|
Back to Sermon Archives
November 5, 2006
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Isaiah 25:6-9,
Revelation 21:1-6a, John 11:32-44
“A Life, a Whole
Life, and Nothing But a Life – So Help Us, God!”
So who are these saints we remember, we piece back together, even as quilters of
sorrows we weave into joy – that the saints may be with us, and for us in new
ways today? (Please see the quilting lines in the Words for Meditation – “What
has been plaited cannot be unplaited -- / Only the strands grow richer with each
loss / And memory makes kings and queens of us!” “By assembling from the fabric
of memory all that had been lost, all she still cherished . . . The quiltmaker
suggests that each of us might create, in our own way, something new from
sorrow.”) Something new from sorrow – what a line for our times!
These saints surround us, a great cloud of
witnesses urging us on. These saints sanctify us. They make us holy by the
humility and the simplicity of their witness and service. These saints sustain
us. They make us both holy and whole! These saints go before us, making a way
out of no way, showing us the “big picture,” the widest, deepest, richest
possible perspective on life – that we might see in them glimpses and glances,
bits and pieces, fits and starts of what God has in mind and in heart for us!
The saints don’t have to be dead – but it
helps! It helps that our memory of them becomes so finished, so sharp and
defined – though our memory is no less defining that way. Our memory of them,
who are fixed and fulfilled, continues to change us, who still have a course to
run, a journey to complete.
I saw an e-mail story entitled “Getting to
Heaven” --
“I asked my children in my Sunday School class, ‘If I sold my house and
my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would I
get into heaven?’
“’NO!’ the children all answered.
“If I cleaned the church everyday, mowed the
yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would I get into heaven?’
“Again, the answer was ‘NO!’
“’Well,’ I continued, ‘then how can I get to
heaven?’
“In the back of the room, a 5 yr. old by shouted
out, ‘You gotta be dead!’”
That is one word, at least, about All Saints
Sunday: For some things in life, we just got to be dead! We got to remember
the dead -- to value the ways they not only “die for us,” as we say, but they
live for us! They not only “get into heaven,” but heaven gets into them! And
they get into us. The light, the hope, the promise of God show through them –
for us! Death lasts a lot longer than life, if we had not noticed. We had
better get used to death now We are all saints in the making, the offing.
Death is one thing for those who have used their lives up and given them back!
But death is quite another thing for those still on the journey.
What we are looking for this morning, in the
saints and in ourselves, is, “A life, a whole life, and nothing but a life – so
help us, God.” The saints are those who live in the knowledge that we only get
one life to live – so live it as fully as possible! They know that our one true
life is on earth – where we live for the promise, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven!” Saints live each day as though there were
no tomorrow. Nothing is guaranteed. So nothing is taken for granted.. There
are no chances to do some things over. Pete Seeger says when learning a song we
no sooner begin to get it then it ends. But at least we can start the song over
again! Life is not like that. We have to leave it all on the playing field
each day. We cannot take it with us.
The communion of saints reminds us how precious
each life is. As the preacher says for Grandpa Joad when he buried at the side
of the road on the cross-country journey of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
– ‘This here old man just lived a life and just died out it. I don’t
know if he was good or bad. That don’t matter. He was a live, and
that’s what matters! , , , All that lives is holy.” All that lives is
holy! And all that lives longs to be its own special part of the whole.
We remember the nine we know so far have died in
the Mispah Hotel fire. We have reached out individually and as the church
– offering services and facilities. We learned at PM group last night there is
a history of “sainted” buildings in the life of downtown Reno. We saw wonderful
“Now and Then” pictures over our city’s whole life. We learned there have been
tragic fires before. Similarly, we will be remembering others of our community
in the “homeless memorial” service as winter begins again this year. This is
called “ordinary time” of the church year, from Pentecost to Advent. We
remember the ordinary glory of everyday life and the ordinariness, the shared
humanness, of all who seem to die, so arbitrarily and anonymously – be it in
9/11, tsunami, Katrina, or still every day in Iraq. We look for the
saintliness, the extraordinary ordinariness, in the life of every person.
As we focus in our campaign these weeks on the
stewardship of care and giving, what Ann Lamott says of her life as a writer
applies to our lives as carers and givers – “You have to give the work before
you all the best stuff you have, not saving up for later projects. If you give
freely, there will always be more. . . . You have to give from the deepest part
of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going
to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting
published, but there is in learning to be a giver.” Dr. King used to say,
“Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve!” We add, everybody can
be a saint, because everybody can give!
What a gift! To learn to be givers -- in life
and of life. To learn to trust so deeply in God’s constant and continual giving
to us that we are able to give ourselves away everyday! I asked Jean Norris and
Ruth Schulz to help me name a few of those who have gone before us in this place
whom they remember for their lives of giving.
- Marjorie Lee, United Methodist Woman, who
gave us the renovation of the kitchen and all of its basic equipment. Saint
Marjorie!
- Vera Dossey, woman of deep faith, with never a
bad word to say about anyone, gladly doing so many wedding receptions. Saint
Vera!
- Dorothy Drew, of the early worship service,
volunteering to keep the office open each Friday. Saint Dorothy!
- John Guyton, retired from the Navy, handyman
always around to do whatever small job was needed. Saint John.
- Bud Hardesty who gave the signboard in front
of the church. Saint Bud!
- Clarence, who did whatever it took to keep the
furnaces going and the heat coming – and Martha Jones, who is with us still –
church organist, secretary and historian. Saints Clarence and Martha!
They all live on as givers of life among us.
A life, a whole life, and nothing but a life.
None of us escapes death in the end. It is the great equalizer. Everyone comes
to rest from our labors – ready or not! Yet here Jesus waits until his friend
Lazarus is good and smelling dead before he approaches to tomb to teach us.
Jesus teaches that through the experience of faith in the living God, death is
both always AND never the last word about life! Jesus weeps with anguish at
death in this world – for everyone’s death, we pray, touches someone so
personally as Lazarus’ death touches Jesus and friends. Yet Jesus sees even in
death the strength of the saints to surprise us with life – if we will but
“unbind” them and “let them go!”
It remains the paradox that though every one of us dies, yet we never know how
God may use our deaths! For even in resurrection, God is not done with
death yet. According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, resurrection is just the
beginning. This world lives for the death of death itself! We live
for the promise of life, of goodness for all, once and forever! We live
for this life of Isaiah this morning -- this feast, this banquet prepared on the
mountain of God for all the peoples of God! Even in the midst of this old
city and this old world, with all of our death and destruction -- deterioration,
disgrace, depression, and despair – we imagine the New Jerusalem! Behold,
our God, even now, is making all things new!
We are not only to view the new thing God is
doing, sisters and brothers. We are also to voice it! And we are to VOTE it as
well! We are to view, to voice and to vote this vision of the “big picture,”
the “whole thing” as Isaiah sees it-- A holy mountain! A huge feast of all
peoples! A picnic! Perhaps a good old Methodist pot luck! Africans! South
Americans! Chinese! Indians! Middle Easterners – you name it! All at mixed
tables! Enjoying each other! Jews all over the earth rejoicing to see as
Isaiah does – This is our God! This is what our God is about! How about Gospel
Mission? The Mispah? The Promenade? Arlington Towers? Are we all here? Of
every nation, race, color, gender, creed, condition of life?
Life is a banquet, as Auntie Mame and Saint Mim
Davis would say. Yet so many of us are starving to death – literally starving,
which we can and must do something about – and spiritually starving as well.
Just imagine if we were to get rid of as much death in this world as we possibly
can – especially all the killing, of daily life and of war – but also the deaths
of poverty, preventable illness and malnutrition. Even if we could end (and we
can!) end all the killing, death remains. But at least then we can focus
ourselves on the spiritual response. We can work for quality of living, and for
making our dying a much better part of our lives. This congregation does so –
recently with Sam Song and Jonathan Boyd.
As we hear in Revelation, at the very end of our
scriptures, it is almost scary how much God loves us all! How much God wants to
do for us all! The book of Revelation gets such a bad rap as a book of
punishment and retribution. But hear again this promise of pure care and
giving, compassion and generosity, forgiveness and restoration – Not only a new
heaven, but also a new earth! Not only going up to get away from it all, but
also coming down to be part of it all forever! God living with us, among us,
forever and in every last way – overcoming death with life! Wiping away every
tear! No mourning or crying or pain any more! In the end as in the beginning
of life – all caring and all giving.
Sisters and brothers, that is the God we wait for, says Isaiah. The God we
are glad and rejoice in even now! The God of our abiding vision and
applying values. The God we stand for in every election – of our own lives
as well as of our city, our state, our nation, our world. We stand for a
life that is greater than every last power of death – a faith greater than every
fear, a hope greater than every despair, a love greater than every hate.
We don’t worry so much this morning about separation of church and state, but
about separation of church and hate!
In closing, I would ask us to be in solidarity –
generally with all the saints, but specifically with All Saints Episcopal Church
in Pasadena. They are threatened with and as a congregation are resisting –
even as Revelation is written for faith communities in resistance! -- federal
investigation. In part the investigation stems from a sermon preached by George
Regas on the Sunday before elections two years ago – a sermon that ends with
these words I ask us to affirm as well on this day – “When you go to the voting
booth on Tuesday, take with you all that you know about Jesus the peacemaker.
Take all that Jesus means to you. Then vote with your deepest values!” Amen.
top of page
Archives
|
