http://www.stmargaretschurch.org/worship/sermons/sermons-2013/all-saints-sunday.html
Today is All Saints’ Sunday–a day about connection, just like we heard in our opening collect:
Today is All Saints’ Sunday–a day about connection, just like we heard in our opening collect:
“Almighty God, you have knit together your elect into one
communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord…”[1]
Today is about acknowledging our spiritual
interdependence with one another, even with those people who we have never met,
even with those people who died many years ago, and even with those people who
have yet to live. Every other baptized person, or as St. Paul often describes
them, each saint, ultimately affects our own experience.
This interconnected and interdependent
tapestry of people is what we call the communion
of saints.
There are the saints of the past, the saints
of the present, and the saints who have yet to come. We, the saints of the
present, are struggling with our interaction with each other and are searching
for God’s loving embrace day in and day out. The saints of the past are
gloriously basking in God’s celestial compassion. In the hymn “For All the
Saints” we hear about this communion-relationship:
“O blest communion, fellowship divine. We feebly struggle, they in
glory shine. But all are one in thee and all are thine. Alleluia.”[2]
“But how are we so interconnected?” you might
ask? I’m not even sure if I can give a straightforward answer, but let’s
explore together this mystical fellowship between the baptized:
I don’t know how many of you keep up with the
Royal family, but last week, the Archbishop of Canterbury baptized Prince
George, the three-month-old royal baby. There weren’t any videos or photos of
the ceremony itself because it was private, but Archbishop Welby gave a
thoughtful reflection.
He said that Prince George will one day grow
up, be the head of state, and travel to places most people couldn’t dream of
traveling to. He will meet some of the most influential people of his time. He
will shake the hands and hear the stories of millions of people from around the
world. And, because of his christening last week, he will be able to connect
with any Christian in any part of the world because they have undergone the
same cleansing experience in the waters of baptism.
It’s like that for all of us, really. We are
able to connect to any other baptized person because of the common experience
we share: the dying and rising again in baptism.
Imagine with me, for a moment, being in a
pool of water. Imagine forcefully plunging your head underneath the surface of
the water. Imagine the few seconds you are underwater, your life is vulnerable,
and you have given up your last breath. You come back out of the water, and
gasp for another breath of life-giving air. That is baptism. Losing old life by
choice only to obtain new life.
Now, Bennett, I promise that your baptism
will not be half as eventful as I just described, so please don’t walk out. But
just imagine that experience. That’s what this whole baptismal service is all
about.
So, we are all connected, all interdependent,
because we each decided to leave behind our old life for a new life. That is
our common foundation. That is what keeps us together. Baptism. But what does
this mean for us?
This new life we obtain isn’t something
without a cost. Jesus offers us communion with the saints of the past, present
and yet to come, but in exchange for Earthly ministry–a ministry that can be
described by the following quote from Robert Kennedy:
“There are those who look at things the way they
are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”[3]
“There are those who look at things the way they
are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
Why not?
Our
ministry is to do things that haven’t been done before. Our ministry is to
reach out to the group of people that have been rejected. Our ministry is to
imagine to do the impossible, and to inspire others to be just as imaginative.
“There are those who look at things the way they
are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
Why not?
To listen
to the call from Christ, we turn to the lessons. Looking at our Gospel text, we
hear some of the most familiar words from Jesus: the beatitudes, or the
blessed.
"Blessed
are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are
hungry now, for you will be filled…Blessed are you when people hate you, revile
you, defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day, for surely
your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the
prophets.”[4]
This is crazy. This is absurd. The
lowest, most excluded, least important people in society are actually on to
something.
This is new. This is different. This is
something that Jesus is pushing that makes people uncomfortable. This ministry
to which the disciples of the 1st century are being called to is the
exact ministry that the disciples of the 21st century are being
called to: change, renewal, new life, creativity, imagination. New
possibilities that exclude probabilities.
That is the kind of God we have–a God that
doesn’t care about probabilities, but only possibilities. For instance, in
Genesis, our God created everything that we know from nothing. What kind of
possibility is there for everything from absolutely nothing? Or in Exodus, when
Moses is leading the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, and Pharaoh’s
army was in close pursuit, Moses was halted by the Red Sea. From a distance,
Pharaoh see’s that their prey is trapped, and says, “This God of theirs is a
poor general”, and out of any sort of logical probability, the sea opens a path
for Moses and his people–a new, unthinkable, and mystic possibility. And we
can’t forget the virgin birth, or the resurrection, or the ascension. There are
countless experiences of God’s rejection of probabilities only to make way for
possibility. That’s the God we have.
Today is All Saints’ Sunday, which is
also the 22nd anniversary of the first service of St. Margaret’s
Church. Our entire existence as a parish is a new possibility, excluding
probabilities. Despite the frightening decline of the church, there was a call
to spread Episcopal presence further west to the mysterious, dense, unpopulated,
eerie, did I mention unpopulated, woods of Chenal Valley. Talk about your lack
of probability. And then, to make things even better, if you look at the
pictures of the groundbreaking we have in the office area downtairs, you see
Canon Keller, Archdeacon Milwee, Bishop Maze, Deacon Hardy, a crowd of people,
and that’s it. Just a big barren dirt square. Talk about your lack of probability.
But talk about your incredible possibilities. The lives this congregation has
touched, the children raised up, stories told, connections made, souls changed,
bodies resurrected. That is our mission. That is our call. That is our ministry
as the baptized.
Stepping outside of our comfort zone.
Trying new things. Imagining. Inventing. Learning. Interacting. Exploring.
Why not? That’s our God. Why not?
By losing our life, we gain new life.
We gain new possibilities–unimaginable possibilities that defy any sort of
probabilities.
Why not?
We enter a mystical communion of
interconnection and interdependence of the saints.
Why not?
There are
those who look at things the way they are, and in bitterness and frustration,
throw up their hands and ask why. We, the saints, the baptized people of God,
dream of things that never were, and ask why not.
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