Sermon for All Saints Sunday
November 4, 2007
Daniel 7:1–3, 15–18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11–23
Luke 6:20–31
Year C
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
I am one who is well acquainted with end of life scenarios, as I have ministered to the dying and buried the dead for over twenty years.
Over a period of six and half years, in the Green Mountain State of Vermont, I trudged into many a cemetery. There was the little old one in the hill country of Shrewsbury, Vermont where I laid to rest Ellen Kelley’s neighbor and longtime companion Russell. My father happened to be visiting, and in that graveyard he marveled at the creativity and the ages of the epitaphs. There was the time when Anne, the owner of the country cookie-cutter business buried her father on the property of her homestead in Chittenden. And then there were the trips to the final resting places of many old-timers at the well-kept Vermont State Veterans Cemetery in North Randolph.
Bob Williamson, who was on the call committee in 1993, told me that one of my main jobs in coming to be pastor at Good Shepherd in Rutland was to bury the old Swedes, and bury them I did, his own mother Elsa, and quite a few others with distinctive Scandinavian monikers like Louis and Borghild Skottet, Harry Johnson, Maynard Larson, Ernie Olson, George and his brother John Erickson, and Arnold Myhre.
I think we must have sung the Karolina Sandell-Berg hymn Children of the Heavenly Father at all the funerals, so no matter what time of year we sang it again in church, streams of tears would flow from the children and grandchildren descended from the old Swedes who were still a part of that congregation.
By the time we get to today’s great feast of the church on the first Sunday in November here at Christ the King, I have six more experiences behind me since the feast of a year ago, commending those who were in many ways part of the lifeblood of this congregation, who were under my charge, who were husbands, mothers, and friends, and whom we now name as saints, Bill Cunningham and Bill Hildebrandt (who died on the same day), Mildred Kulakowski (who always had a hug for me), Fred Weiss (who always had a joke for me), Alma Bradley (who introduced me to pumpkin ravioli), and Dick Watson (who helped me stay connected to his wife, Linda, who preceded him in death).
By virtue of their baptisms into Christ, their being clothed with his glory in life and in death, we place them in good company with those from the vision of Daniel who despite calamity and tribulation, find a place with one who is above all and through all and in all. Four ugly and terrifying beasts emerge to plague harass and threaten the destiny of God’s people, representing beasties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night, real and present dangers from terrorists and rogue nations, any personal and communal annihilation and obliteration. In the snippet of that crazy and technicolored dream of the mystical prophet we heard today, with a dreadful description, it ends with this strong statement which begins with that very important conjunction but the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever — forever and ever (Daniel 7:18).
Holy Ones. Saints. When we speak the Apostles’ Creed as a confession of faith, we say that we “believe in the communion of saints.” Thinking of the old Swedes in Vermont, the six from our community whom have died since last November, aunts and uncles, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, and the myriad of other folks from Saint Anselm to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from all times and places, there is this company we keep that is described by Gail Ramshaw as the desire to surround oneself with the saints, the need to be in communion with the great and holy folk of the past. Communion: to be at one with. Saints: those brought through baptism to God. Koinonia ton hagion: the participation in the holy things. (from “Communion of Saints,” in Words Around the Table, Liturgy Training Publication, Chicago, © 1991, p. 51).
We can certainly do this as we look at depictions and stories of saints. One of my favorite places to visit in Jerusalem is the Benedictine shrine dedicated to the death of Mary, the mother of our Lord. There are so many beautifully and colorfully depictions of Mary, holding the infant Jesus, or standing by the cross. But the most moving space is down in the crypt chapel, where a wood and ivory carving of Mary in eternal repose lies in the center of the circular space. Looking above Mary is a dome as if into heaven, where painted on the ceiling of the dome are women from the Old Testament who all have stories of God’s faithfulness to them in their biographies, Miriam, Ruth, Jael, Esther, Eve, and Deborah. Icons and paintings of biblical, legendary, and historical heroes, and stories of devotion, bravery, faith, and wisdom all keep us in good company.
In this inheritance that we yearn for, in this wide and vast way of being and believing that gives us a sense of the body of Christ that is imaged in the letter to the Ephesians as filling time and space, which transports us to a heaven where there is endless joy and peace, Jesus himself reminds us to also discover blessedness in the here and now, in the experience of the poor, the hungry, and the mourning. While we commune in the train of glory that offers Christ’s body and blood in bread and wine, we ought not forget those who hunger and thirst for daily bread. While we sing of the riches of the kingdom of heaven in God’s promised future, we must consider what it is that impoverishes so many. While we discover surprising joy in the gift of each other to share life and love, we also ask for compassion on those who live with the pain of loss and loneliness.
In this place between the already and the not yet, the present time and the age held in God’s future, we cherish the memory of many who have died, we trust that in Christ all is made new, and we look to be reminded by stories and the cross, communion and prayer, and the ways we glimpse God’s kingdom breaking into the places that are dark, bringing light, life, and the peace which passes understanding.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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