Sunday November 2, 2008
All Saints Sunday
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday. Today we remember all of the saints who have gone before us. And indeed, soon when I do the prayers I will name off all of the saints from this congregation who went to be with the Lord in this last year.
But what exactly does it mean to be a saint? When we refer to someone as a saint, it is usually meant to be high praise of some sort, even possibly implying that the person being referred to is of a higher moral fiber than most other people. So, is that what it means to be a saint?? Is a saint someone who is of a higher moral fiber than most other people? Well a saint is someone who is thought of to be holy, and to be holy is to be set aside, or set apart for God’s purposes. But does that mean that one who is a saint is of a higher moral fiber than someone else??
Well in the Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus gives us the sermon on the mount, in which we read the beatitudes. It is no coincidence that this is the Gospel passage for All Saints Sunday. In the beatitudes of; blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn etc., we have some of the primary characteristics used in illustrating just what it means to be a saint. And I believe one of the beatitudes gets right to the heart of what it means to be a saint. And that would be the one that comes pretty much right in the middle, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
And so what does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? I think it is essential to recognize that Jesus does not say that it is those who have attained righteousness who are blessed, but those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus said that He came not for the righteous but for sinners.
This week I read that 85% of all American drivers believe that they are above average drivers. Think about that. 85%. By definition, only 49% can be above-average drivers. But this survey gives us some insight into human nature. People generally view themselves as being better than others, and as long as we feel like we are doing better than other people than generally we believe that is good enough.
And this reflects on our faith and religious life also. Often it reflects on how many in the church have come to interpret the beatitudes. You see, it is in our human nature to see the beatitudes as qualities and attributes that we are to strive toward. We think that what Jesus is saying is that if we are meek enough then we are blessed, or if we are pure enough in heart or poor enough in spirit we will be blessed.
And so we think that Jesus is calling us to strive to be more meek. Jesus is not talking about a meekness that avoids anger at all cost, which would be in line with how we generally understand meekness. Jesus is talking about being able to exercise control when it comes to power, emotions, authority etc.
Basically Jesus is talking about one who uses their gifts in service to others and not themselves. And so Jesus comes to us in His Word saying that the meek shall inherit the earth and we think "Am I meek enough?" And if we can find one or two people whom we can feel confident we are meeker than, then more than likely we think that we are ok.
And so it goes with Jesus’ call to purity of heart and being poor in Spirit. To be poor in spirit is to be among the humble and pious who recognize their need for God’s grace and so they "tremble" at His Word. Being pure in heart, refers to an honest sensibility that could kind of be seen as a sort of transparency, where that which drives and motivates a person is always seen and apparent because there is no attempt to hide it. What you see is what you get, as the saying goes. And so of course the transparency that Jesus refers to is one that would reveal an individual’s motivation and desire to love and serve God and their neighbor.
And we hear these two beatitudes and all the rest of them and we mistake them for calls to strive just a little bit harder to be more merciful or more pure in heart etc so that we might be blessed. And we end up being motivated by a desire not to love and serve our neighbor but to be just a little better than them; to be a little more merciful than our neighbor, or a little more meek, a little more pure in heart, on through the rest of the beatitudes, all so that we can be just a little more blessed.
But Jesus is not talking about being merely a little better on these than our neighbor. Jesus is talking about being perfect in these; that we be perfectly meek, and perfectly poor in spirit, and perfectly merciful etc. If living up to the perfect standard that Jesus lays out in the beatitudes it what it takes to be saints then it would have been hopeless for the prophets and the apostles and the church-fathers let alone any of us.
And this is why I believe that the beatitude of hungering and thirsting for righteousness is the one that gets right to the heart of what the whole sermon on the mount is about. For it is only through faith in the One who speaks to you through the words of my mouth as I proclaim His Word to you, the One who will come to you with His real and bodily presence in a few minutes in the bread and the wine of Holy Communion, as He brings you the forgiveness of your sin, that you find the holiness that is required to make of you a saint.
Jesus is the righteousness that is demanded of us. And so He gives us the beatitudes not to inspire us to be more holy through our best and most sincere efforts, but rather to remind us that, on our own, daily we fail to be poor in Spirit, or merciful, or pure in heart. Indeed the beatitudes are impossible for us to fulfill on our own, and so on our own it is impossible for us to be holy. On our own it is impossible for us to be saints.
But praise be to God, in the waters of baptism, having been brought into the death and resurrection of Christ, we are set aside for holiness as we are cleansed in the water and claimed by Christ and brought into the family of our Lord as children of God. And in the lesson from 1st John we are reminded that this is purely out of the love that our Lord has for us where John writes "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"
We are children of God and just as children are completely dependent upon their parents for their needs we are completely dependent upon our Lord for the holiness and righteousness that we need in order to be called saints. We are made holy and made saints not because of our ability to fulfill the beatitudes but because the Holy Spirit is at work in us calling us through God's Word to repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus, driving us to hunger and thirst for the righteousness that only comes to us through faith in Christ Jesus, the faith which we receive in baptism, the faith which is nurtured and sustained in us by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel and the partaking of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus in Holy Communion as we daily live in our baptism.
All the while the Holy Spirit is at work bringing forth the new creation in us, making us more meek, and more merciful, more pure in heart and driving us to hunger and thirst after righteousness, so that we will receive mercy, inherit the earth, so we will see God , and so we will be filled.
And so All Saints Sunday, while on one hand is a day in which we mourn the loss we feel because of the saints from this community who have departed this broken, sinful world, it is also a day to rejoice because they have gone into the arms of their Lord. We rejoice in the light of the promise we read in Revelation that we have been draped in the robes of righteousness that have been washed in the blood of the lamb. We rejoice in light of the promise that Christ Jesus makes to us that no matter what sin, death, and the devil throw at us, Christ Jesus is with us to the end of the age bringing us through the great ordeal. We rejoice in light of the promise that one day this old world will pass away and all things will be made new, and we will no longer need to hunger and thirst for righteousnes for righteousness will be all that there is and we will be filled as we enter into the eternal banquet with all of the saints, and our Lord in His Kingdom.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday. Today we remember all of the saints who have gone before us. And indeed, soon when I do the prayers I will name off all of the saints from this congregation who went to be with the Lord in this last year.
But what exactly does it mean to be a saint? When we refer to someone as a saint, it is usually meant to be high praise of some sort, even possibly implying that the person being referred to is of a higher moral fiber than most other people. So, is that what it means to be a saint?? Is a saint someone who is of a higher moral fiber than most other people? Well a saint is someone who is thought of to be holy, and to be holy is to be set aside, or set apart for God’s purposes. But does that mean that one who is a saint is of a higher moral fiber than someone else??
Well in the Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus gives us the sermon on the mount, in which we read the beatitudes. It is no coincidence that this is the Gospel passage for All Saints Sunday. In the beatitudes of; blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn etc., we have some of the primary characteristics used in illustrating just what it means to be a saint. And I believe one of the beatitudes gets right to the heart of what it means to be a saint. And that would be the one that comes pretty much right in the middle, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
And so what does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? I think it is essential to recognize that Jesus does not say that it is those who have attained righteousness who are blessed, but those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus said that He came not for the righteous but for sinners.
This week I read that 85% of all American drivers believe that they are above average drivers. Think about that. 85%. By definition, only 49% can be above-average drivers. But this survey gives us some insight into human nature. People generally view themselves as being better than others, and as long as we feel like we are doing better than other people than generally we believe that is good enough.
And this reflects on our faith and religious life also. Often it reflects on how many in the church have come to interpret the beatitudes. You see, it is in our human nature to see the beatitudes as qualities and attributes that we are to strive toward. We think that what Jesus is saying is that if we are meek enough then we are blessed, or if we are pure enough in heart or poor enough in spirit we will be blessed.
And so we think that Jesus is calling us to strive to be more meek. Jesus is not talking about a meekness that avoids anger at all cost, which would be in line with how we generally understand meekness. Jesus is talking about being able to exercise control when it comes to power, emotions, authority etc.
Basically Jesus is talking about one who uses their gifts in service to others and not themselves. And so Jesus comes to us in His Word saying that the meek shall inherit the earth and we think "Am I meek enough?" And if we can find one or two people whom we can feel confident we are meeker than, then more than likely we think that we are ok.
And so it goes with Jesus’ call to purity of heart and being poor in Spirit. To be poor in spirit is to be among the humble and pious who recognize their need for God’s grace and so they "tremble" at His Word. Being pure in heart, refers to an honest sensibility that could kind of be seen as a sort of transparency, where that which drives and motivates a person is always seen and apparent because there is no attempt to hide it. What you see is what you get, as the saying goes. And so of course the transparency that Jesus refers to is one that would reveal an individual’s motivation and desire to love and serve God and their neighbor.
And we hear these two beatitudes and all the rest of them and we mistake them for calls to strive just a little bit harder to be more merciful or more pure in heart etc so that we might be blessed. And we end up being motivated by a desire not to love and serve our neighbor but to be just a little better than them; to be a little more merciful than our neighbor, or a little more meek, a little more pure in heart, on through the rest of the beatitudes, all so that we can be just a little more blessed.
But Jesus is not talking about being merely a little better on these than our neighbor. Jesus is talking about being perfect in these; that we be perfectly meek, and perfectly poor in spirit, and perfectly merciful etc. If living up to the perfect standard that Jesus lays out in the beatitudes it what it takes to be saints then it would have been hopeless for the prophets and the apostles and the church-fathers let alone any of us.
And this is why I believe that the beatitude of hungering and thirsting for righteousness is the one that gets right to the heart of what the whole sermon on the mount is about. For it is only through faith in the One who speaks to you through the words of my mouth as I proclaim His Word to you, the One who will come to you with His real and bodily presence in a few minutes in the bread and the wine of Holy Communion, as He brings you the forgiveness of your sin, that you find the holiness that is required to make of you a saint.
Jesus is the righteousness that is demanded of us. And so He gives us the beatitudes not to inspire us to be more holy through our best and most sincere efforts, but rather to remind us that, on our own, daily we fail to be poor in Spirit, or merciful, or pure in heart. Indeed the beatitudes are impossible for us to fulfill on our own, and so on our own it is impossible for us to be holy. On our own it is impossible for us to be saints.
But praise be to God, in the waters of baptism, having been brought into the death and resurrection of Christ, we are set aside for holiness as we are cleansed in the water and claimed by Christ and brought into the family of our Lord as children of God. And in the lesson from 1st John we are reminded that this is purely out of the love that our Lord has for us where John writes "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"
We are children of God and just as children are completely dependent upon their parents for their needs we are completely dependent upon our Lord for the holiness and righteousness that we need in order to be called saints. We are made holy and made saints not because of our ability to fulfill the beatitudes but because the Holy Spirit is at work in us calling us through God's Word to repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus, driving us to hunger and thirst for the righteousness that only comes to us through faith in Christ Jesus, the faith which we receive in baptism, the faith which is nurtured and sustained in us by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel and the partaking of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus in Holy Communion as we daily live in our baptism.
All the while the Holy Spirit is at work bringing forth the new creation in us, making us more meek, and more merciful, more pure in heart and driving us to hunger and thirst after righteousness, so that we will receive mercy, inherit the earth, so we will see God , and so we will be filled.
And so All Saints Sunday, while on one hand is a day in which we mourn the loss we feel because of the saints from this community who have departed this broken, sinful world, it is also a day to rejoice because they have gone into the arms of their Lord. We rejoice in the light of the promise we read in Revelation that we have been draped in the robes of righteousness that have been washed in the blood of the lamb. We rejoice in light of the promise that Christ Jesus makes to us that no matter what sin, death, and the devil throw at us, Christ Jesus is with us to the end of the age bringing us through the great ordeal. We rejoice in light of the promise that one day this old world will pass away and all things will be made new, and we will no longer need to hunger and thirst for righteousnes for righteousness will be all that there is and we will be filled as we enter into the eternal banquet with all of the saints, and our Lord in His Kingdom.
Amen
posted by Steve at 6:40 PM
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