Saints

Ephesians 1: 15-22; Hebrews 11: 32-12: 2

FPC; 11-2-08

            At the church I served before coming here, there is an old, long-established cemetery that borders the church building on the east and north.  Dozens of  tombstone markers line the rows of gravesites.  Some of the dates and names were etched upon the stones in the 1800s; other markers display dates and names of people who have died recently. 

          In the pastor’s study, one window faces the back section of the cemetery and another one faces the front.  Often, usually while in a reflective mood, I got up from my desk chair, walked to one of those windows, stood and looked at the markers.  Like the writer of Hebrews, I conducted a roll call of the faithful.  The refrain of the writer was my own refrain as I gave God thanks for the life of God’s faithful servants who now have joined the church triumphant. 

          By faith a man named Thurman served as a loving and faithful husband and dedicated servant of Christ.

          By faith, a man named Lewis was a public servant of this county and a devoted servant of the Lord in his work as elder and in his love as brother, father and husband. 

           By faith a woman named Dannie nurtured her three sons and two daughters with a love that sought their well-being before her own. 

          For this All Saints Day observance, we recall the names of the saints and celebrate their legacy of Christian service. Today, we have our own roll call of the faithful.  Included are those whose accomplishments occupy the pages of church history and, also, those whose inconspicuous Christian deeds scarcely are noticed.  We remember Mother Teresa, for example, whose work with the lepers of India is well-documented and incomparable.  But we also remember people who quietly embody the Christian gospel in the workplace.   We remember St. Patrick and St. Paul.  But we also recall Christian parents who, without fanfare, live lives consistent with the faith they profess. 

          A young boy once visited a magnificent cathedral on a beautifully, clear day.  As the sun’s rays were streaming through the stained glass windows, the priest told the boy that the windows depicted the saints of the church.  As they looked at the windows, the priest asked the boy if he knew the saints.  The little boy, looking up at the beams of light blazing through the brilliant windows, said, “Yes, saints are the ones the sun shines through.”[1]

          If the light, who is Christ, shines in your life and through your life into the life of another person, you are counted among the saints. 

          If the prism of our lives refracts Christ’s love outwards to people in need-to the lonely and the rejected, the marginalized and the disenfranchised-then we are among the saints. 

          But even on our best days, it’s not easy. 

          Greed would have us store as much in our monetary silos as possible without even a sideways glance at the essential needs of our neighbors.

          Selfishness would have us look inward instead of outward; seek self-promotion instead of promoting efforts to lift up someone down on their luck or down on themselves. 

          Bitterness would direct us towards revenge even as the gospel calls us to be reconciled to one another. 

          It is not easy.

          The importance of an All Saints observance cannot be overstated; for in remembering the saints, we remember their Lord and all the sustaining and renewing acts the Lord performed in their lives.  We remember their Lord is our Lord, too.  Therefore, in faith we know that we are not abandoned to the winds of secularism and despair that sometimes howl in the empty places of our lives.  The Spirit of God moving in our day to day activities empowers us to live saintly lives, to care about people on the margins, to seek a life of dignity for all humanity and to impact people’s lives with our love. 

          The most meaningful All Saints’ Observance would have us, not only remember people whose baptism is now complete in death, but also contemplate how God’s baptismal grace is being poured upon the world through us. Let us  ponder what legacy we will leave for generations of Christians yet to come.        Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor who founded the Nobel Prize, was born in Stockholm (1833) and moved with his family to St. Petersburg, Russia when he was nine. His father was an engineer who made weapons for the Russian army. Alfred grew up thinking he might like to be a scientist too. As a young man, he moved back to Sweden and worked with his father at an explosives factory. . . . In 1867 he patented his greatest invention, which he called dynamite. Alfred became very wealthy and ran an international explosives empire. He continued to dream up new inventions all his life. He wrote, "If I come up with 300 ideas in a year, and only one of them is useful, I am content.”

          Nobel was known as a gloomy sort of person; he never married and he tended to keep to himself. He was called "a man nobody knew." Even though he invented a powerful new weapon, he later became an advocate for world peace. . . .In 1888 his brother Ludvig died and a French newspaper mistakenly reported Alfred's death instead. The obituary called him the "dynamite king." He read that he was a "merchant of death" who spent his life finding new ways to "mutate and kill." He was so upset to be leaving that kind of a legacy that he rewrote his will to establish a set of prizes celebrating the greatest achievements of humankind.[2] 

          What if by some editorial mistake a writer wrote your obituary, published it in the newspaper and you had the chance to read it; would you like what you read? 

          After delivering the roll call, the writer of Hebrews uses the metaphor of a foot race to speak of those who seek to live a saintly life.    

          The race is not easy.  Sometimes we stumble and fall.  But we never run the race alone.  As the one who is the pioneer of our faith, Jesus goes ahead of us.  He gives us a pace to follow and offers us a way to run the race.  But he also is alongside of us.  As the perfecter or finisher of our faith, he clasps his hand in ours, removes the weight of sin from us and raises our hands with his in victory as, together, we cross the finish line.  We never run the race alone.  And we never run the race in an empty stadium.  A great cloud of witnesses surrounds us, offers support, and encourages us to move onward. The cloud is made up of men and women of faith, men and women who have preceded us.  Looking to that cloud of witnesses, our faithfulness is encouraged by their faithfulness.[3]

          Who are some of the saints you recall today, people in the grandstands whose witness of devotion and faith encourages you to create a legacy of Christian discipleship?  Who are some of the people whose Christian example is molding you into the person Christ calls you to be?  

          As one preacher has said, “We don’t have to make up this faith as we go.  The saints will teach us, if we will listen.  And in gratitude, as we listen, recall all that [the saints] have done…knowing that we, too, can do the same.”[4]    

          Glory to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!