Revelation 21:1-6; John 11:32-44
“All Saints Day: Saints Among Us”
Last night was Halloween; today is All Saints Day, tomorrow is All Souls Day. No explanation is needed for the first, the second and third perhaps. All Souls Day is for remembering those who have died this past year, All Saints Day is for remembering the saints, all Christian people of every time and place. These three days have their roots in an ancient Celtic festival during which time the veil between worlds became especially porous. So then, in that spirit, we are invited to consider both the past and the present today – and those ‘saints’ who have helped open to us God’s kingdom.
I hope this service has a little of that sense for you – with the veil becoming less opaque as our souls are touched – by the lighting of candles, the quiet time, the prayer, the listening, and the remembering “the saints” who have impacted our lives over the years. With every part of this service today, may another memory of those who have passed through the thin, thin place be yours. And as we remember, may they linger a bit longer that, in a gathering of good spirits, we might still be connected.
Today’s scripture affirms that God's future happens also here and now and in all kinds of ways. In Revelation, John sees a “new Jerusalem.” Robert Gundry interprets “the New Jerusalem” not as a future dwelling place, but rather as their future selves and state. He sees a people as they will be, living a “kingdom” life, close to God. Might these be the saints we recognize today?
Matthew Muters, in his commentary of the story of Lazarus found in John, offers the idea that Jesus calls each of us to "come out" from our tomb (whatever has entombed us) and to be freed from the power of Death. He said, “Lazarus' resurrection was a sign of Gods Power and presence in this world. It was the power of the Kingdom in the here and now!” Those who have heard the call and have come out of their tombs have been given a “kingdom” life worth living. Might these be the saints we recognize today?
Still not sure who these saints might be? Then listen to what others, a lot smarter than me, have said.
1.
all day, every day (c) 2009 by Thom M. Shuman
st. lucy stopped for a moment
while she rested her arms and legs
from pushing her little
brother down the sidewalk in his electric car whose
battery had run down;
stroking Dusty's nose,
her eyes shimmered with delight
and she exploded in a giggle,
'you're a silly dog!'
when he suddenly baptized her
with a sloppy kiss.
pausing for a few moments
from helping his elderly neighbor,
st. chuck leaned on his rake,
smiling as his grandkids,
eagerly and deliberately
scattered the leaves he had
spent all afternoon carefully
piling by the curb,
whispering, 'what a life!'
slowly, painstakingly, as if
she were joining together a puzzle,
differently-abled st. jennifer
put each item in its place
in the cloth bags,
not making them too heavy
(as the customer requested)
making sure the bread
ended up on top,
and nothing too heavy
was near the eggs.
they're all around us, aren't they,
those precious drops of grace
sprinkled in our lives?
2.
'All the places of our lives are sanctuaries; some of them
just happen to have steeples. And all the people in our lives
are saints; it's just that some of them have day jobs and most
will never have feast days named for them.' (Robert Benson)
3.
'There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found
who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do
in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers. . .
even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen.
And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating,
petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment
with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.'
(Abraham Maslow)
4.
'In God's holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops
a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.'
(Frederick Buechner)
5.
'A person can be as truly a saint in a factory as in monastery,
and there is as much need of one in the first as in the other.'
(Robert McCracken)
6.
'Saints are not born to it
Except most rarely
Nor by default do they come to God having no other choice.
But rather, like sunflowers do they grow and turn,
Following the course of God with upturned faces,
Growing each day taller, stronger, more resistant to the wind of the world
and even in the times without sun
They wait, turned toward dawn, knowing the promise of light.
In their holy simplicity, the saints of God remember what I forget too easily:
That having found the Son, the source of life,
All other light, however strong, is not enough.' (Anne Squire-Buresh)
May today be a day of remembering the saints in our lives, but more importantly may it be a day of imagining our own sainthood, and what that might mean for others.
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