A Reflection for All Saints’ Sunday All Saints’ Episcopal Church,
Southern Shores, NC November 2, 2014 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
This is All Saints’ Sunday – so,
“Welcome Fellow Saints!” I can tell that some of you are wondering who I am
talking to. I am talking to every one of you in this room. Right now I can
sense some eye rolls as you are thinking, “He obviously doesn't know us that
well or he would not have confused us all with saints.” No, I am talking to all
of us in this room or who are reading this sermon online. We are saints.
Before I saw the movie Gone Girl,
I read the book, and one of the characters had a job writing those quizzes
in magazines. You know the ones - where
you answer a bunch of multiple choice questions and, when you add up your
answers, and the score will rank you on things like “Are you sexy enough?” or
“How good a friend are you?” or “How compatible is your fiancé with you?” or
some other such question. I thought I could make up a series of questions about
“Are you a Saint?” I figured that I could ask you all to stand up and then sit
down when you missed a question. I would then hand out Gold Stars to all those
who passed the test and offer remedial classes for those who had to sit down
early. I could do that on my last Sunday here because - believe me - if I did
it, it would indeed be my last Sunday here. However, I found that I am a little
late coming up with the questions – actually, more than a little late, for
Matthew remembered Jesus going through such a list in the Sermon on the
Mountain, the Gospel lesson for today.
“Blessed are those who are poor in
spirit”. Eugene Peterson translates “poor in spirit” as “when you are at the end
of your rope”. Anybody here have an idea of what it means to be at the end of
your rope? I remember what that was like, and I don't remember that I felt
particularly blessed at the time. I had just moved to Seminary and ended up in
the hospital for an operation. I was without medical insurance since I had quit
my job at the college at the end of the spring semester, so I was going to be
broke, behind in my schoolwork, and I felt foolish for being on the edge of
total failure in the name of religion. It is only when I looked back on it that
I was able to see that that was one of those crossroads which helped to define
my life. Since I was no longer in control, I had had to open myself to a future
where I needed not religion but God.
 |
| San Shoemaker (1893-1963) |
I am reminded of the First Step of
the 12 Step Program in which addicts have to admit to themselves that their
lives have become unmanageable. The Rev. Sam Shoemaker, the Rector of Calvary
Episcopal Church in New York City and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement
out of which AA grew, summarized the beginning of one's life in Christ. He said it occurs when the person who has
been struggling with and losing to sin finally says “God manage me; I can't
manage myself.”
“Blessed
are those who mourn” means to me that I have to be aware that I lost something
important. It could be that I lost people, or love, or opportunities, or
self-esteem; whatever was lost brought emptiness, an emptiness that I came to
be aware only God can fill.
“Blessed
are the meek” means to me that I do not have the strength to fix whatever I
have lost and I have to turn to a power greater than myself to help me get
through,
“Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” means to me not that I do
all sorts of “right” things, but that I need to be in a “right” relationship
with God. I use as my text the 60’s and 70’s vocal duo of Bill Medley and Bobby
Hatfield who called themselves the “Righteous Brothers”. The name meant not
that they were good people, but that they had a right relationship with the
music so that together they sang out of their souls rather than just hitting
the right notes. As I wrote this sermon I played again “You Lost that Loving
Feeling” and “Unchained Melody”, and I remembered why they were considered
righteous. I think it means to freely sing God's song out of our souls with God
and another person and not worry about the notes.
"Blessed
are the merciful” means to me the need to set aside my judgmental side. When I was
a college instructor, it was a regular happening that someone would come to me
just before the final paper was due and ask for more time because their aunt,
grandmother, dog, or cat had died, or they had been dumped by their boyfriend
or some such trauma. I did not always believe them or give mercy, but I did
usually give them an incomplete which would change to an “F” at the beginning
of the next semester. It was not mercy, it was just easier. Mercy was what I
received in Seminary as the financial aid people worked overtime for me to get
more scholarships and aid, while students gave me their notes for the first
week of classes that I missed. Mercy was what I did for myself as I forgave
myself for falling short of being in control.
"Blessed
are the pure in heart” brings to mind a reflection by Clarence Jordan, a farmer,
a Southern Baptist Preacher, Greek New Testament Scholar writing the Cotton Patch Gospels, and the founder in
1942 of Koinonia Farms in Southwest Georgia to work on economic justice and
racial reconciliation. “Now when
[people] attempt to live a double life spiritually, that is, to appear pure on
the outside but are not pure in the heart, they are anything but blessed. Their
conflicting loyalties make them wretched, confused, tense. And having to keep
their eyes on two masters at once makes them cross-eyed, and their vision is so
blurred that neither image is clear.”
"Blessed
are the peacemakers” means to me that, as children of God, everyone is related
to us and “in our family”. Peace begins in our hearts when we see all the
divisions between us and others as only apparent and not real. Dietrich
Bonhoeffer wrote in the Cost of
Discipleship, “The followers of Jesus have been called to peace. When he
called them they found their peace, for he is their peace. But now they are
told that they must not only have peace but make it. And to that end they
renounce all violence and tumult.”
"Blessed
are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake” means to me that, while we live in a world in which the
message of Jesus is either ignored or domesticated into a series of creeds
about Jesus or viewed as a “get out of hell free” card, being a follower is not
“business as usual”. We are to follow Jesus and proclaim a deeper truth in our
lives or, as the Baptismal covenant says, “loving your neighbor as yourself”
and “strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human
being.”
If this had been a quiz, I would
barely have gotten a passing score. A friend of mine and former member of this
church, Albert Killingsworth, explained why he was attending a Bible Study
class. “I am just cramming for the finals.” We are all sinners in the process
of being saints. “Saints” does not mean someone who is
especially good; there is no one – no, not one - who is especially good. We are
all schmucks who need something greater than ourselves.
This is poem
I wrote for this reflection – I will not read it out loud at the service but I
find it helpful for my own understanding on what I was thinking about when I
wrote the sermon.
Singing With All of the All Saints
Singing with all of the All Saints,
We schmucks filled with empty
longing,
Not for religion but for the
loving God,
Knowing our own strength is lacking.
We, schmucks filled with empty
longing,
On days we cannot manage ourselves,
Knowing our own strength is lacking.
But unearned mercy pours over us
On days we cannot manage ourselves.
Our divisions more apparent than
real
With unearned mercy pouring over us
Cramming for finals by singing God's
song.
Our divisions more apparent than
real
In our religions, but not for loving
God.
Cramming for finals by singing God's
song
Singing with all of the All Saints
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