Sunday, November 25, 2012

Whom Do We Represent?

Were you holding your breath for the eight days in which Hamas and Israel were bombarding each other with rockets? It’s been a long century of wars. We’ve endured two great world-wide conflicts – and so many lesser conflicts from 1945 on, at home and abroad. This past week it seemed as if war would break out in the Middle East yet again, as Hamas and Israel traded accusations along with rocket fire. Benjamin Netanyahu even threatened an armed invasion of Gaza. As threats began to escalate, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, representing President Obama, joined Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in “shuttle diplomacy.” Going back and forth between the combatants, the two managed to bring both sides to the table. As some of us were fervently praying, “Let there be peace,” a cease-fire was announced on Wednesday evening. Although a young Palestinian man was killed and nine others wounded in a clash with Israeli soldiers on Friday, once again we hope that both sides can take concrete steps towards resolving the conflict. Once again we hope that Hilary Clinton, Mohamed Morsi, Benjamin Netanyahu, and those representing the interests of the Palestinians can find a way to ensure peace and political stability in a region sacred to Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

As we continue to watch events play out in Israel and Palestine, you and I trust Mrs. Clinton and all our representatives to do all that they can to ensure a just and fair peace. What we may not remember is that you and I also represent a leader. On this feast day of Christ the King, the church reminds us that we who dare to call ourselves Christians, that we who claim to be Jesus’ disciples represent the Christos, God’s anointed one. Although the one whom we represent discouraged his friends from calling him “king” or “messiah,” we nevertheless acknowledge him as our leader, as the one who invited us to follow him into a new country, a new realm, the Kingdom of God.

Who is this leader to whom we profess allegiance? What kind of leader do we claim to follow, speak for, celebrate, and represent to others? Here is what he is not: despite the title of “king,” despite the identification by Pope Pius XI in 1925 of this day as Christ the King Sunday, the leader whom we follow is anything but a traditional king. In declaring to Pilate that “My kingdom is not from this world,” he was declaring that he was not like Caesar, the king whom Pilate represented. He was not like the other kings of the ancient world – or like the Kaisers and tsars of the nineteenth century. He did not build his realm on structures of power, dominance, and exploitation. He did not claim or wish to exercise absolute power, and he had no need of heaps of gold, rich clothes, gorgeous palaces, or crowds of servants. He did not hide himself away from his subjects or force them, as did Henry VIII, to kneel in his presence and speak only if he deigned to address them. Nor did he proclaim himself the leader of a merely a spiritual kingdom, or of one that would come into being only in heaven, or even of one that his followers would see only in some future age beyond history.

In his journey to Jerusalem these last couple of months in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus gave us some clues as to the kind of leader he really was. Instead of showing us the tyranny of traditional kings, or promising us “pie in the sky when you die,” Jesus showed us a leader who was the servant of all, who cared for the “least of those” among us, who left the constraints of his own community to minister to any and to all who needed his help. Jesus showed us a leader who stood in opposition to traditional structures of power. Instead of slavery, he offered his followers liberation – from their own egoism and selfishness, from suffering, sickness, exclusion, tyranny, persecution, even death. Jesus showed us a leader who ultimately gave his own body and blood for the life of the world.

This is the leader whom we profess to represent. As truly as Hilary Clinton represented the U.S. in the shuttle diplomacy in Gaza, we are called to represent Jesus to the world around us. We are called to represent him in a world at war, where mourners weep over the deaths of innocent bystanders, where fathers, son, and brothers die in battle, and where invading armies rape and pillage with abandon. We are called to represent him in a world steeped in greed, where CEOs receive lavish bonuses while workers on the floor see their pensions erode and their health insurance disappear. We are called to represent him to a world that hugely profits from his birth, even as our national holidays steadily disappear. We are called to represent him in a world where people still go hungry. We are called to represent him in a world that couldn’t care less about his message, and in which churches are rapidly becoming minority communities deemed irrelevant by the rest of the world.

In this warring, greedy, hungry, and broken world, as Jesus’ representatives, we are called to be countercultural. We are called to shout “Jesus is Lord, not Caesar! Forget your Kaisers and tsars, forget your kings and queens, forget even your presidents and prime ministers, Jesus is our boss, our head honcho, the one whom we trust, the one whose decisions for us are final.” If Jesus is the one whom we represent, then, for us, Jesus is in charge, Jesus is the one whom we obey, Jesus is the one whom we follow, wherever he leads, even to the cross. If we say that Jesus is the one whom we represent, then his priorities become our priorities. Did he minister to those on the margins of his society? Did he touch those whom religious leaders declared unclean? Did he feed the hungry and heal the sick? If we truly call ourselves citizens of his country, then so must we. If Jesus is our leader, then we must take our allegiance to him seriously. We must worship regularly, draw closer to one another in community, pray regularly, and return some of our wealth back to God. If we say that Jesus is then one whom we represent, then we declare that we will place our loyalty to him above every other loyalty, and that we will give to no other person, cause, organization, or even country, the loyalty and allegiance that we owe to him.

If Jesus is the one whom we represent, whose values we profess, whose model we follow, then, God willing, we strive to create communities in his name where all his friends are welcome, most especially those whom we may serve. Who are some of those friends who are welcome in a community led by Jesus’ representatives? We welcome those who are single, married, divorced, gay, rich, poor, or yo no habla Ingles. We like crying newborns, those who can sing with the angels, and those who don’t know one note from another. We welcome those who are just browsing, who haven’t been here since their cousin’s baptism, or who just got out of jail. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, artists, environmentalists, vegetarians, or junk food eaters. We welcome all those who are depressed, and all those who are “spiritual but not religious.” We welcome those who need prayer, all those who had religion forced on them, and all those who got lost on SR 7 and wound up here by mistake.1 All and more are subjects of the king whose name we bear, and, in his name we welcome all for whom he gave his life.

And we rejoice to represent him to all to whom he sends us. We will probably never join the Secretary of State in shuttle diplomacy – at least not on the international level – though we may be called to represent Jesus in peacemaking efforts on a local level. Even so, as Jesus’ representatives, we can reach out to a hurting and broken world, tending to the least in the Kingdom of God and bringing his presence and values into our own world wherever we are. In a few minutes we will say the Lord’s Prayer. As you do so, know that saying this prayer is truly a subversive act. Know that you are asking God that, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” As Daniel Clendinen reminds us, “people who pray this way have a very different agenda than Caesar’s, whether Republican or Democrat, whether capitalist, socialist, communist, whether democratic or theocratic. Why? Because they’ve entered a kingdom, pledged their allegiance to a ruler, and submitted to the reign of Christ the King.”2 May it please his Majesty that we may look only where the banner of our King is flying and follow wherever it leads us!

1. Adapted from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community Church Bulletin, as quoted in Synthesis, November 25, 2012.

2. “’Yes, I am a King:’ The Anti-Politics of Christ the King,” Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net, accessed 11/19/2012.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Do Not Be Alarmed

It was 1912. The prosperous congregation of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Gallipolis, made up mostly of the families of businessmen, physicians, and other professionals, worshipped in the red brick building that had been consecrated in 1859 by then Bishop Charles P. McIlvaine. Electric lights now illuminated the well-appointed interior of the church. A vested choir led the congregation in singing the familiar hymns. The Rev. Charles Elliott Mackenzie preached and presided at Sunday worship. Although the town of Gallipolis had weathered the social and economic challenges of the years following the Civil War, and the Rev. Mr. Elliott had already had more than twenty predecessors, in 1912 most of the adult members of St. Peter’s likely thought that the world was at a comfortable and stable plateau.

Many in the larger world shared that sense of stability. In the U.S. and Europe, children left school at thirteen to take up work in stores, factories, and mines. Wealthy and aristocratic families lived comfortably on richly furnished estates. Kings and queens, the Kaiser and the tsar, reigned serenely from their centuries-old palaces. The U.S. and European countries, especially the United Kingdom, grew rich from colonies in South America, Africa and Asia. American and European Protestants sent out evangelists who took up Jesus’ Great Commission and strove to bring the Gospel to the benighted heathen. Many believed that the world had at last reach a comfortable and stable place of peace.

That peace was shattered on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and France, and Russia attacked Germany. Britain soon joined the war on the side of France. The U.S. joined the conflict in 1917 on the side of Britain and France. The War to End all Wars finally ground to a halt on November 11, 1918, leaving over nine million combatants dead. Unfortunately, the 1918 Armistice was a fragile and short-lived peace. With the rise of fascism, war broke out again among European nations in 1939. The U.S. again went to war following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. European fascists were defeated, and the war came to a fiery end in Japan with the fall of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. However, the Allied victory did not usher in a new period of peace and stability. While the U.S. fought a Cold War, colonial nations fought for independence. Wars were waged again in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Armed conflicts broke out in Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel, and Syria. The Soviet Union broke apart in 1989.

Meanwhile, the U.S., Europe, and other parts of the world experienced major social changes. Women were granted the right to vote, African Americans achieved major civil rights victories, shifting tides of immigration created previously unimaginably diverse communities, and people learned how to communicate electronically. Americans and Europeans became more open to different expressions of sexuality. Mainline churches ordained women but ceased to be centers of social life. The Episcopal Church finally untied itself from sixteenth century English and learned that God could still hear our prayers in contemporary language. And now many observers believe that the church is undergoing yet another Reformation, from which it will emerge with yet new ways of organization, expression, and worship.

What a century it has been! Could the worshippers in these pews in 1912 imagine what awaited their world? How do we survive in a time of such great change? If we were Buddhists, the answer to that question would be easy. A central tenet of Buddhist teaching is that everything is in flux, and that there are no times or places of stability and peace. The answer is not quite so simple for us Christians. Do our Scriptures give us some clues? Not surprisingly, all the communities who heard the readings that you just heard were experiencing huge changes in the world around them. The book of Daniel, the source of our first lesson, was written in the second century BC, when Greek rulers were attempting to destroy Jewish communities. Our lesson comes at the end of a three-chapter sequence in which God, speaking through Daniel, assures the Jews that, even though they may be in anguish, the great angel Michael, will surely deliver them. Our psalmist reiterates that theme by reminding his hearers to trust in God’s protection.

And what of the hearers of Mark’s Gospel? That Gospel was written during or slightly after the destruction of Jerusalem that took place between 66 and 70 CE. For them, it was as if 9/11 were stretched over four years. The center of the system of sacrifices and their religious universe, that great temple that had been rebuilt after the Exile, the temple that Herod the Great had enlarged, the temple where Jesus had walked and prayed, was no more! The whole city was devastated and most of its inhabitants scattered to the four winds! Worst of all, Mark’s community was facing discrimination and trials. Who more than they needed to hear of God’s eventual liberation of the world? And even the hearers of the Letter to the Hebrews needed to hear again that they had already been rescued by Christ. They were a discouraged and disheartened congregation desperately needing a new vision and a new hope.

As we look back on the last century, and as we look around us at our lives now, many of us feel as if we are living in a time of cataclysmic change, especially in the church. So what do these lessons say to us about living in such a time? To begin with, they tell us that we are to be neither complacent nor afraid. Daniel reminds his hearers that only some of those who sleep will be raised, and that some will be condemned. On the other hand, those who are wise will “shine like the brightness of the sky.” Our psalm distinguishes between those who are godly and those who are not. Even so, the psalmist takes refuge in God and rejoices in God’s protection. The gospel reading warns us both to beware of false prophets, those who would lead God’s people astray, and to trust in God’s deliverance and “not be alarmed.” The letter to the Hebrews reminds us to trust Christ’s saving work above all and know that we can approach God with faith because Christ’s victory has removed the separation between humanity and God.

More important, our readings encourage us to live in two time frames at once. We are to live in the now, confident and faithful regardless of how messy and dangerous the world around us appears. But we are also to look ahead into the future, God’s future, we are to catch a glimpse every now and then of creation liberated and renewed, of the joy to come. “Your people shall be delivered,” Daniel tells his hearers. “You will show me the path of life,” the psalmist confidently prays. “The end is yet to come,” we hear Jesus telling the disciples, “this is but the beginning of birth pangs.” We are to hold fast to that vision, we are to have confidence in the coming of God’s future, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us. Christ’s work is finished, but we are still awaiting the full realization of Christ’s victory.

Finally, and perhaps most important, we are to encourage one another. Like Daniel’s people, we are to cultivate wisdom so that we may help others to trust in God’s future. Like the hearers of the Letter to the Hebrews, we are strengthen our ties as a praying community, we are to love one another, and, most important, we are to actively partner with God to bring God’s future nearer. In Christ, we are reminded that, together, as a community of disciples, we have all that we need to do what God has called us to do.

Here at St. Peter’s one thing is crystal clear: we cannot live as if it is still 1912. So much has happened to our world and to the church since then. The church has changed, and will continue to change. We cannot sit back and refuse to acknowledge those changes. Nor can we indulge in the luxury of fear or despair at what we see. God is at work! As we seek to do God’s will in Gallipolis, we can trust that God is leading us, just as God led this community a century ago. Most important, we can do everything in our power to strengthen this community and to build each other up. We are a unique community, called into being by God and surviving by God’s will. Believe it! “In an age when communities of all kinds are crumbling and individualism is the prevailing ideology, only the church ‘can offer a community that was here before any of us were born, that will be here after all of us die and that binds us to one another because it binds us to Christ.’”1 Trust that God is bringing in God’s future. Today join hands with your brothers and sisters in Christ and rise up to do God’s holy will.

1. Robert Bellah, quoted by Jerry L. Van Marter, “Church is Best Equipped to Rebuild Communities,” PCUSA NEWS #4041, 2/112/97, quoted by David E. Leininger, Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 2008), 277.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

We Offer Ourselves

Some years ago Pastor Heidi Neumark attended mass at a Roman Catholic parish in one of the poorest parts of Mexico City.1 The mass was outdoors, and the people were sitting on plastic chairs and wooden benches arranged around the altar. At the time of the offertory, as the guitar band played, people came forward carrying small plastic bags filled with something white. Slowly they poured the contents of their bags into coffee cans placed around the altar. Each person poured only a small amount of raw rice into the cans, but soon the cans were filled to the brim. After mass, the priest told Neumark that every day every family set aside at least one spoonful of rice. As the rice collected this way was then brought to the altar, it became a concrete offering to God from the daily life of the families. No one in the families went hungry, and no family went destitute in offering the rice. The collected cans went mostly to people in houses where there had been illness or death. As the rice provided material sustenance, it also tangibly reminded those who were hurting of both God’s love and the care of their fellow parishioners.

Like today’s Scripture readings, Neumark’s story reminds us that those with little are often among the most generous, and that even small gifts can soon add up to very tangible offerings. The widow of Zarephath, in our Hebrew Bible lesson, was down to her last bit of flour and oil. All she needed for a last meal with her son were a few twigs for a cooking fire. Yet when Elijah promised her that, if she gave the cake she was fixing to him instead, God would abundantly provide for her. Miraculously she agreed, and Elijah’s words were fulfilled. The widow in our reading from the Gospel of Mark was down to her last two lepta, the smallest coin of her day. Even without any explicit promises from Jesus or anyone else, she handed them over to the Temple treasury and went on her way.

Do any of these stories raise questions for you? While applauding the Mexican parishioners’ generosity, Neumark wondered whether the rice bags did anything to change the system of poverty and inequality in that Mexico City neighborhood. After hearing the story of the widow at Zarephath, we might wonder why a Gentile woman chose to believe the impossible promise of an Israelite prophet. Was she at the point where she had nothing to lose? After all, she was only one meal away from certain starvation. Perhaps the holy man knew something that she didn’t? The story of the widow and her offering in the Gospel lesson is even more problematic. Although she is often held up as model, the poor widow is not an example of good stewardship. Jesus merely observes her action. He does not praise it or commend it to the disciples. God understands that we have obligations to ourselves, our families, and our community. God does not expect us to cease providing for those dependent on us. The church’s standard of giving has historically been the tithe, 10% of our resources, scarcely more than the Mexican parishioner’s daily spoonful. Actually we might say that the widow in the gospel story is a negative example, in her giving away more than she should to a temple system that encouraged inequality and did nothing to ease her burden.

But perhaps these widows, and even the Mexican parishioners, are models in a different way. Remember that Jesus’ observations about giving at the temple’s gate are part of his last public discourse before his journey to the cross. He has been reminding his disciples and friends that communities of his followers will not perpetuate the inequality of the society around them, but, rather, will be led by those who are willing to be servants of all. He points to the scribes. As wealthy people who parade their status and piety, they are all that leaders of Christian communities should not be. By contrast, the widow’s offering, ill-advised though it may ultimately be – how will she take care of herself after all – symbolizes what Jesus himself is about to do, i.e., offer himself, all of himself, back to God for the benefit of the whole world.

So there is a challenge for us here, although it’s not what we might think it is. We’re not being challenged to give all our money to the church. For some that might be the right course, for example, for those who join monastic communities and take voluntary vows of poverty. For most of us, such a life is not possible. Which doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t honestly examine our use of our resources, perhaps foregoing our indulgence in the latest gadgets and perhaps finding ways to increase our giving to God, charities, and organizations that work for justice and peace. The real challenge is far deeper. The question that the poor widow – and ultimately Jesus himself – ask us is, how do we offer our very lives to God? In many churches, as the offering basket comes to the altar, instead of the people singing the Doxology, as we do here, the priest says, “All things come of thee, O Lord,” to which the people respond, “And of thine have we given thee.” In Rite I of the Great Thanksgiving, we “offer and present” to God “ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice.” How do we do that? How do we place not only our dollars in the offering basket, how do we place our whole lives on the altar along with the basket? All things do come from God, and whatever we give, we are only giving God’s gifts back to God. But what does offering our lives to God really mean?

Let me invite you to ponder that question, and let me suggest some ways to answer it. First of all, offering our lives to God really does involve giving back to God, supporting the church and its ministries as generously as you can. Secondly, offering our lives to God means cultivating a generous and open spirit, seeing all those around us as God’s beloved children and staying alert to opportunities for responding to the needs of those whom we encounter. Do you want to begin cultivating such a spirit? Wherever you are, in this sanctuary, in the parish hall, in Bob Evans or Walmart, look at the people around you one by one and say to yourself, “Christ died for thee.”

Third, offering ourselves to God means considering our ministries. We do a splendid job of feeding people here. However, in the wake of the election, we might begin thinking in terms of broader changes that we need to promote, so that fewer people go hungry. Scripture resounds with declarations of God’s care for the poor and marginalized. Listen again to the psalm we all said a few minutes ago: we hope in God “who gives justice to those who are oppressed and food to those who hunger.... [T]he Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.” We may honestly disagree about policy issues, but can we support micro-lending programs to help people start small businesses, community gardens, increases in funding for supplemental nutrition, basic healthcare for all, and a taxation system that doesn’t unduly burden the poor? Can we educate ourselves and increase our skills, so that we can be more effective ministers in both the secular world and the church? Are there orphanages, schools, churches, hospitals, and relief organizations here or overseas that need our resources? I especially commend to you Episcopal Relief and Development, which, right now, has a matching program for any gift made by year’s end. Are there other charitable organizations close to your heart? Have you made provision for charitable giving in your will? If you are retired, on a limited income, are there local organizations to which you can offer your talents? Can you stay informed on the issues by subscribing to magazines, newsletters, or electronic communications? Can you use your social media networks to spread the word about causes dear to you? More important, can you write letters or communicate electronically with your elected officials on important issues? Regardless of your age or station, can you simplify your life, so that there is room in it for God to get a word in edgewise? Can you find time to let God get that word in?

I invite all of us to ponder how we might offer ourselves for the life of the world. I invite you to offer yourself in service to those for whom God cares. I invite you to offer your life for those for whom Jesus died. I invite you to let your life witness to your promise to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

1. “Reflections on the Lectionary,” Christian Century (129, 22, Oct. 31, 2012), 21.


Sunday, November 4, 2012

Blessed Assurance, Blessed Invitation

Five days ago, Hurricane Sandy roared out of the Caribbean and up the east coast of the United States causing horrific destruction from Haiti to the Lake Erie shore. Still devastated by the earthquake that struck in January 2010, Haiti yet again experienced the destruction of homes, schools, businesses, and healthcare facilities. As the hurricane charged up the east coast, making landfall in New Jersey, millions of people suffered loss of electric power. Over eighty people died. Transportation networks were destroyed. Great cities were shut down. Even our own state, on the Lake Erie shore felt the hurricane’s effects. Right now, the economic impact of the hurricane is unfathomable, and it will be years before those affected by it fully recover.

Of course we in southern Ohio are no strangers to destructive weather, having suffered our own prolonged loss of power in this past summer’s derecho. Perhaps some of you lost food and trees or sweltered in the late June heat. In August 2011 Hurricane Irene visited destruction on, of course, the Caribbean. However, after making landfall in southern New Jersey, it turned inward, causing cyclonic winds and flooded rivers in Vermont and New Hampshire, areas mostly immune to the dangers of hurricanes. And who can forget the destruction brought about in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005?

We could go on and on with hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, cyclones, and tsunamis. To so-called “natural disasters” we can easily add those caused by human folly. Who can forget the BP Gulf oil spill or that of the Exxon Valdez? Add to them, on the macro level famine, war, ethnic cleansing, and violent political dictatorships, and, on the micro level, rape, illness, addiction, domestic abuse, and accidents. In the face of so much human need, our elected officials often seem to be handcuffed by extreme partisanship and totally unable to reach agreement on even the smallest steps. No wonder some of us want to cry out, “Where are you, God? What are you doing about our messy, broken, sinful world? Are you totally disconnected from all these disasters?”

And yet, we are also people of faith. We trust that there is more to human destiny than one disaster after another. Our Scriptures, so full of God’s promises, tell a different story than that of the daily news. Today’s Scripture readings in particular give us an assurance, a “blessed assurance,” that God is with us in all the disasters that crash in on our lives. What is more important, in the midst of these disasters, God offers us hope for the future, for a restoration of creation, and for life lived on a new plane. Addressing a people in exile, the writer of the first part of the book of Isaiah assures his readers that God knows their plight and sorrows with them. Although their world had been turned upside down, in much the same way as for those now suffering from the hurricanes, Isaiah suggests that God will ultimately bring about a different future for the exiles. Can you picture that heavenly banquet? All the wonderful food and the best wine? Wouldn’t you be comforted to hear that God will perfect creation, and that a future without death, of joyful abundance, and open to all, is part of God’s plan?

Our Gospel reading puts “skin” on Isaiah’s vision, so to speak. Do you have any doubts that God knows our pain? Jesus’ visit to Bethany is the last of the signs that John’s Gospel offers us that Jesus is the Word made flesh, that Jesus is sent by God to be God in our midst. And what does God with us do? He weeps! He knows our pain and loss and grieves with us – then and now. And then, pointing forward to his own resurrection, he releases his friend Lazarus from the bonds of death and assures the crowd, the gospel readers, and us, that eventually all of us will be set free from the bonds of death, that all of us will, with the readers of Isaiah, feast at God’s great banquet.

Surely the writer of the book of Revelation also understood God’s promises of restoration and wholeness. Writing to Jewish Christian communities that had suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Roman Empire, he used different images to capture his vision of God’s future. In the image of the new Jerusalem, he gives us a wonderful symbol for perfected creation. Can you picture that perfect city, so different from any known on earth? Shining, sparkling, gem-encrusted, perfect in its dimensions, a place where all is new, where death has been banished, where the gates are open to all? And more: in this newly perfected Jerusalem, the compassionate God who comforted the exiles and wept over Lazarus knows all of God’s people intimately. And lest we think all this is a vain hope, John declares that, “It is done!” God has already acted decisively, and, despite our doubts, God is even now bringing God’s plans to fruition.

At this point you might be asking, “Wait, isn’t this All Saints Sunday? Aren’t we celebrating all those saints ‘who from their labors rest?’ Why do we hear all these readings outlining God’s compassion for us and God’s promises of a restored creation? What about all those holy women and men?” Here’s the answer. To begin with, by saints we do not mean only holy people who lived centuries ago and are now enshrined in icons and stained glass windows. The true saints, both those on the official calendars, and those known only to a few friends and relatives, are those who have caught the vision. The true saints are those who have experienced God at work in their own lives and who trust God’s promises. The true saints are those who can see past the grief and pain of this life and can glimpse God’s future with their own eyes. The true saints are those who, seeing this future in their mind’s eyes, have accepted God’s invitation to help bring nearer the day when God’s future will be fully realized.

The saints do indeed constitute a “great cloud of witnesses” for us. Certainly the saints of history, those ancient martyrs in whose memory this feast day began, are among their number. So too are those like Francis and Clare of Assisi, who turned their backs on wealth and adopted a life of service to the poor. Who can forget the scholars among them, Dominic, Thomas Aquinas, or Catherine of Siena? Or the mystics, Hildegard of Bingen or Julian of Norwich? Or Brother Lawrence, who knew God’s presence with him in the pots and pans of a monastery kitchen? More contemporary saints are also alive in that “cloud:” people like Philander Chase, the founder of the Episcopal Church in Ohio, Julia Chester Emery, the founder of the United Thank Offering, Mother Ruth, the founder of the Community of the Holy Spirit, Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and teacher of mysticism to all of us, or Martin Luther King, Jr., whose martyrdom helped break down the walls separating the races. And then there are the saints known only to you: those relatives, friends, and teachers, who shared their vision of God with you and led you to trust in God’s promises. Truly the saints are beyond number.

And what of ourselves? What is our call on All Saints Day? Certainly, we are called to remember the saints with gratitude, to give thanks to God for the courage they showed in their day in sharing their visions of God. And are we among the saints? When our time is past, will we be among that “cloud of witnesses?” You and I could not stop Hurricane Sandy in its tracks. We cannot solely by our own individual efforts stop war and erase poverty. But can we too catch the vision? Can we deepen our relationship with God? Can we see ahead to God’s future and accept God’s invitation to join in bringing that future nearer? Lane Denson reminds us that in our readings from Mark’s Gospel this fall we have been called to be servant leaders. On All Saints Sunday, we are charged with accepting that call and falling in with all the rest of the saints, with the apostles, martyrs, and mystics, all the founders of communities, all those who have gone to the aid of those suffering in disasters, all those who gave their lives for racial and ethnic justice, all those who care for God’s creation, and all those who seek to eliminate poverty and injustice. On All Saints Sunday we too are called to proclaim the good news and to “walk the talk.” We too are called to see beyond the limitations of this life in the present, beyond the disasters, beyond the social inequity and racial discrimation, beyond the abuse and destruction that we have visited on nature. With the saints we too are called to claim the promise of God’s reign now and forever.

O blest communion, fellowship divine! God grant that we may know ourselves to be numbered among them!