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Mystic
Congregational Church, UCC “All Saints and Our Saints”Rev.
Patricia L. Liberty Once upon a time there were two brothers who lived in a particular town. They were involved in corruption, deceit and every manner of vice. It was rumored that they were affiliated with some very famous organized crime families as well. Whatever the case, both brothers had accumulated much wealth through their dishonest means. There was little grief in the town when the older
brother died. But his younger brother, wanting to honor his elder sibling, went
all out in planning the funeral. The
problem was finding a minister willing to do the service, given that neither of
them had ever graced the steps of a church.
Knowing that one of the local churches was in the midst of a capital
campaign for some much needed repairs, the younger brother called upon the
minister. "Reverend," he said, "I know my brother and
I never attended your church; as a matter of fact we never attended any church.
I also know that you've probably heard a lot of things about my brother
and me, this being a small town and all, but I'd like you to do my brother's
funeral. And if you'll say he was a saint, I'll write you a check for
50,000 dollars. That'll go along
way to fixing up the church." After some thought the pastor agreed to have the service.
That may be another sermon for another day, but work with me here.
The pastor, however, also had a condition.
The $50,000 had to be paid in advance.
And so it was. On the day of the funeral, the church was crowded.
Curiosity brought dozens of people in, who were certainly not there to
honor the rich man, but to see what the minister would actually say.
The remainder of the crowd was made up of mobsters and women the brothers
associated with. The service began with the usual scriptures, hymns and
prayers—and then the homily began.
The minister began slowly, but then, step by step, launched into a litany
of the horrible things the rich man had done, how he had been selfish, greedy,
corrupt, caring about no one but himself, carousing with women, drinking
excessively, and on and on. The younger brother, sitting up in the front pew, was
getting hot under the collar about how the minister was not fulfilling his
promise, but during the service there was not much he could do about it.
He could only wait and hope that the minister would keep his end of the
bargain. Finally, after about ten
minutes of outlining the rich man's flaws, the minister concluded his sermon in
a booming crescendo proclaiming: "Yes, my friends, this man was a no-good,
dirty, rotten scoundrel! But,
compared to his brother, he was a saint!" When we think of the saints, we most often think of people
like Paul, or John or James, and the other apostles; or of people like St.
Francis, St. Teresa, St. Catherine, St. Bernadette, or St. Ignatius of Loyola. In short, we think of those people that the church has long
declared to be saints—those people whose faith and vision and moral integrity
have been thoroughly examined and widely known; those normally long-dead folk
who have been judged to have advanced the cause of Jesus Christ notably in this
world; those folk who have been deemed to be worthy of imitation and of praise
by both church bureaucrats and popular opinion. Today we observe All Saints Day, which is actually tomorrow,
but we are Congregationalists and we can tinker with the liturgical calendar.
If we had planned this service for tomorrow, none of you would be here
and I didn’t want you to miss out on the great music of All Saints Day.
It is a feast day that has been celebrated for hundreds of
years within the church, particularly within the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and
Anglican churches. But in our
tradition—and in many of the traditions arising out of the Protestant
Reformation—often, not much is said about the Saints and All Saints Day:
except to explain that on October 31st, the veil between heaven and earth
is thinnest, and even though we may not believe in witches and goblins and the
like, we will still acknowledge the day of all Hallows Day, popularly known as
Halloween, and the day proceeding of All Saints Day.
That neglect of the Saints in our tradition is a pity in a
way because it can make the whole idea of sainthood and of the communion of the
saints inaccessible to us, especially when you couple that neglect with the
popular idea of what a saint is: namely,
someone who is only a little less than perfect, a spiritual overachiever as it were. It is true that those that the universal church has
declared—after much examination and debate—to be saints are the kind of
people that have lived saintly lives, and I’ll say more about that in a
minute. For all of the images we conjure of saints as perfect
people, they were also human beings. The
lives of those we call saints are every bit as colorful, and sometimes more so,
than ordinary folks. So, the saintly life is not to be confused with perfection.
In reality, these wonderful people are bright examples of something that
is very common—namely, a deep and abiding faith in Christ Jesus, a faith that
has issued forth in action. They
are people upon whom the fickle finger of the church’s attention has
descended, and, while normally deserving of the attention they have and are
receiving, so are many, many more people—people both dead and still alive. The word Saint derives from the word Sanctus—which we
translate as the word "holy". And in the bible - in this morning's reading from the
Letter to the Ephesians, and in all of Paul's letters, the word Sanctus—the
word saint—is applied without further distinction to the company of those who
believe in Christ Jesus and who strive to live faithfully according to his
teachings and his example. Listen to verses one and two of the Letter to the Ephesians
where Paul tells them who is writing and to whom it is that he is writing: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus—grace to you
and peace from God Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Listen as well to how Paul addresses both the Roman church: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle
... to all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.
Grace to you and peace...." Those who are called to be saints—ordinary people like
you and me. People who are holy,
not perfect, but ever looking for a deeper relationship with God, and who, in
turn, live their lives in witness to that relationship. Think about it for a minute: Doesn’t it make sense that we—who are called to be
saints—should pause once a year in our public worship to think about who the
saints of God are and to thank God for them? Doesn’t it even make sense to perhaps pause once a
month—or even once a day— in our private worship, and give thanks to God for
the great communion of saints who have advanced the cause of Christ and his
church and especially for those saints who have touched our lives and showed to
us something of Christ's love, something of God's glory. What we admire in them, after all, is part of what we are
called to imitate, part of what we hope God will work through us, part of what
God calls us to be and to embody and to live out. Think about it for a minute or two more.
Think of the saints. Think
not of the famous saints like Saint Paul or Saint John or Saint Theresa or Saint
Catherine or Saint Francis, but think of the saints who have touched your lives,
of those who have inspired in you a deeper faith in God, of those who have made
you want to bless the God they believe in, of those whose love and whose
testimony have awakened something in your soul. I have said it many times, and I truly believe that all of
us are Christians because of someone else, because of the witness and care and
love of those around us. People
whose lives point beyond themselves to the God they worship and honor. I think of people like Lura Mohrbacher and Karen Dorman.
Mrs. Mohrbacher was the choir director at Somersville Congregational
Church. She directed the Junior
Choir as well. While she coached us
on diction, taught us how not to swoop the notes, how to stand and not fidget,
how to use our young voices and so much more, she also was a witness to the joy
of making music for God. Karen, at first glance, seems a less likely candidate for
sainthood. I met her when she was
in her late thirties and she became a hospice patient. She was crippled from birth and during her life developed
diabetes and number of other health problems.
As she drew closer to the end of her days, she remained non-compliant in
all her treatment, smoked like a chimney, ate Twinkies for breakfast and reveled
in using language that would make a longshoreman blush.
She had little use for organized religion and even less for its
representatives. Faith did not come easily to her, like Job she wasn’t
willing to settle for pious platitudes and religious garbage that easily
explained her suffering away. She
made it clear she wanted something more from God, an authentic relationship, an
honest relationship and she wasn’t willing to settle for anything less.
The integrity of her struggle was its own witness to faithfulness.
She taught me a great deal about being honest and she never let me off
the hook if I was being less than authentic.
There isn’t an all Saints day that goes by that I don’t
remember Mrs. Mohrbacher and Karen Dorman.
There are countless people who are part of our lives—some
for the duration, some for a season—but all making faith come alive in their
own unique way. The truth is that we all become Christians by looking over
someone else’s shoulder. We learn
to do most everything in our lives by watching someone else or being shown by
someone else and our faith is no different.
We all come to
see the fire of faith because it burns brightly in someone else’s eyes. From
time to time all our paths are lit by reflected light. God’s saints and our saints—they are witnesses to the
faith, companions in the journey, symbols of holiness, sometimes that irritating
presence that calls us to be better than we might be if left on our own. Praise God for all the saints then and now and yet to come.
Amen..
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