Saints with a small "s"
In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we recognize All Saint’s Day!
What a beautiful prayer in our opening Collect:
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Mystical body – that’s an unusual term.
It comes from Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
who was the principle architect of the prayers and
liturgy found in the Church of England’s prayer book –
what would evolve into the American Book of Common Prayer
that we use today.
The Mystical Body of Christ refers to the church,
both the church that is visible and the church that is invisible.
It refers not to buildings and institutional structures,
But to the people – all the saints --who make up the Church.
All Saints means all baptized Christians.
Those who came before us, and those who are yet to come.
And it means the visible church of today—
You and me and our neighbors in Christ.
You may be a little shy about referring to yourself as a saint.
It might help if we think of those perhaps more obvious saints –
those whom the church formally recognizes
with feast days and special commemorations –
as Saints with a capital “S” -- and to think of the
rest of us as saints with a lowercase “s”.
Another way to differentiate is to think of “All Saints” as opposed to “All souls,”
A commemoration that specifically refers to those of us
who are a long way from living fully into our sainthood,
but who are equally members of the Christian family.
Did you know that every Sunday,
in fact every time we gather as a Church,
this place is packed to the rafters and beyond?
Even at 8 o’clock!
You and I are the Visible Church, present now with our physical bodies
But the full, Mystical Body – visible and invisible -- is right here with us.
The choir – is always huge – it is jam-packed
even when that choir stall looks empty to you and me.
In a few minutes, we will approach the table for Eucharist.
Marilyn will pray those familiar words,
inviting us to join “our voices with Angels and Archangels
and with all the company of heaven.”
Those words are not meant as a metaphor –
They mean that we are always in good company when we pray and sing.
Isn’t that fantastic?!
We are designed to live in community,
And once we are baptized, there is no escaping it.
We have been knit together in one communion
and one fellowship.
God calls us into community every day.
God made us this way.
In the Gospel lesson, Luke speaks to our communal nature.
His list of blessings and woes hints at our interdependence.
When we recognize our poverty – our need for God and
for each other, it is then that we are truly blessed.
One of the greatest gifts we can receive
Is the ability to utter these three words:
I need you.
On the other hand, being full, being convinced we need nothing,
means that we need not take the risk of living in community.
Self-sufficiency is a virtue in this culture. It is also isolating.
But even the strongest, most accomplished among us will,
at some point, come to see our poverty.
In that still, small space within, God calls each of us
to be in relationship with God
and with each other.
We are to learn from each other,
and challenge each other.
We hold each other up, and when necessary,
we carry each other.
It is impossible to be a Christian in isolation.
Today we have an opportunity to think about
those Saints who have inspired us.
We remember those early Christians
who paid a great price for our faith.
We remember this who have been martyred or
otherwise have given their lives throughout history
and throughout the world:
We remember St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr
St. Paul, St. Peter and all the apostles
Mary and Martha, and Mary Magdalene
We remember Jonathon Myrick Daniels, a seminarian
who was killed as he worked for Civil Rights.
We remember Julian of Norwich and
Hildegard of Bingen.
As a congregation, you routinely remember and
work in solidarity with Dorothy Day.
But what about those other saints?
The ones with a little “s.”
I like to think of people who have been kind –
sometimes in surprising ways.
We all have people we have run across,
whose selflessness is amazing.
One saint who has touched me and my family is Wesley,
a retired attorney inWinston-Salem,North Carolina.
When my grandmother – we used to call her Bangy,
because my brother coudn’t say Grandma –
when Bangy was in her late 80s and 90s,
Wesley would drop by and check on her each week.
He handled her meager estate needs pro bono,
And he helped to find people who could bring
her meals and clean her apartment.
He called my parents in Florida with regular updates.
Wesley was not related to us, and I never understood exactly
why he was so motivated to help my grandmother.
In the years following my grandmother’s death,
I had occasion to go to Winston-Salem on business.
On one of those trips I asked Wesley to meet me for lunch.
I wanted to thank him for his many kindnesses.
To be honest, I was also curious to find out what had motivated him.
“You have always been extraordinarily good to my grandmother, “
I told him, “But I’ve never understood why.”
The way he smiled at me, I could see a story brewing.
“I did those things because of all that your grandfather did for me.
That’s why.”
This was the first I’d heard of this.
Wesley went on to tell me how my grandfather Joe Joe
had sought him out, when he was a young boy.
Joe Joe was the band leader for the Home Moravian church
In Winston-Salem –
The Moravians have a very strong tradition of
incorporating lively music for worship and celebration.
Joe Joe was recruiting a band for a newly planted mission church
A few miles outside of the town limits.
He asked the young Wesley –
who was from a faithful Methodist family
if he would like to learn to play in the band.
Wesley admitted that he would,
but there was no money for an instrument.
Joe Joe returned a week later with a French horn
He had refurbished for Wesley,
And he began to teach him to play.
After Wesley had been playing with the
church band for a couple of years,
Joe Joe then tried to convince him
to go toReynoldsHigh SchoolinWinston-Salem–
where Joe Joe taught science -- rather than to attend
the poor rural high school nearer his home.
Wesley had never been anywhere other than Winston-Salem.
When Joe Joe told him that, if he would play
in theReynoldsHigh SchoolBand,
he would be able to take out-of-town trips
with the football team, Wesley was in!
He told me that,
because of my grandfather’s interest and encouragement,
he was the first in his family to go to college,
and then he went on toLawSchoolafter that.
I was moved by Wesley’s long-standing gratitude and thankful
to learn of my grandfather’s kindness.
My grandfather never talked about himself.
Although he was very good to me, I had no idea of
how far-reaching his kindness was.
He was the kind of man who simply did what was right and
loving without expecting or wanting any recognition.
One day at a time, he was living into his sainthood.
Some time after my visit with Wesley,
I returned to Winston-Salem for a family reunion at Easter.
On Holy Saturday morning, we gathered in the cemetery,
just behind theHomeMoravianChurch.
Together we scrubbed the graves of at least 40 ancestors.
It is a Moravian custom to scrub graves and
adorn them with fresh flowers in anticipation of the
Easter sunrise service, which is always held in the cemetery.
The small grave markers are all the same size,
to indicate that all the saints are equal in the eyes of God.
Also, the markers are placed flat on the ground
as a sign of our humility before God.
As we worked and told family legends on that chilly, Saturday morning,
the sound of the Moravian brass band,
playing familiar hymns, wafted through the air.
When I looked up at a high balcony that overlooked the cemetery,
who do you think I saw in the middle of that small ensemble?
None other than Wesley, now 70-something,
dutifully blowing on his French horn.
This morning is a time to give thanks for those saints
who have come before us and have touched our lives.
You are invited to think of someone who has touch your life
And, if you wish, to jot their name down on one of the
small white crosses you’ll find in the pews.
When you leave church today, in recognition of
the gift of community, we invite you to plant a cross
in the flower bed, and as you do, to
give thanks for that saint and for all who have touched or inspired you.
AMEN
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