All Saints' Day, (from Year C)

"Saints and Saintliness"

By Rev. Earl Feddersen

Psalm 34:1-10; Is 26:1-4, 8-9, 12-13, 19-21;

Rev 21:9-11, 22-27; 22:1-5; Matt 5:1-12

This Sunday is November 1 -- All Saints' Day. The term "saint" is widely used. People use it to refer to well-behaved children, kindly and gentle seniors, hard-workers in the church, anyone who has died and, specifically, to certain honored dead in the Church's history. In the Apostles' Creed and a few other writings, the phrase "Communion of Saints" is used as a synonym for The Holy Christian (catholic or universal) Church. In that sense, it is a reference to all believers in Christ. By definition, if you are a believing Christian, you are a saint. Many Lutheran churches celebrate the Reformation on the Sunday before November 1 and remember the saints either on the 1st or the following Sunday. Since All Saints' Day falls on Sunday this year, most churches will probably celebrate the festival.

Perhaps the biggest lesson to be learned from an observation of All Saints' Day is not about the Church's past, but our present. You can waste a lot of good time if you look around churches and communities trying to identify or separate saints from sinners. You do not have to be very observant to discover that all people are sinners. Some of them, however, are also saints. It is far more difficult (if not impossible) to discern the forgiven sinners from all the rest. The reason is simple -- faith and motives are internal and invisible to the human eye and often deceptive to human intuition. Faith and motives are only fully known by God and this is not only true as we observe the actions of others, but also as we look at our own.

Three things are worth remembering: 1. Some of the best things that have happened in the world were done or at least started for the wrong reasons. Jesus was crucified under accusations of treason, anarchy, revolution and blasphemy. 2. Some of the worst things have been done with good intentions. The developers of Thalidomide were seeking a medication to benefit humanity. 3. Finally, good motives with no action and bad motives with good action are both hypocrisy and nothing aggravated Jesus more.

Many years ago, in his syndicated column, Norman Vincent Peale told this story:

"Stewardesses are supposed to be nice, but I was on a flight between Chicago and Dallas a few weeks ago where a stewardess was unusually friendly and helpful. I told her so and she was quite frank with me. She explained, 'About five years ago I read in the paper about a waitress who was included in a will just because she was polite and courteous. "What in the world?", I thought. It might happen to me. So I started treating passengers like people. And it makes me feel so good that now I don't care if I never get a million dollars.' It was a case of a low motive blossoming into a loftier one."

We cannot and ought not try to figure out the faith and motives of others. We need to feed our own faith and seek to discern and upgrade our own purposes. At the same time, purity of intention is not enough. A person who tries to bail a sinking boat with a leaky sieve may be good intentioned, but is also misguided and will surely sink -- in spite of all good intentions to the contrary. We are saints, forgiven sinners, only through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By His grace, through faith, God has made us saints. Let us pray that through prayer, study and serious effort He will also make us saintly!

Nowadays, All Saints' Day is a minor church festival. In Luther's Day, it was an empire-wide Holy Day. That is why he published his propositions for debate on the evening before everyone would be in church. Since, however, one of the bones Luther would eventually pick with the church was his aversion to praying to the saints, the date was an interesting choice. In arguing that prayers to the saints may not be heard or fruitful, Luther was fond of quoting two Scripture passages. The first is known worldwide; it comes from the first telling of a prayer that received its title from its Originator. When teaching His disciples how to pray the Lord said, "This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father ...'" The second passage is in First Timothy 2:5, where we find: "For there is one Mediator between God and men -- Christ Jesus." In a fashion typical to his mentor, Luther's friend, Philip Melanchthon wrote, "If a king has appointed a certain intercessor, he does not want appeals addressed to him through others. Since Christ has been appointed as our Intercessor and High Priest, why seek others?"

Luther was not interested in wasting time arguing about it; he was concerned with weightier matters. We know from history that he continued to blurt out certain invocations to specific saints. Who knows, maybe he even said, as many still do, "Saints preserve us!" Luther did think that we had much to learn from the examples of the saints, and the one thing that dominated his conversations about them was their faith.

Have you ever heard the physics professor's question about a sinking boat? The proposition is that a boat has a hole in its bottom and water is coming in. The boat will eventually sink. Why? Typically, people will say something having to do with the weight of the water with which the boat is filling. Then the professor will ask if the problem is that the water came in, and the students will answer affirmatively. At that point the teacher will smile and say, "Wrong! The boat sinks because the air goes out!" It all has to do with pressures and forces, and it can get quite complicated. The professor usually makes his point best when he suggests that the boat is already heavier than water or it couldn't possibly sink, even if it was filled to the brim. In simple language, boats are containers. As long as they and what they contain are lighter than what is beneath them they will float. When boats are filled with helium and similar gases, we call them airships, dirigibles, or blimps. Similarly, when individuals, groups or churches begin to think their ship is sinking, they often concentrate on the wrong things. Usually, the problem is not anything below, but a lack of what comes from above.

Christians need to remember to turn to God when the going gets rough, instead of turning to and on themselves and each other. Among Christians, when the going gets tough, the tough get praying. That is the faith and example of the saints we can all follow.

It is not just the saints of old, but the more recent saints that many will remember this Sunday. Many churches will pause for a commemoration of the faithful, remembering members and loved ones in Christ who joined the "company of heaven" since last November 1. I remember a man whose faith was a tremendous inspiration to me as a young pastor. He reminded me once of something we pastors can too easily forget: I didn't work for him; I worked for God. It seems simple just to type here, but there is nothing simple about it. He said it at a time when I had done something that confused him. It was a profound statement from an even more profound faith -- he didn't understand me or what I was doing, but he trusted the One who called me, so he would follow me.

There are saints in our midst right now also -- people with great faith -- an example for us all. Whenever someone of faith dies, I think about them the next time we come to the words in the Great Thanksgiving, "Therefore, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying ..." Some liturgies say, "with the saints on earth and all the saints of heaven..." On All Saints' Sunday, my head fills with images of those who have gone before. Occasionally, my eyes burn and tear. Sometimes I am filled with awe at the prospect!

Who in the great company -- the great cloud of witnesses -- was most influential in the formation and fostering of your faith? When they join in the singing on Sunday, will you be there joining with them? Aren't you glad and grateful that they took Christ's mission seriously? Who will be in the number because Christ's mission is your mission?