| The Present Culmination of Saints and Souls |
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The Present Culmination of Saints and
Souls
(Hebrews 11 and 12)
Douglas
S. Long
Few of our holidays are as intermingled and jumbled as this
past week’s have been… and a few days ago seems so long, perhaps you’ve
forgotten.
Wednesday was All Hallows Eve.
…which means Thursday was All Hallow's Day. A day to
recognize the hallowed ones of the Judeo-Christian history… All Saints Day. And
the next? Not everyone is recognized as a saint… Nov. 2nd is All
Soul’s Day. It was Friday.
Denise saw, while she was on 540 on Thursday on her way to
But in our current culture, the festivities of Halloween
have overshadowed these other holy days.
I say current culture
because the celebration of Halloween as we now practice it is both old and new.
I’ve mentioned before that some of the roots of going door to door hearken back
to centuries ago England where an impoverished person would ask for a cake, a
piece of bread, on behalf of a saint or deceased one. The belief was that a
saint could bless you if you gave to the poor on their memory…. or the poor
could pray for your dearly departed in exchange for some food.
…a soul cake.
Soul a soul a soul
cake, please good missus a soul cake, an apple a pear a plum, a cherry, any
good thing to make us all merry… one for Peter two for Paul, three for him who
made us all…
Hey ho, nobody home
So, on the one hand, the practice of going door to door is
quite old.
…And now that the merchandisers and marketers have gotten
hold of this All Hallow’s Eve holiday, we can be assured that it will be around
for a long, long time.
So All Hallows Eve leads to All Hallows Day. All Saints.
Christians have
given honor to heroes of the faith from the earliest days of the church. The liturgical calendar is, in fact, busy
with saints’ days, which often commemorate their martyrdom or death. But there are more martyrs than days of the
year, so in the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV established a collective day for all the Saints.
…But what about those who were not saints?
All Souls Day, celebrated Nov. 2nd,
in turn, was established 3 centuries later for all the departed— saintly
or not.
Dan Harrell, ever the effusive source of affirmation,
complimented me on one of my recent sermons. He said if it had been any better
the angels would have come and carried me away.
I assured Dan, that I was definitely not angel snatching material.
(Stick around me long enough and you’ll be convinced, too…
just in case you aren’t already.)
Few people want to be identified as angelic or saintly. In
fact, being called a ‘goody two shoes’ isn’t a compliment. Ministers are thought
to be different somehow. Try being a minister and going to a party sometime and
getting into a conversation with someone. It inevitably rolls around to
vocation.
“So, what do you do?” they ask.
“I’m a minister?”
And they say “No sh… Really?!”
And the conversation pretty much ends there.
So this week I went to a Halloween costume party… as a minister. Wore my robe and stole,
slicked my hair straight back. Another fellow came in dressed as a priest, with
a clergy collar and all. He had a partner with him dressed as an altar boy. The
two came up to me and complimented me on the authenticity of my robe and stole.
“Wow” they said. “Those look real! You must have ordered those online.”
I decided to come out of the clergy closet and said,
“Actually, they are real. I’m a
minister at [the party host’s] church.”
With very wide eyes and an audible gasp the faux priest
looked at the faux altar boy and said “We are so going to hell.”
Who knew going to the party as a minister could be so much
fun?
Saints and Souls… In
truth, we like our saints, but with a of an edge.
What I will suggest is that we don’t want to be saints but
we do want to be faithful and that is the very ticket to membership among those
whose lives are well lived…
If being a saint means perfectionism of act and spirit then
we don’t have much of a chance.
I’m not a saint in the sense of sinless... and neither are
you… and neither is anyone else...
present or past.
We have lust, and greed; we’ve squandered resources and, at
times, ignored those in need. We’ve lost our tempers and said insensitive
things... most of us have been guilty of those things and more this past week….
A few perhaps this morning!
And if you haven’t done any of that then there are other
'sins', other errors, and other acts of alienation that you have participated
in.
We are all imperfect.
We are not perfect people... but that doesn’t mean we
don’t want to be faithful. Nor does it mean that it is impossible for us... to
be faithful to God and to the Christ as best we can.
And I said earlier that it is our faithfulness that provides
our saintliness...
What kind of definition is that?
The writer of the Book of Hebrews gives an impressive list
of the faithful who have preceded his flock... not just their parents and
people they have known personally, but the heroes of the faith... the big
names... the superstars...
But why? Why does he (she? …we don't know who wrote it.)
offer this venerable list?
...because their greatness was not contingent on their own
supernatural powers,
not based on their incredible personal strengths,
not due to talents that lifted them heads and shoulders
above their contemporaries...
but it was their faith, their ability to trust and act upon
the power of God that lifted them to heroic status.
By faith… by faith…
This is only accentuated when you stop and consider that the
list includes, these heroes have among them...
murderers... Moses flat out murdered an Egyptian guard...
prostitutes... Rahab was not the socialite of
there were liars... Jacob, who stole his brother’s
birthright...
and adulterers...David... King David…
Heroes of faith... ...
But the list of heroes of faith is also a rogue’s gallery of
sorts...
murderers, prostitutes, liars, and adulterers…
...if any of you can top that I’d love for you to call me up
for a cup of coffee.
Why, we could join the community of
saints like that!
So what are we to do?…
Only this… live our lives faithfully.
In the film "Amistad"…I don’t know how many of you
saw it, but the movie “Amistad,” you may recall, is based on a true account in
the late 1830’s of a revolt that occurred on a slave ship crossing the
In truth, they had been captured in
… but they had been captured in
Before the trial began, the lawyer for the defense, the
former US president, John Quincy Adams questioned through an interpreter this
prince, Cinque, the leader of the ‘slaves,’ to see if he was truly prepared for
the literal and spiritual trial that was about to begin. Cinque's response:
"We will not be going into this alone.”
"No, of course we won't," the ex-president said,
"we will have RIGHT
on our side".
"I meant my ancestors.” Cinque said, “I will call into
the past - far back to the beginning of time and beg them to come and help me
at the judgment. I will reach back and draw them into me; and they must
come, for at this moment, I am the whole reason they have existed at all".
Is it not true for us as well?
These saints, these souls, our ancestors great and small are
with us and in us right now.
We
are a community that stretches through time carrying a story that is about us
but transcends us. We are simply the narrowest presence of that company. We are
stewards of the present moment but we are surrounded by a great cloud of
witnesses who are not only with us but also in us. They are a part of us. They
are our people.
The
clouds of witnesses who accompany us through time are the great figures of the
Bible, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Isaiah, and Elijah and all the prophets. The
cloud of witnesses who accompany us include Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary
Magdalene, and all the Apostles of the early church, the saints and martyrs,
the monks and mystics of earlier ages. We are a part of a great story that
reaches back through the eons of time and stretches forward into an unknown
future. It is the long story of women and men of faith, communities who have
defied the history of violence, who have resisted the powers of domination. Men
and women of faith from every age and culture who have been about the seemingly
impossible task of creating an alternative history founded on brotherhood,
sisterhood, justice, mutuality, sharing and compassion. That great old story is
made up of thousands of individuals and communities who lived and struggled who
hoped and dreamed, who tasted success and failure, who perhaps never knew or
were recognized for what they have given of themselves to the Realm of God.
On
this All Saints/All Souls Sunday, may we know that in our deepest struggles to
live and speak the truth, we are not alone. A great cloud of witnesses
surrounds us. We lay claim to their strength, their hope, and their courage in
order to live our faith more fully and passionately.
“I will call into the past - far back to the beginning of
time and beg them to come and help me at the judgment. I will reach back and
draw them into me; and they must come for at this moment, I am the whole
reason they have existed at all."
Amen.
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