Click here to watch the sermon from Sunday November 1, 2020 at 10:00 am
All Saints Day
Sermon preached by Rev. Jessica McCrae
Anybody here not know these people? They go through each
day cranky and cantankerous, purveyors of doom and gloom. These
are the folks that always know what new disaster has just struck,
what local businesses are about to go bankrupt, whose marriages are
on the rocks. They are the ones who always want to know what is
wrong, why you look tired, why you seem out of sorts, even when you
don’t. They are the ones who want to find problems where none
exist, for reasons known only to them. How could we survive life
without these wrong-side-of-the-bedders? How could we get around
without the black clouds and gloomy forecasts. Without wrong-sideof-
the-bedders, we would never fully appreciate how miserable life
really is.
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The book of Revelation is often perceived as sharing that same
sort of bleak perspective — a wrong-side-of-the-bed vision foretelling
pestilence, punishment, famine, death, destruction. But it really isn’t.
Not this part anyway. Here in today’s text we are given celestial
glimpses of glory. It is a little glimpse of what might it be like to join in
God’s reign and exist in God’s peace. It really might just be one of
the most beautiful passages in all of the New Testament. It is about
us, you know, what things can be like for us, for all of us who have
come out of this great ordeal, life divided, life distanced from God, life
that has lost the plot; it is about what life can be like when
everything and everyone is reconciled for good. The divisiveness of
nationality and the prejudices that divide us, are forgotten as all
peoples all come forward to praise God. There is one congregation,
one church, and it joins all its separate voices together happily, in
worship, in joy, in love. No one is stepping on anyone else’s toes, no
one is jostling to be first or in charge. Everyone is together. Happily,
together. John saw this as the church of the future. John also saw
this as our template for bringing the church to life in our own time.
And this is helpful for us today, living in these strange and
exhausting pandemic times. You see today we are reminded that
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instead of constantly worrying about how we will survive these days,
the church is challenged by this vision in Revelation to live in earnest
toward paradise. We have to be sensible, of course, but we have to
remember, with faith, that we are a part of something bigger. THIS is
not all there is, and we need to live in earnest toward that MORE that
God promises us.
Now there’s a word for you: “earnest.” It’s not a word used
much in church nowadays, but it may be a word that the church
needs to proclaim. The word has several meanings, one of course is
a description for seriousness, for being focused on a task. But the
other, lesser known meaning is as a noun, a foretaste of what is to
come, a preview if you will of a promise to be fulfilled. That is what
this text is calling us to be, calling our church to be, a preview of
God’s promises that will be fulfilled, a bit of a taste of heaven here on
earth.
It is kind of like when a spindly little oak sapling is planted
smack in the middle of a brand new bare backyard, it is an earnest of
the future envisioned in that space. Someday the tree will grow to
shade the yard with an enormous umbrella of green. Its sturdy
branches will hold the tire swings and treehouse platforms for
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children yet to be born. It will carpet the ground with its brilliant fallen
leaves and feed a legion of squirrels with its annual crop of acorns. It
might not look like much when it is planted, but the few spindly limbs
of that sapling oak bear the weight of a tremendous earnest,
knowledge of a tremendous promise or hope.
As Christians we are empowered by the Spirit of God to live this
way; to live with our eyes on the promises that God is fulfilling, and
also to live as part of that promise. We are called to help heaven
come to earth, to live our life pointing to the incredible presence of
God in our world. And today, consumed by anxiety and uncertainty,
we are being prodded to ask ourselves whether we are being
consumed by the world around us or whether we are able to muster
our faith, in the midst of all this, to live our life in such a way that we
are constantly pointing to God.
Because whatever else might be happening around us, we,
through the love and grace of God, have the opportunity to be human
conduits of the divine light that is God, offering others a little glimpse
of the joy that awaits us; to be to be walking talking, light shining,
peace making, justice seeking previews of God’s love. Today is All
Saint’s Day, and for me that is what it means to take our place among
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the communion of saints surrounding us – to live into our call to be
bearers of light and hope and God’s love in this world, even when it is
weighing heavy upon us, even when the challenges feel
insurmountable, even when our little corner of the world feels a bit
dark. Being a part of the communion of saints means remembering
that no matter how tough things can get some days we are a part of
something wonderful, something bigger than ourselves and that we
are going to be a part of the change that this world of ours needs.
That is what it means to be the body of Christ, being a part of
something bigger than ourselves, anchored in Christ’s love, with the
power and the wisdom to welcome God’s invitation to make changes
to this world, through us.
Hopefully when you come to worship, when you log on and join
this community you are reminded of that “being part of something
bigger” feeling. You remember how lives are interconnected, how we
are influenced and impacted by the actions and words of others, and
how we can be an impact on them as well. Hopefully you are
reminded, as you think about those saints in your life, whose paths
have crossed your and encouraged you and inspired you, that our
lives are all woven together in an intricate web of divine grace; held
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together and strengthened by the love of God. These people, these
saints, have shone a light for us, and now it is up to us to keep it
burning.
And what does it mean to shine that light? Well, consider
missionary physician Dr. Albert Schweitzer. He gave his life to serve
the needs of those who lived in the African jungle. He was to the first
half of the 20th century what Mother Teresa was to the second half.
His life was devoted to protecting and healing lives and focusing on
doing no harm in the process. He allegedly hung a lamp in front of his
hospital that shone brilliantly throughout the jungle darkness and
could be seen from quite a distance. The light literally became a
beacon of hope and healing for the area’s sick and dying. He is said
to have hung a sign under the lamp that said:
“At whatever hour you come, you will find light, and hope and human
kindness.”
Both the sign and the lamp were “earnests” of Schweitzer’s ministry.
They were things that gave the people in need a little taste of the
welcome, care and help that awaited them.
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Schweitzer was not a naïve man and he lived his “earnestness”
with full knowledge of how difficult and cruel the world can be, how
cruel and broken people can be. But in themidst of all the challenges
he was always able to stay focused on his faith, and his knowledge of
God’s love for this world. And so he lived absolutely determined that
his life would point to heaven, to the promise of God’s love, with
every fiber of his being. No matter how challenging things became.
Being a person of faith does not mean being blind to the pain
and suffering of this world, it does not mean putting a positive spin on
everything, or ignoring the anxiety and uncertainty you are feeling.
We are not at peace yet, and it is ok to acknowledge that. God’s
promises are not realized yet. But they will be. And so as people of
faith we are called to do our best to not get bogged down in the
problems and the fears and the brokenness of this world. We have to
live in the midst of it, but we are called to do so living in ways that
point to the promises of God, those promises that the passage from
Revelation talks about in which everyone will walk together having
come through the troubled times. In the midst of the brokenness and
stress of this world, we are called to live in ways that point to hope
and encourage hope to grow in the hearts of those around us. That
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is what it means to shine a light. Keeping the faith in God’s promises
of new life coming out of death, light shining in darkness … promises
that God will unite us and guide us, help us knock down the walls that
divide us and the ideologies that pit us against one another.
Suffering will end. This suffering will end.
We are living in times of tremendous division, much
uncertainty and a lot of fear. But as people of faith, we are called to
see beyond this present moment to the promises of God and we must
work to help reveal this light and this hope and reflect it in our world
every chance we get. Just as the saints of our faith who went before
us worked toward making this real for us, we need to make it real for
those around us now. No matter how dark it gets we need to live as
though there is a sign just above us that says “At whatever hour you
come, you will find light, and hope and human kindness.”
Let us keep the faith, let us be kind, and on the miost difficult
days, let us go into the world in earnest, yearning for the kingdom of
God, pointing to its inbreaking, confident of the love and power of
God surrounding us. Thanks be to God.