november 1, 2009

Anna Blaedel
First UMC, Osage
November 1, 2009
All Saints Sunday/Celebration of Communion


One of you slipped something under the door to my office this past week. I don’t know who it was, but I have my hunches… Here’s the story, written on the pages left for me to find.

A pastor was finishing up his sermon, and was getting pretty worked up. The sermon was on sin and temptation, and the pastor was the kind of pastor to get pretty excited about sin and temptation. With great emphasis he said, “If I had all the beer in the world, I’d take it and pour it into the river…Be rid of it! Get it out of here!”

And then, he was off his script now, and really fired up, he said, “And if I had all the wine in the world, I’d take it and pour it into the river…Be rid of it! Get it out of here!”

And then, he was almost shouting by now, and shaking his fist in the air, he said, “And if I had all the whiskey in the world I’d take it and pour it into the river…Be rid of it! Get it out of here!”

And with that, he finished his sermon, said “Amen,” and sack back down feeling pretty satisfied with himself. The song leader stood up, looking a little nervous, then smiling, then almost laughing, and announced, “And now, please rise to sing hymn #732, “Shall We Gather at the River.”

That song leader was no saint. That preacher, whether he admitted it or not, was no saint. This preacher is no saint. None of us are saints. If. IF. IF. By saint we mean perfect. If by saint we mean above mistake. If by saint we mean without failing or fault. If by saint we mean holier than thou, superhuman. None of us. NONE OF US are perfect. All of us. ALL OF US have room to grow in love and faith and compassion and just-relationship.

Many of you have objected when I have called you saints. Saints of the church. Saints of God. “But I’m no saint,” you say, and I think I understand what you mean. Not perfect. Not without room to grow. Not without work still to be done. But saints, nonetheless.

Cindy McCalmont, a pastor and colleague and mentor and friend of mine defined saint this way: ordinary people, occasionally rising up to great heights to do extraordinary things. Ordinary people, occasionally, every once in a while, when needed, rising up to great heights to do extraordinary things.

Today is All Saint Sunday. A liturgical holiday set aside for remembering and honoring the saints who have gone before—the friends, mentors, family, and family of faith folk held in our hearts, and in our history. None of them perfect. All of them saints.

Both of the scripture readings we have heard and read and borne witness to this morning are about what is real. What is honest. Not perfect. Not pretentious. Not pretending to be perfect. The common thread running through these readings from Revelation and the Gospel according to John are tears, and rebirth. Real pain, and real resurrection. Grief, and gift. And they go together.

“See,” the loud voice from the throne is saying, “the home of God is among humans. God will dwell with them, with us; we will be God’s people, and God will be with us; God will wipe every tear from our eyes.” Not, God will make things perfect so we will never cry again, but God will be with us, in the humanness of love and loss, and will wipe away every tear from our eyes, making all things new.

In the gospel of John, Mary is weeping. The faithful people, gathered around her are weeping. Jesus joins them, and soon Jesus is weeping. And, in the midst of their tears, while the tears are still flowing, the glory of God shows up. And stuns. And raises them all to new life, in this life.

In her little book Not Just yes and Amen, Dorothee Soelle tells us that resurrection breaks through the feeling that nothing goes right and that we can't do anything about it. We gather together. We cry together. We witness to the fullness of life together—love and loss, pain and possibility, gift and grief. We hear the word together. We eat together and drink together. We sing together. Sometimes, we gather at the river together. And today, on All Saints Day, we remember together as that death does not have the last word. That mourning and crying and pain, while real, do not have the last word.
This is what it means to be a saint. To be real, with each other. And to be made new, together.

Last Wednesday afternoon, I sat around a table with three saints of this church, looking through all the former church directories capturing this history of this church. I saw names I know…Crosser, Hungerford, Biederman, Mehmen, Carter, Fredericks, Maxwell, Weber, Dammen, Morse, Betts, Quarne…sometimes with faces I know, sometimes with faces of those who have gone before, generations past, people I have never met, yet still present in the life and legacy and spirit of this community…Saints of God. Saints of the Church.

Last Sunday, Cal preached about miracles, and thanksgiving. Miracles, like saints, are NOT meant to be held apart, separate from daily life, relegated to the pages of scripture or the first few hundred years of Christian history. Saints—ordinary people, rising up to do extraordinary things when needed. Miracles—ordinary moments, when we are opened up to the extraordinary power…and mystery…and beauty…of God. Making all things new. Resurrection, breaking through. Scripture, alive. Living Word.

I want to end by reading the lyrics to a song written by Peter Mayer. I met Peter when I was in campus ministry. This song is called “Holy Now,” and it speaks to me of saints, and miracles, and the power of resurrection breaking through, in the ordinary, the daily, the holy.

Holy Now
Peter Mayer

When I was a boy, each week
On Sunday we would go to church
And pay attention to the priest
As he would read the holy word
And consecrate the holy bread
And everyone would kneel and bow
Today the only difference is
Everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now

And when I was in Sunday school
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine
And I remember feeling sad
That miracles don’t happen still
But now I can’t keep track
‘Cause everything’s a miracle
Everything, everything
Everything’s a miracle

Wine from water is not so small
But an even better magic trick
Is that anything is here at all
So the challenging thing becomes
Not to look for miracles
But finding where there isn’t one

When holy water was rare at best
It barely wet my fingertips
But now I have to hold my breath
Like I’m swimming in a sea of it
It used to be a world half there
Heaven’s second rate hand-me-down
But I walk it with a reverent air
‘Cause everything is holy now

Read a questioning child’s face
And say it’s not a testament
That’d be very hard to say
See another new morning come
And say it’s not a sacrament
I tell you it can’t be done

This morning, outside I stood
And saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush
Singing like a scripture verse
It made me want to bow my head
I remember when church let out
How things have changed since then
Everything is holy now

It used to be a world half-there
Heaven’s second rate hand-me-down
But I walk it with a reverent air
‘Cause everything is holy now.

Everything is holy. Everything’s a miracle. Everyone is a saint, invited by the Holy One to rise up, to do great things, when the occasion calls.

Thanks be to God. Amen, and amen.