Sermon

Sermon  11-02-14                             Hebrews 13: 1-6

Several years ago, as it was becoming clear that my mother’s death was soon to come, one of my spiritual directors recommended that I read Henri Nouwen’s book Our Greatest Gift.  Our Greatest Gift is, I believe, the last book Nouwen wrote in his prolific career and this book, subtitled “A Meditation on Dying and Caring,” was a Godsend for me for me to draw on in the final weeks of my mother’s life and in the grieving that followed and which continues from time to time.

          Today, I want to draw heavily on Nouwen’s comforting and inspiring words as we seek together to worship God and celebrate All Saints Day.  All Saints Day is the day in our church calendar in which we remember all those who have shaped our lives, enriched our faiths, and gone on ahead of us through death to the promises of life eternal, that we celebrate in the Resurrection.  Often, the death of another, especially one close to our hearts or close to us in age, can richly impact our appreciation for life and the wonders within. 

          As I mentioned, this profound book is a meditation on dying and caring, and throughout the book, Nouwen challenges the reader to give thought to the impact of our respective deaths someday.  Early on, Nouwen asks, “Will your death someday give new life, new hope, and new faith to your friends, or will it be no more than another cause for sadness?”  (Op. Cit., p. xvi)

          It has long been said that, “the death of another diminishes me.”  Nouwen argues, and I want to add my voice to his today, that for people of faith, the death of another need not diminish our living, but in fact can serve to enrich it.  As he continues to make his point, of the many ways that the dying can enrich the lives of those left behind, Nouwen argues that, dying can become “the way to everlasting fruitfulness.  Here is the most hope-giving aspect of death.  Our death may be the end of our success, our productivity, our fame, or our importance among people, but it is not the end of our fruitfulness.  In fact, the opposite is true: the fruitfulness of our lives shows itself in its fullness only after we have died.”  (p. 38)

          In many ways, that is what All Saints Day is all about.  Remembering and glorying in the fruitfulness of lives now completed.  Remembering and giving thanks for the many ways that others have paved the way; the many ways that others have taught and modeled for us the ways of life and of death; the many ways that the life of another lives on in us, as we live lives that are different because of the time we spent with them; lives that influence those we come into contact with everyday.

          In Jewish thought, the purest form of giving is giving in which the recipient does not know who the giver is, and in which the giver does not know who will receive the gift.  That pure form of giving is what we celebrate today.  Remembering that others have given of themselves in wonderful and mysterious ways to enrich our lives and well-being.  This is the kind of giving summed up in the wonderful Greek proverb—Blessed are those who plant trees under whose shade they will never rest. 

          But today is not a day in which we focus only on the past.  For we are called by God to glory in the communion of saints in the living of our days.  Someone once remarked that “a saint is someone who makes it easier to believe in God.”   And I believe that idea dovetails nicely with the concluding words of our opening hymn today, “For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.” 

          We are called to live saintly lives.  To be those people who, by the way we live out our days, do so in ways that make it a little easier for those we come into contact with to believe in God.  The concluding words of the letter to the Hebrews has a lengthy list of ways to live our lives that help to do that.  And I have always enjoyed the imagery of the words—“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that, some have entertained angels.”  (Hebrews 13: 2)

          These certainly are apt words to hear and proclaim on any Sunday in which we may well have visitors and seekers within our worship community. Let us all be sure to show great hospitality to any who visits and joins with us in worship, for by so doing, we may well be entertaining angels. 

          In the course of our lives and in the living of our days, we face one more question which Nouwen sets before us.  It is one of the basic questions of living, and how we answer it, will reveal more of what our core faith is about than any church covenant or creed, or public profession of faith.  And the question set before us is this—As we live out our days, what are we growing toward?  Are we simply going through the days, gradually becoming less able people, as our bodies slow down and begin to return to the dust from whence we came?  Or are we growing into becoming living reminders of the amazing grace that God proclaims and which has transformed the world?  (adapted, p. 56)  Do we live the days of our lives as victims to the laws of nature, which slow us down and hamper us or are we seeking each and every day for ways to be the vessels of grace that life allows us the chance to become?

          Each of us knows who the saints of our lives are for us.  Those persons who have lived their lives in ways that make it a bit easier for us to believe in God, a bit easier for us to believe that we too can live in a way that makes it easier for someone else to believe in God.  Oftentimes, what we admire in another is what we are being called to imitate in our own lives. 

          Look around the church family and look around your own life at all those persons who are seeking to deepen their faith and enrich their lives; never stopping in their pursuit of knowledge and growing in grace; the ones who seem to savor the mystery of each day and find within it moments of wonder.   Those who always hunger for God never age.  Their bodies may slow down and eventually fail, but their spirit is alive and driving the rest of their days.

          In our worship today, we gather with and remember the communion of saints.   Here at the Lord’s Table, we are one.  Here, we gather with others and taste the mystery of life eternal, the hope of the life to come, the wonder of sharing a fellowship today with all those who have sought to follow and know Jesus throughout time.  It is a day and moment of empowering mystery. 

It is a day in which the bread which we break and the cup which we share take on new meaning and wonder.  So how do we glory in and recognize this empowering mystery of the communion of saints?

One example of this for me comes from an old episode of the television show MASH.  In this particular episode, Colonel Winchester is experiencing battle fatigue from too much time on the front lines.  He is becoming obsessed with death, demanding to know what happens after you die.  He grows frustrated in not being able to help the dying and overwhelmed with his questions about life and death and the next great mystery.  He talks with other doctors and with Chaplain Mulcahey.  Finally, he decides he must risk his life to get the answer and so he volunteers to go up to the edge of combat.  As the bombs fall all about him and the sky is alive with explosions and fire, he kneels next to a young man, clearly soon to die.  “Tell me,” Winchester pleads, “tell me what you are feeling.  I must know.”  The young man whispers, “I don’t feel anything.”  He pauses and then adds, “I smell bread.  I smell my mom’s bread baking.”  And then he dies. 

          I think that story gives us a glimpse of what this sacred mystery is all about.

Glory this day in the good news of God’s love.  Live your life in ways that will bear fruit today and lead others to know fruitful lives long after your final breath.   Live your life in ways that make it a bit easier for others to believe in God.  Imitate and model, and then claim for your own, the qualities of life you admire in others.  Take comfort in the promises of God; that you will always have a place at the Lord’s Table.  And that the day is coming when your place at that table will be with those who have preceded you through death to life eternal.  Amen.