All Saints Sunday, November 5,2006 “Series B”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for all your saints throughout the ages, both great and small – all who have revealed your word in faithfulness and who have enabled the proclamation of your redeeming grace in Jesus the Christ to be passed on from generation to generation. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, inspire us and give us courage to continue to witness to the message of the Gospel through our lives, so that it might continue to nurture faith for generations to come. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Mark Wegener suggested in his commentary that the celebration of All Saints Sunday embraces three different emphases. First, he said, The day can commemorate the ancient and famous saints whose lives of faith and good works still serve as an inspiration to Christian people of every age. Second, the day can be a time to remember close family members and friends who have died, especially the members of our congregation who have entered the church triumphant during the past year.
And finally, Wegener suggested that All Saints Sunday can celebrate the fact that all Christian people are truly saints, that the church is the people of God who have been made righteous and holy for Christ’s sake. [1] Of course, I don’t believe that Wegener is suggesting that we present day Christians are sinless, but rather that we have, as a result of our baptism and nurture in the Christian faith, been called to be disciples of Christ and witnesses to the redeeming grace of God active in our live.
Thus, before commenting on these three aspects of this festival of the church, we might consider the following illustration as a working definition of a saint. William H. Willimon, the former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, wrote that a friend had accompanied a father and his young son on a tour of that magnificent chapel. They walked up and down the aisles, taking in the beauty of the stained glass windows. The father then asked his young son, “Do you know who the saints are?” The young boy answered, “Sure, the saints are the people where the sun shines through.”
Dr. Willimon concluded, that this is not a bad definition of a saint. A saint is a person through whom the Son shines. [2]
With this in mind, let’s consider a few of those ancient and famous saints. Take Peter, for example. Jesus referred to him as “the rock.” And yet, he was anything but solid in his faith and trust of Jesus, until he came to experience our Lord, risen from the dead. He was always blurting out things before he thought them through. He even denied he knew Jesus the night Jesus was arrested.
Of course, the other disciples were not any different. They all failed to understand the significance of our Lord’s teachings, and they all cowered in fear behind locked doors, until they, too, came to experience Jesus risen from the dead. In fact, if you take a good and honest look at most of the persons who occupy the pages of the Bible, you will discover that they are very human individuals, who struggled with their faith. They were not much different than you and me.
And yet, through the power of God’s Spirit working through them, they gained the courage and power to rise above their weakness, and become witnesses to the grace of God, active in their lives. They became windows, through which Son of God could shine and illumine the lives of others, giving to us living today, hope and encouragement.
Think of Paul, another ancient saint. He actually persecuted those who had come to believe in Jesus as the Christ. He participated in the stoning of Stephen. And yet, through the power of God’s Spirit, Paul came to faith in the risen Christ, went on to spread the Gospel throughout most of the known world, and through his writings, has inspired many persons on how our faith in Christ might direct us in how we live our lives. He was a window, through which the Son of God could shine.
No, the ancient saints of the Bible, nor the saints in the generations since, were not such holy people, so different from us normal folk. Yet through their baptism and participation in the communion of Christ’s church, God’s Spirit was able to use them as windows through which God could nurture and inspire faith in others.
That is also true of the second aspect of this festival Sunday, as we pause to remember the lives of those closest to us, who have entered into the glory of the church triumphant this past year. I remember Ada Marie Kaufman, whom I must admit, I haven’t had much contact with for nearly ten years, since she moved in with her daughter and son-in-law, and worshiped with them at Christ Lutheran.
Ada Marie served in the military, and seemed to exhibit that sergeant disposition throughout her life. Yet she had a great respect for worship, was a member of the choir, the altar guild, and the worship and music committee. And she had no problem letting this private know when my creativity during worship may have reached the boundary of the respectability she believed was due our Lord.
I remember Annetta Eich, who taught this pastor a lot about the history of this community. She was a businesswoman, who also could speak her mind, and yet she cared deeply for worship and the fellowship of our congregation. She loved music, went out on her own to purchase the piano for our nave, and funded the erection of our pavilion. She also taught me about what it means to struggle with your faith, when one loses a child.
I remember Doris Long, who, up until her illness rarely missed a Sunday at worship. She was a quiet and humble person, who served our Lord in ways that few, including myself, ever knew. For several years, I thought that Doris was just really concerned about those on our prayer card each Sunday, as she would often ask me on the way out of worship if these persons were at home or in the hospital. Well, as I discovered, she was truly concerned about these persons, as I discovered that she sent cards to them on behalf of our congregation.
I remember Ed Vannosdel, who was with us for such a short period of time. I remember visiting with Helen and him, a short time after they had come to worship for a few times, and I felt as though I was being interrogated. As I came to discover, Ed had some difficult times with his previous church and the church cemetery where he worked. However, he was able to put that behind him, and during his relationship with us, he truly came to care for and love our congregation. He reminded me of a “Teddy Bear.” Ed came to think of us as his extended family, even to the point of surprising Helen on her birthday by inviting us all to celebrate with them by supplying a cake in her honor for our fellowship hour.
The truth is, that in many ways, these person have touched our lives as a congregation of Christ’s church. Regardless of their personalities and human frailties, which we all possess, God’s Spirit has enabled them to be windows through which God’s word and his grace has helped us to see and experience what it means to be a disciple of Christ. And because of their life among us, we have all been blessed and enriched in our faith.
And now we come to the final aspect of this festival of All Saints, the one in which we contemplate that we, too, as a result of our baptism and participation in Christ’s church, are, as Wegener stated it, “saints – that the church is the people of God who have been made righteous and holy for Christ’s sake.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but I have never thought of myself as a saint. I certainly have my faults and idiosyncrasies of being a human being that I am sure Josie would agree that make me less than purely righteous and holy in her own eyes, let alone, in God’s eyes. And yet, there have been times, in which God’s Spirit has enabled me to be a window, through which the Son of God has been able to shine on the lives of others.
And is this not what Luther proclaimed, in his understanding of the Gospel, that we, as Christians, are, at the same time, sinners and saints? There is not a person among us who can truly strive to be a saint, holy and righteous before God. But through the power of God’s Spirit working through us, God can, through our lives, open windows through which his law and saving grace in Christ can impact the lives of others. May God’s Spirit continue to enliven the church. Amen.
[1] New Proclamation, Year B, 2003, -Easter through Pentecost, Fortress Press, Minneapolis
[2] Pulpit Resource, vol. 25, October, November, December, Logos Productions Inc., 1997
