Luke 6:20-31
All Saints Sunday
Today is All Saints Sunday. Today we commemorate those who have died in the days since the last All Saints Sunday. Most of us today bring memories of someone we have loved,–a brother, a mother, a spouse, a friend. We gather together with hearts that grieve and fill with love, both at the same time.
This year, my heart gives thanks for St. Vernon. Vernon liked to help my husband train horses. It was during their training sessions that Griff found out Vernon could curse like a Marine. That’s probably because he was a Marine. I never saw, or heard, that side of him. I remember the feeling I got simply by standing near him. It was as if God’s grace flowed so heavily off of him that it splashed onto me. Vernon was God’s seed-planter, passing on mustard seeds about God and God’s grace that bloomed for me years later.
Vernon was 5’5”. He had brown hair, and a beard. Kids thought he was Jesus. Of course, the fact that they saw him in church, and that he was their pastor probably helped foster that perception. St. Vernon was a saint, not because he was a Marine or even because he was a pastor, but because, as Lutheran liturgical scholar Philip Pfatteicher explains:
Through Holy Baptism, each Christian is given a share in that passage from death to life and the transforming grace of God, and Christ’s resurrection becomes theirs. The saints are not like the heroes of the world who achieved fame through their own strength and courage and perseverance….They are people in whom the holy and life-giving Spirit of God is clearly at work.[1]
We cannot earn our way to sainthood through our good works. Lutherans believe that we are saints because of the relationship God initiates with us through our baptism. At the same time we are saints, we are also sinners. Simul justus et peccator, in Latin. One Lutheran theological dictionary, elaborates on this paradox:
Being at one and the same time who you think you are and who you really are….[This explains] why a good Christian like you can really want to be nicer to your stupid coworker, maybe even pull it off for a week or two, but eventually crack him upside the head anyway. The term effectively means that even though God has made you holy by saving you from yourself, you are still yourself….[2]
That we are saints is not about us, but rather about God’s ability to work through us sinners.[3] We don’t need to pretend to be perfect. Ordinary saints, ordinary sinners, conveying God’s grace and mercy.
Our church is beginning our sign-ups for the Community of Faith Mission, our service to shelter those who have no permanent home. Come and meet those who have little in the way of material goods. Sit with them, talk and listen to them, and you will find they are people without pretense. They are people who express their gratitude for simple things like a hot cup of coffee or a bowl of ice cream. Your conversations will be about football and grandchildren. They will ask you with genuine concern how your day has been so far, and to tell them about your family. You will see the face of Jesus in those who have no privilege. Whether or not they can express it explicitly, they convey their total dependence on God.
Maybe that’s why Jesus like to hang out with those whose life circumstances put them at the bottom of the social structure. He touched lepers, stayed at the house of a tax collector, and stood up for women of questionable employment. He told us to do the same, to visit people in prison, clothe the naked and feed the hungry. Where they are, Jesus is sure to be. They have a special place in God’s heart, and so Jesus calls them blessed.
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed are the single mothers struggling to care for their children.
Blessed are those who can’t bring themselves to get out of bed because of depression.
Blessed are those who are alone and lonely.
Blessed are those who hear the demons of drugs and alcohol calling them.
Blessed are those who feel they will never be good enough or smart enough or just plain enough.
Blessed are we when we care for those who will not bring us profit.
On this All Saints Sunday, we celebrate people who, through ordinary acts of love, show us the face of Jesus. We are united with them, and with all the saints who went before us through the body and blood of Christ. Gathered around the table, we join with all the baptized, sharing the words of blessing for God’s Holy Supper:
By the witness of your saints you show us the hope of our calling, and strengthen us to run the race set before us, that we may delight in your mercy and rejoice with them in glory. And so, with St. Stephen and all the saints, with the choirs of angels and all the hosts of heaven, we praise your name.
Blessed be the saints. Blessed be the sinners.
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin
[1] Pfatteicher, Philip H. New Book of Festivals & Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of Saints. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008. xiii.
[2] Jacobson, Rolf A., ed. {Crazy Talk}. Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 2008. 160.
[3] See Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book, particularly Chapter 1, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People. New York: Convergent Books, 2015.