Introduction:

Greetings and Salutations. I am the Rev Janet Hess, a retired, ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. I have been worshipping with Lima Church for 2 years, both online and in-person. It is my honor and privilege to be your preacher on this All Saints Sunday.  My sermon theme is “Surrounded by Saints”

 

 

Some scriptures speak more clearly to us. We turn to them more than to others. In our joys and in our sorrows, we need the familiar, the better known, the tried and true. Thus, here and now, we come to All Saints Sunday and welcome Jesus’ introduction to his Sermon on the Mount with The Beatitudes. The deep, profound words fill our hearts with awe and gratitude.       “Merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers.”

The adjectives call to our minds the wonderful men and women whose lives, whose very beings were incarnations of mercy, peace, and purity of heart. We remember them, those in our past who heard and heeded the call to follow Christ, who obeyed, who found the grace to respond.

THEY are reason I am here, now, the reason you are here, now. We are in this place, at this time, worshipping, believing, trusting because someone —someone: a parent, a spouse, a relative, a friend, a neighbor, a teacher—someone showed us the way to believing, following, trusting.

 

For me, it was my parents and the faithful women and men in my childhood church. Later it was a particular pastor whose faith witness and challenge called forth a similar response in me. Friends and members within the believing community drew me further toward God, and many friends and members of other believing communities showed me how to continue toward God. The witness of all these, their example and encouragement moved me, (dare I say it) pushed me toward God. //

I am not alone in this.

 

ALL OF US, R believe more fully in God because of someone. Christ appears to us, haunts us in the face of another. We see God in the walk or words, deeds or dare of others. SAINTS. SAINTS. THEY ARE SAINTS. We believe in God because a saint or a company of saints has touched our lives. Saints, a saint has touched our lives and we are the better for it.

 

In HIS Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes, Jesus lists the qualities of our saints:

 

Poor in spirit
Mourning
Meek
Hungry & thirsty for righteousness
Merciful
Pure in heart
Peacemakers
Persecuted & reviled for Christ’s sake.

 

I think of some of the famous saints of recent ages.

Albert Switzerland—minister, master organist, physician, “who hungered and thirsted for righteousness.”
Mary McLeod Bethune—teacher, college president, government advisor, strong woman of faith, “pure in heart” in her determined work for equal education for Blacks.
Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero—celebrating Mass in San Salvador. “If they kill me, I will rise again in the hearts of my people.” And they did! They killed him, and today his picture hangs in countless homes and churches in Latin America. Indeed, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake.
Mother Theresa—who choose poverty and service to the poor, hungry, homeless, and ill in the streets of India. “Blessed are the merciful.”

 

And I think of my favorite contemporary saint: I call to mind the story of Ruby Bridges, the 6-year-old African American girl who, with 2 other students of color, integrated a previously all-white elementary school in New Orleans, November, 1960——61 years ago. Everyday for MONTHS, months (!), escorted by Federal Marshalls, little Ruby would walk past a screaming mob of people yelling nasty names at her, threatening her with violence, and telling her they were going to kill her. The ugly, vicious mobs were there when she went TO school and they were there waiting her again when she LEFT. Nasty and vicious. For MONTHS and MONTHS.

One man Robert Coles asked Ruby the same question day after day: “How are you doing, Ruby?” Always the same answer, daily: “Fine.”

And a 2nd question: “How are you making out in all this?” A 2nd answer: “OK.”

One day Ruby’s teacher noticed, noticed that as 6-yr-old Ruby walked past the mob, it was almost as if she were talking to people in the mob. Her lips were moving as if she were speaking. So, the same man Robert Coles, asked her, “Ruby, what are you saying to those people in the mob?”

“I wasn’t talking to them. I was praying for them!” R “I was praying for them!”

Ruby’s questioner was astonished. “Why?” he asked, “Why would you pray for them?”

“Because I should.”

“Do you always pray for them?”

“Oh yes, I pray for them every morning and I try to remember to pray for them every afternoon and when I say my prayers at night too.” When asked what she prayed, Ruby replied, “I say, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.’” “I say, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’”      //.  //

 

61 years ago, Ruby Bridges set the bar for modern sainthood very high. Her prayers for her enemies, echoing Jesus’ prayer for HIS enemies, shows us the compassion, the mercy, and the faith we are called to model in our own words and deeds daily, always, steadfastly.

It is the Christian standard which challenges us, and it is the standard which challenged our saints, the ones we honor today and the ones we remember back thru the ages.

 

I think NOT just of those in the past, the well-known. I think of OUR saints, OUR saints—-those we remember today. OUR saints lived among us. They were our spouses, our siblings, our cousins, our relatives. They were ouR neighbors, our friends, our companions.

They worshipped with us, here in the sanctuary, in their homes.

They served on our committees and worked hard to ensure our safety during the Pandemic. They made hard decisions about putting the services on YouTube, marking off pews so that in-person worship would be safe. They took out Bibles and Hymnals, designed passing the peace for safety, and set up the Joash Box and online financial contributions. They cleaned the building to make it non-contagious.  They zoomed Bible Studies and meetings. They did all this willingly, so that the ministry and ministry at Lima would continue. They modeled the attributes of the qualities of saints described by Jesus in the Beatitudes: poor in spirit, meek, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and (perhaps) persecuted for Christ’s sake.

OUR saints had these qualities, and as Revelations proclaims: “they received “the kingdom of heaven, will be comforted, will inherit the earth, will be filled, will receive mercy, will see God, will be called ‘children of God.’”

 

They touched our lives—made our lives a little richer, a little fuller, a little brighter, a little more blessed. Their deaths left a void in our lives, an emptiness in our hearts, a hole that remains.

 

Perhaps it is enough today to pay homage to those who have died, those loved ones who we especially remember here and now.

I wonder tho. I wonder. Because look around you. Look at each other. See those in the rows with you—the living saints who worship today with you.  We are surrounded by living saints who continue to “companion us” on life’s journey. They are here with us, supporting and uplifting us on life’s journey.

 

Just as you see these other living saints surrounding you, they see you. They see you. They see and recognize you as a living saint for them. We are given as gifts to each other by our loving God in heaven that we might gain strength and courage on the journey. Our words and deeds, our thoughts and prayers, our care and concern—given to us by God that we might be living saints for one another.

 

Saints are those who remember what Jesus said and did.

They remember his words and his deeds and live by them.

Saints move into the midst of the needy in mission and ministry.

Saints reach out to others w/ words and deeds of support.

 

As w/ the disciples and saints of the past, as w/ those we remember here and now, so too it is w/ us. We are no different.

 

As Christians, we too are called to live lives pleasing to God, by

Hearing & heeding what Jesus said,

Doing what Jesus did,

and moving into the midst of the needy.

Saints are people like us. They are like those we remember today.

Saints are people like you and me, people like us—people whom the Holy Spirit has made new in heart, in word, and in deeds.

 

Thanks be for All the Saints, dead and living, past and present. Thanks for each of you, for All the Saints. Thanks be to God. Amen, & Amen.