Sainthood
Transcribed from the sermon preached November 5, 2006
The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor
St. John’s Presbyterian Church
2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705
Telephone 510-845-6830 Fax 510-845-6837
office@stjohns.presbychurch.net http://www.stjohns.presbychurch.net
Scripture Readings: Ruth 1:1-18 Mark 12:28-34
My own personal Pentecost happened in Santiago Sacatepequez, Guatemala on El Dia De Los Muertos, the day of the dead. They have a huge kite flying festival in the graveyard. The graves of loved ones are covered with offerings; there are flowers and peanuts and firecrackers; children and women are in their most breathtaking huipiles, hand woven blouses and skirts. Five or six young men holding a rope run as fast as they can to lift huge kites into the sky. The sky is filled with a flying parade. Some are just fun, but other kite designs have cultural and spiritual significance.
The kites signify the spirit of the dead rising into the heavens, a triumphant human celebration of life in the midst of death. Sitting on top of a gravestone, the Holy Spirit lifted me up. The stone rolled away from Christ's tomb right there. Christ had risen and filled me with hope and light. I felt like All Saints means that by the grace of God we're all saints.
For All Saints Day, as Christians, we gather to remember and honor the faithful departed, and are reminded of the life we are called to live.
Peter Gomes writes:
In New Testament usage saints are those who aspire to the holiness of the Holy God whom they serve. Because the Holy Spirit dwells within them, they too are made holy. A saint, therefore, is one who reflects the sanctity of the God he or she serves: to be a saint in this sense is a sign not of perfection, but of fidelity." (Peter J. Gomes, "All Sinners, All Saints". The Christian Century, 1997)
In the Catholic tradition, particular saints are given particular days for commemoration, but on November 1, all saints, famous and anonymous, are remembered. These saints have fought the good fight, and we remember them, even those whose names are unknown to us. We remember certain saints, St. Nick, St Francis, Luther, Calvin Bartolome de las Casas, Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, Jane Addams, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Romero, Bach and so many others, and are called by our remembrance to join together to encourage and work together in faith.
Each of our heroes, mythical figures and exemplary leaders, promoted faith and virtue in their day. Each had a creative response to his or her time. I am often awed by the older generation before us, those whom Tom Brokaw called the greatest generation, those born between 1910 and 1930 who won WWII and built the country. It is this crew who built St. John's and still holds us afloat today. Sometimes I wonder whether or not we can fill their shoes. I think of Dick and Betty Hall, an engineer and a doctor, faithful Bears fans, ever faithful and generous to God and St. John's. After fifty years of dedicated service to St. John's, they no longer can make it to worship most Sundays; or Margo Wonder who lived next door for 70 years and was the first female elder, a pillar no longer here to support us. I have a sense of what the Israelites must have felt like when they heard the news that after 40 years of leading, Moses would not be making it into the promise land.
But God did raise up another leader. Though Joshua had big shoes to fill, and though Joshua's feet would always be a different shape than those of Moses, God would take the people onward. They could have faith in that. As professor Keen notes "Together, the responses men made to the circumstances of their time form the history that under girds our present condition. We listen to those elders whose voices are still within us, not because they give us answers to our questions, but because they give us courage to respond to the vocation of our moment of history."
And this is the other dimension of sainthood, one in which saints are the faithful all around us, people who have decided to step up and respond in faith to the here and now. In this sense the saint is not perfect, but faithfully accepts the baton brought by generations before, and by the grace of God, they give it their all. Peter Gomes again:
It is the immorality of the community of faith -- not the individual believer -- that is to be celebrated and to remain as a living witness to God. Fidelity is a corporate, communal act by which the community of faith is preserved. We understand this is the rabbinic response to the question, "Why does the Jew keep the law?" "It is not the Jew who keeps the law, it is the law which keeps the Jew." The faithful are those who understand this and perpetuate their understanding to posterity.
To some degree then we are like Ruth, saying to our forbearers, where you go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge, your people shall be my people, your god, my God.
Yet we cannot merely mimic the forms and responses of those who have come before, as if the laws that applied to their time will forever fit all our needs and the call of the Holy Spirit today. But there are principles at their base, which Jesus sums up in the text this morning. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and Love your neighbor as yourself." These are the laws that keep us on solid ground, and we can apply them to any time and place. As we join in the Church's mission, we commit ourselves to remain faithful to these laws. And since our interpretation and application will always fall short of the glory of God, we are saved by grace. It is by grace that we acknowledge that our children will have to make adjustments and redefine the faith we have passed onto them, even as we pray that they will hold onto these fundamentals as they look back and remember us. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul; love your neighbor as yourself; and remember, as witnessed in and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are saved by grace. By joining the Church we proclaim, it is not the Christian who keeps these laws of love and grace, it is the law and community of love and grace that keep the Christian. It is not we who believed in Jesus but he who first believed in us. Following in the faithful footsteps of love and grace of saints of every time and place, let us trust God will give us strength and creativity to step up to our moment of history and reflect the eternal and yet incarnate spirit of God.