All Saints Sunday
Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12
Today’s 1st lesson from the book of Revelation
always sends a chill down my spine. I
read it at Joe’s funeral.
Joe was 40, a young man with a wife and 2 kids. He also had a very aggressive form of
cancer. I don’t remember exactly what
type it was but it had spread quickly.
Finally the doctor’s could not do anything else and they sent Joe home.
Now, Joe’s wife was a marginal member of the church. She used to be the organist but had left when
the town and church split over the local school closing. Joe’s father-in-law still came to
church. He was a very faithful man who
had nursed his wife through her battle with Alzehiemers:
a true gentleman. Joe and his father-in-law
were very close.
Now, Joe had not grown up in church. He knew about the faith by watching his wife
and by hearing his father-in-law. I’m
sure he attended his children’s confirmations but that was before my time.
I started visiting Joe, at the request of his wife. Joe was still mobile but slowed by a large
tumor around his abdomen and by his morphine pump. We alternated between sitting in comfortable
silence and talking about God.
What a joy when Joe decided to be baptized! He had been reading scripture and asking
questions. And he wanted to be assured
that God would be with him when he died.
So one bright Sunday morning Joe, in his wheelchair was
carefully carried up the steep steps of our old white frame church. He was in obvious pain from the journey but
had his morphine pump at his side. His
father-in-law, his son, and a few other men of the church had carried him as
carefully as possible.
“Joe, you are baptized in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit”. Baptized in the water of the font and by the tears of the entire
congregation.
Two weeks later Joe was once again carried up the steps of
the church. This time he felt no pain.
The same group of people gathered around his coffin: a child of God
going to stand upright before the throne of God. Going to a place where there is no more
hunger or thirst. Going to a place where the sun will not strike him not any scorching heat. And God wipes away every tear.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Joe is just one of the saints surrounding us today: one of the great cloud
of witnesses.
We also remember Rosa Parks today. A brave woman who was just tired, coming
home from work when she decided to sit in the front of the bus and changed the
course of civil rights in this country.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Today we remember our own family members and friends. We have had a lot of prayers this year for
loved ones who have died. Young people
killed in
Not because they were so good or perfect of faithful. I’m sure Rosa Parks had her bad days, her
trying times, and her failings; just as Joe did, just as you and I do.
All too often we still think of Saints as people who did
extraordinary things, people who could work miracles or convert thousands of
people.
But saints include humble folk like Joe: like the people on
your mind today. No big headlines, no
breaking news stories, no fancy funerals.
Saints include people living their lives as best they can: trusting that
God will use even their mistakes, even their failures.
Actually saints are also people who are full of doubts,
people like you and who wonder if God is real, who question the answers the
church gives, who
aren’t quiet sure that anyone answers our prayers.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
Yet we are numbered among the saints. We are counted among the children of
God. We are encouraged to live out of
our blessings; blessings given not to the wealthy, famous, controlling and
perfect.
But blessings given to the ordinary folks. The poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek,
the hungry and thirsty, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted: people who don’t make the
evening news or the top ten lists.
This list in Matthew doesn’t offer much to people who have it
all together and know where they are going with it.
But it is everything to those of us who sometimes doubt,
sometimes hurt, and sometimes trip up.
It is everything to people like Joe, baptized 2 weeks before he
died. It is everything to those of us
left behind.
God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, to perform miracles, to
because famous because of our faith.
God simply wants us to do the best we can, trusting that God
works through ordinary folk, even doubting folk, even you and me.
Sometimes a saint is acknowledged, like
And so today we remember the saints that have gone before
us: family and friends who have died. As
well as those whose names we never knew.
And we thank God for their lives. And we picture them around the throne of the
Lamb, no longer hungry or thirsty. The
tears of life wiped gently from their cheeks.
Then we go forward in faith, trusting in the blessings of
God as best we can. Doing our part to
share those blessings with the poor, the grieving, the meek, the hungry, the
merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the
persecuted.
For we too are saints. God’s saints. Part of the growing cloud
of witnesses. All
too often unaware that we too are touching lives and being the hands of God to
the world around us.
Simply saints, by the grace of God.