Sermon

All Saints Day

Scripture Text:

Ephesians 1:11-23

Sermon:

What does it mean to be a saint? Well, in part, I’m afraid, it means you have to be dead.

All Saints Day used to be for the great Christians saints who’d gone before us, and All Soul’s Day, the following day, was for everybody else who’d gone before us.  But over time, we’ve combined the two – remembering the great Christians of history and remembering the ordinary people we have known, who have touched us even though now they are not with us.

A saint can be a really mind-blowing person who’s influenced you in your life.  Someone who’s written books you love to read, someone famous who has inspired you from afar, someone who made a place for themselves in history.  But a saint can also be a very ordinary person who’s passed through your life and made you a better person in some way.  Who are some ordinary people in your life, who are no longer on this side of the kingdom, but who have had a deep, holy, and lasting effect on your life?  These people are treasures from God for us, and even though they’re no longer with us, in the Christian faith, we set aside special time to remember and celebrate them as our teachers and friends.
In the Christian life, we set a broad table for communion.

You may have noticed that in the Eucharistic Prayer here each Sunday, the priest makes some reference to those who are celebrating with us across space and time: angels, archangels, prophets, martyrs, apostles, all the saints, all the faithful of every generation… We don’t worship by ourselves; we are joined here by many faithful, every Sunday. Sometimes I think of our altar as a sort of elbow in space-time, where the continuum bends and space and time aren’t what they normally are – where we are joined with people of faith in all generations and times, and yet still in our time and space here.

My dad’s mother died of cancer just a few years before I was born.  My middle name is “Ruth,” her name, and my family decided that they wanted me to be baptized in the church where she and my grandfather were members: First Presbyterian Church of Hanover, Indiana.   Now, sometimes we clergy get it in our heads that we’d rather children be baptized in the church where they’re going to grow up, rather than in a church that belongs more to their grandparents.  And the pastor at First Presbyterian was the same way, and when my grandfather came to him to talk about a baptism for me, his granddaughter who lived in Chicago, the pastor suggested that perhaps my parents would want to find a home church in Chicago and have me baptized there.

But my grandfather got a little miffed, and he told the young pastor that this church had been very important to my grandmother, that she’d been an active and devoted member for many years, and that dang it, her granddaughter was going to be baptized here.

And so, the pastor said yes.  And I was baptized at the same church that had buried my grandmother and then, many years later, that buried my grandfather.

We don’t all have a direct connection between church and family in that way, and yet, we do.  We are in church here, and we are here with people who’ve gone before us, people who are worshipping all over the world, and people who are yet to come.

A church is a bend in time and space where ordinary people are doing extraordinary things that perhaps don’t seem very extraordinary. We come and sit here on Sunday mornings, and instead of being on the internet, watching TV, listening to our iPods, going to sports games, sleeping in, or whatever, we listen to a book with passages that are 2 and 3 thousand years old.  We sing music that you probably don’t hear in other places in your life.  We see each other, sometimes people who we only see here in this place.

We open ourselves to the presence of a God who we can’t see, hear, or touch the way we can another person, and yet a God who we have seen, heard, and touched through other people, through the words of scripture, through sitting in a place set apart like this one.  I think most people don’t realize how simple and peaceful it is to come to church on Sunday mornings. I wonder if more people knew about what a wonderful hour or two this could be in their weekend, what that would do in their lives?  It is so very simple, and yet it can also be so tremendous.

We sit with God, and we also sit with each other. We sit with saints who’ve gone before us, and we sit with saints-in-the-making: each other. We are here together, learning to be Christians.  In the passage we heard this morning from Ephesians, Paul calls the church: Christ’s body and Christ’s fullness.  We find Christ’s body and Christ’s fullness here.  This is the inheritance of the saints, according to Paul: finding Christ in the presence of one another.  I didn’t learn about Jesus or the greatness of God from my Grandma Ruth directly, but I know that that is part of my inheritance from her, from my family, and from my church community.  We are all Christ’s body.

The team that is leading our annual giving campaign chose a very wonderful scripture verse, from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:  For we are partners working together for God, and you are God’s field. You are God’s building.  (1 Cor. 3:9, GNS) When I hear this verse, I think of Christ’s body, and I think of St. Benedict.  I think of people learning, worshipping and working together:  to create our auction and dinner evening two weeks ago; to pack meals for Feed My Starving Children; to welcome pet owners and pets for a blessing on the Feast of St. Francis; to talk together with grace and gravity about race in our church and society; to work the field that is our big backyard and create a summer festival; to gather for outdoor worship, for festive meals, for study, for prayer, to teach our children about the faith, and to worship.

We are partners working together for God. We are God’s field. We are God’s building. We are growing together. St. Benedict’s children’s program is growing.  Our Sunday attendance is growing.  Our programs are growing.  I hope you, too, fel you’re growing in God because of this church.

And I hope you will consider making a pledge or a promise of a financial gift to St. Benedict for 2011.  Adam and I have made our pledge, and so have the members of the Bishop’s Committee.  We believe in what God is doing here, in the midst of all of us.  We are fed by the community here.  We see God at work here.  The ministry of St. Benedict exists because of the heart-felt and generous financial gifts of all of you; gifts that come in all shapes and sizes, but all with hope and joy in doing God’s work together.

The Bishop’s Committee and I ask that you consider and submit a financial pledge for 2011 by next Sunday to help St. Benedict continue to thrive.  It’s not about money, it’s about ministry, which in this day and age, happens to involve money.  We have a lot of information, on paper and on the website, to explain this process and where your money goes.  If you have any questions, please ask me, Joel Wegman, Vince Macikas, or Margaret Bauman.

We are a community of saints in this place, past, present, and yet to come, ancestors, friends, and children.  Beloved ones, acquaintances, and people who we have never met.  Let us continue to grow together, through Christ, to be the people – the saints –  God is calling us to be.

Amen.

Uploaded on November 7, 2010 in by RevHeidi

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