant." They were all disappointed that the preacher had offered no helpful advice; And they were all puzzled by this riddle.
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this riddle, and wondered what it could mean. The messiah is one of US? Could he possibly have meant one of us five here at the monastery? If that is the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? If he meant anyone, he must have meant the Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation.
On the other hand, he might have meant brother Thomas. Certainly Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows and respects Brother Thomas’ keen spirituality and insight.
Certainly he could not have meant brother Elred. Elred gets crotchety at times. But when you look back on it, Elred is almost always right. Often VERY right. Maybe the preacher did mean Brother Elred.
But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. Maybe Phillip is the messiah.
Of course, the preacher couldn’t have meant me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I am just an ordinary person. But, what if he DID mean me? Suppose I am the messiah, the one to save our monastery. O God, not me. I couldn’t possibly do or be that important, could I?
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one among them might really be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
Now, because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people did still occasionally come to visit the monastery, to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of the paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated sanctuary of the chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks, and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently -- to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring friends to show them this very special place. Their friends also brought their own friends. And so forth.
Some of the younger men who came to visit started talking more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. Then another. Within a few years, the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the preacher’s gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in that area. (Note below)
Saints are people who the light of Christ shines through so they maybe be little Christ’s to one another.
Amen
Note:
This parable has been around for a while, (the setting seems to be post-Renaissance), and exists in several versions. I have edited the parable slightly, from the version presented in the preface in _The_Different_Drum_. Touchstone Books, 1987.
From a sermon by Dave Hodsdon
