SERMON FOR ALL SAINTS' 2004

This is All Saints Sunday, that day when we pay particular attention to the great cloud of witnesses that surround us at all times, though we seldom think about them. They are the women and men who have come before us, those who are alive around the Anglican Communion right now, and they are even the ones that will come after us. In Christ, all are one, all become present in the Eucharistic feast. I invite you now to take a few seconds to envision the faces, hear the voices of our parents, grandparents, teachers and the other shapers of our lives.

It is also the Sunday that has been designated as the day that the clergy are to preach about Stewardship. Perhaps at first glance you might wonder how they come together, but our Diocesan Convention was about weaving us together, so bear with me, it will happen.

When we think about Stewardship we often think of the three t’s—Treasure, Time, and Talent. God has given us these gifts for our livelihood and for the glory of God through the church and the world. At the encouragement of the health professional at the CREDO conference I attended a few weeks ago, I suggest we add a fourth T. Torso—that’s a surprise, isn’t it?  Or, if you prefer, temple. Our bodies, as the temple of God . We are stewards of our bodies, as well as our time, talent and treasure. Our health matters to God; our health matters to each other, not only to our own selves. 

God has made us embodied people, not just spirits. Think about the heart, located in the center of our temple. It is the organ we associate with love. It is the organ that we refer to as open or closed, loving or cold. It is perhaps the best symbol we have for our relationship with God—lifting our hearts to God—as we will say in a few minutes in the sursum corda. 

How we live from our heart center makes a difference as to whether we live out of a model of scarcity or abundance, out of fear or out of trust in the God who made us, who brought us here, in this life, at this time in history, with each other.

Christ said, I have come that you might have life and have it in all its abundance. We are to trust that God wants us to live lives that reflect abundance, generosity, and trust.

In the Gospel Hymn “His Eye is on the Sparrow” we hear repeated again and again, “God’s eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches over me. I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, God’s eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches over me.”

I sing because I’m happy. That’s abundant living. It’s beatitude living. You heard the beatitudes read as the Gospel this morning—the word that is used is blessed. It can also be translated “happy.”  Gospel living is happy living, although not always easy living. 

Gospel living is different from ordinary life. In our society we are taught to watch out for ourselves, to live as if things are scarce, to be greedy and hoard rather than to share. One of our favorite family stories is my grandmother saying when World War II broke out, she was going to stock up on toilet paper before the hoarders got it. Ordinary life in our society can be viscious and scary. 

Gospel life says there is a whole different reality. 

Eugene Peterson translates the Beatitudes this way:

You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all.
God’s kingdom is there for the finding.

You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry.
Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal.

You’re blessed when the tears flow freely. 
Joy comes with the morning. 

And as weird as these blessed states sound, those who have been through the worst can attest to the incredible sense of God’s presence and love that is there when there is nothing else. I know I have experienced it.

It’s not just God in a vacuum, however, alone in my heart. It is God in the community of faith. God in the arms that hold and hug, the people that come in and stay with us or our loved ones, the hands that prepare meals, the prayers that we know are being said. 

It is the Church that best lets us experience the blessing of God. 

I have been here now with you at Christ Church for a whole year, officially. It has been a wonderful year for me, primarily because Christ Church is a wonderful community.

You are an open, loving community. I have been time and time again awed by the way you work together and come together at hard times and happy ones. I have never experienced any community quite like this one, in all my thirty years of ordination. I mean that. I think of the Relay for Life and the abundance of participation both with people and with money.  I think of the funeral for Grant Rutherford, the wedding for Lesta Thomas and Clint Reginitter which had to be moved up two weeks. I think of our finding ways to talk about same sex blessings and the ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop even when we disagree over whether these things should be happening.

In a few minutes we will receive an award for being a Jubilee parish, we will receive recognitions for our support of the Heifer international outreach program, and we will commission three of us to go to Swaziland on behalf of all of you. Christ Church makes a difference. 

I know that the Holy Spirit is alive and well here, in each of you, in all of you together. And I know that God is calling us to do and be ever greater in the years to come. All of this requires our willingness to live and give out of our abundance and trust, rather than out of scarcity and fear. 

It has been said that we do not inherit the earth from our parents but have it on loan from our children. You could say that about the church, too. We may have inherited the church from those who have gone before, but it is definitely held in trust for those who come after us, the babies that we have baptized this year, and those people out there as yet unknown to us, the living and the not yet born.

This is really what stewardship means: to live our lives together and to give of the gifts that have been so generously given to us. We are each only one; together we are the Body of Christ, a living temple of God . 

I was telling my son the other day about a touching story related to Christ Church . He is 24 and not a church attender and yet he is one of the saints who live their faith in their daily life. He said, “You know, Mom, most of my friends don’t go to church. I try to tell them that Christian and fundamentalist are not the same thing. I try to tell them about the community that people find in a church, how people care for each other. It’s hard for  them to understand  if they haven’t experienced it. But they listen and try.”

And if any of them should try to come to Christ Church to experience it, I pray that we will be here, and be strong. And that those who will never come through our doors will know that because of our outreach and because of the way we live our individual lives, that Christ Church is truly part of the Body of Christ.

On Monday we will try something never tried here before:  a service of communion to celebrate the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady of the world. She died 42 years ago this day. She was a life long Episcopalian who lived her faith through hard times and moments of opportunity. She has long been an example for me, and more than an example for me, one of the saints in light who has gifted me with her strength and courage.  As we celebrate All Saints Day, we all have saints who come to mind who have been important for us. Let us honor them with our lives, that those who come after us will be able to see that the light has been passed from them to us. 

And let us always encourage each other as we do our beatitude living.   Amen.