November 4, 2007 – All Saints Sunday
Luke 6:20-31
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Pastor Leith Anderson, shares this experience: When he was a little boy, Anderson grew up outside of New York City and was an avid fan of the old Brooklyn Dodgers. One day his father took him to a World Series game between the Dodgers and the Yankees. He was so excited, and he just knew the Dodgers would trounce the Yankees. Unfortunately, the Dodgers never got on base, and his excitement was shattered. Years later, he was talking with a man who was a walking sports almanac. Leith told him about the first major league game he attended and added, "It was such a disappointment. I was a huge Dodger fan, and the Dodgers never got on base."
The man said, "You were there? You were at the game when Don Larsen pitched the first perfect game in all of World Series history?" Leith replied, ''Yeah, but uh, we lost." He then realized that he had been so caught up in his team's defeat that he missed out on the fact that he was a witness to a far greater page of history.
In today’s gospel story about Jesus and his disciples, we come upon the scene of huge crowds who have followed him for the purposes of hearing him teach, and getting themselves healed. Now, in this crowd were three sets of folks: those who had come, the disciples, which in Greek means, “pupil, learner, one who follows a teacher,” and the apostles, those who had just been chosen by Jesus for special service. Apostle literally means, “one who is sent out,” a person with a message. This part of Luke is called the “Sermon on the Plain” and is less familiar than the “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew. But Jesus is speaking his famous “beatitudes” or blessings, and he is addressing those who are already in the fold, the disciples. The disciples were learning how to become apostles – much like we talk about around here, moving from “member” to “disciple.” Jesus was telling them that there was blessing in things of no value to the world, and there was woe in the things the world counted dear. In essence, Jesus was giving them what has come to be known as The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
I like to think of this scene as a worship event. It looks to me as if it might be an ordination, perhaps, the formalizing of the mission of the Twelve. Now, maybe I’ve just been to too many ordinations lately, Joel Neubauer’s last week, and Dave Whetter’s, and Betty Landis’s. Soon we will also be planning for Ted Mosher’s, so we have been involved in a number of them lately. An ordination, formalizes the call to serve in the ministry of Word and Sacrament, and it is an experience I wish you all could have. For there is a symbol during that worship that reminds the one being ordained of a powerful truth. When you have two or three sets of hands laid upon your head (as our Confirmands did last week) it is a weighty thing. But when you have a dozen or more clergy colleagues laying on hands, I can tell you the weight on your head and neck is tremendous! It is clear through this action, that the responsibilities are heavy! But at the same time, there is this wonderful sense that you are exactly where God wants you to be, doing exactly what God wants you to do. That sense of purpose is given to us all in Baptism, and affirmed in our Confirmation, when God calls each of us to seek out exactly where God wants us to be, to do exactly what God wants us to be doing.
Today we begin a three week theme series for our INSTAR stewardship program. We will be focusing on “Creating a Culture of Gratitude” and today we lift up THANKSGIVING: Gratitude in Worship. It is timely, for today, I think, that we should be exploring the many ways worship feeds us. For instance, in last Thursday’s KC Star Letters to the Editor, there were a couple of responses to a previous letter by Theresa Hyde who had asked Christians: “If you truly believe in an eternal life, why don’t you spend every waking minute of your brief time on earth doing good?” Good point! One of the responders claimed John 3:16 (which I’m not sure I understood how that connected with the letter,) and the other said, “hey we’re all sinners, saved by grace – we don’t have to do good works to get into heaven!” Well, ok, but I still think the question is one we should all answer. “If you truly believe in an eternal life, why don’t you spend every waking minute of your brief time on earth doing good?” We certainly know that is not what gets us into heaven, but why would we NOT live that way? Do we FORGET? Do we get focused on our own busy-nesses and miss the big picture?
That’s where worship comes in. Worship is a blessing, in that we belong to a fellowship of Christians who care about us and the world, and who remind us that there is a whole world of need outside our doors that we should be tending to. What is it that is happening in our community? What is it that’s happening at our neighbor's? What’s happening down at the playground? What is your spouse trying to tell you? Is God “pitching a perfect game” in the world series of “outside these doors” and we are simply missing out because we are so invested in what’s going on “in here?”
We, the saints of the church, are all somewhere on the road of discovering the truth - that the difference between being a believer and being a disciple is that you no longer worry about what YOU are getting out of church, but what GOD is getting out of you in church! All of us, from the font forward, are called to the special work of God’s task in this world. And so we remember today all those who chose to participate in their new life, even before their eternal life began. Some, who knew they were blessed and lived in gratitude for that blessing. Some, who never quite discovered that they were blessed, but have experienced it now in the arms of a loving God. All of us - named, claimed and ordained in the waters of baptism – are saints. Saints who are reminded every time a loved one dies, that there is something greater than this.
And now we call the role of those saints who have entered the Church Trimphant since All Saints Day, 2006. We remember: Marie Klaassen, Margot Krupicka, Irene Vos…
(The 2007 All Saints List is read to the chiming of bells at each name)
…and for all those saints who we name only in our hearts, we give you thanks, O Lord. Amen.
Resources:
Leith Anderson story as told by Dean Register in the Minister's Manual, 1995, 339