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SERMONS

The Sunday after All Saints Day
November 3 , 2002

By David Christian

Saints are holy people. They are people set apart by God for God's purposes. The church has recognized many saints through the ages. From Mary, the mother of our Lord, through the apostles, the martyrs of the early church, and right on up to the present day, there have been those people who have shown us in special ways what it means to follow and serve God. Many of these people have special days set aside for us to remember them and the examples they have set.

But those named and honored saints are not the only holy people of God. For, according to Paul, we are all saints, you and I. By virtue of our baptisms we have been set apart by God, we have been marked as Christ's own forever, we have been made a part of the body of Christ. Our sanctity rests not on our own achievement but is a gift bestowed on us by God.

Today, the Sunday after All Saints' Day, we honor and remember all the saints, both in this world and the next, that "great multitude that no one can count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. We remember all those who have gone before us and have been for us vessels of God's love and grace.

It is especially fitting on this All Saints' Sunday that we gather here as God makes new saints, as God's Holy Spirit descends upon Julianna and Laura Leigh and Olivia and Jack Woodward, fills them with his love and grace, and, through the waters of baptism, makes them members of the community of the resurrection-Christ's body, and marks them as his own forever.

What is our response to this gift of new life that God bestows upon us in baptism? What can we return to God for what God has given us?

In last week's gospel a lawyer asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment? Jesus reply was "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment."

It's that simple. God wants everything. God asks for our entire lives. I

don't know about you, but I know that I am not up to that level of commitment. I fall abysmally short of that expectation regularly. So I take great comfort in the words of the monk and writer Thomas Merton. Merton wrote,

It seems to me the most absurd thing in the world to be upset because I am weak and distracted and blind and constantly make mistakes! What else do I expect! Does God love me any less because I can't make myself a saint by my own power and in my own way? He loves me more because I am so clumsy and helpless without Him-and underneath what I am He sees me as I will one day be by His pure gift and that pleases Him-and therefore it pleases me and I attend to His great love which is my joy."

We don't have to pretend to be better than we are. We don't have to act as if we have attained perfection. God has not finished working with us yet.

But this doesn't get us off the hook. Rather it gives us a goal to work toward. I cannot become a saint by my own power. But by God's grace and through God's power-if I will get myself out of the way-God can do amazing things with me, and with each of you.

In our culture, in our world today, there are two basic ways to measure how important things are in our lives. There are two books to which we can go to see where our priorities are. The first is our date book and the second is our check book.

What we are talking about, of course, is stewardship. Stewardship is not just about raising money to pay light bills or my salary-which I do appreciate, thank you very much. In fact stewardship has nothing to do with light bills and salaries, as important as those things are. Stewardship is a profoundly spiritual matter. Stewardship is concerned with where we are investing our lives. Jesus said it: "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

An examination of how we spend our time and our money will provide a disturbingly accurate view of where we are investing our lives. And then we make excuses. "If I made more," we say to ourselves, " I could give more."

But the unhappy truth is that when we make more we just wind up spending more. The research on religious giving bears that out. People who earn about $10,000 per year give away about 3% of their income; at an average income around $30,000 a year giving goes down to 2.5%, and those who make $75,000 to $100,000 give an average of 1.5%.

If you give more than that you are ahead of the curve, but don't pat yourself on the back too vigorously. Remember that the biblical minimal standard of giving is 10% and that Jesus asks for 100%.

So how do you get to there from here? I don't know. I struggle with it constantly. But I can make a few suggestions.

First, don't spend time feeling guilty. Feeling guilty has a funny way of relieving us of responsibility for making a change. Rather than feel guilty do something.

Second, make a commitment. Make a pledge. If your circumstances change during the year and you are unable to fulfill the pledge you can always change it.

Third, start where you are. If you give $100 a year figure what percentage that is of your annual income. Then develop a plan to steadily increase your percentage giving over time.

Fourth, write this check first. My experience is, if I plan to make my contribution out of what is left over, I never make a contribution because there is never anything left over. Better yet, make arrangements with your bank to automatically pay your contribution on a periodic basis.

Fifth, write the check out of thanksgiving rather than obligation. As you write it remember how you have been blessed over the previous day or week and offer that experience up with thanks to God.

Lastly-and most importantly-pray. God knows we don't have the power in ourselves to move beyond ourselves. If we ask God can accomplish amazing things in our lives.

It sounds difficult to become a steward, perhaps impossible. But the report from those who have gotten there suggests just the opposite. In learning to give we gain freedom from what we have. Our lives and our possessions no longer control us. Rather they become tools that we can use to bring joy and love and healing to our lives and to the world.

This afternoon canvassers will be delivering to each parish family a loaf of bread, a reminder that we are sustained continually by the living bread, our Lord Jesus Christ. Along with the bread will be a pledge card. I would ask that you prayerfully reflect on how God has blessed you, remember what you have heard and read from your fellow parishioners over the past few weeks, and consider what your response will be.

Then fill out your pledge card and bring it with you to church next week.

We stand here today on the shoulders of the saints of the past, from the earliest followers of Jesus, through the great figures of the church, through John and Margaret Johnstone, who built this church, through Hugh Thompson and other friends of the Chapel who in the late 1970's kept it from falling into ruin, through the many parishioners whose vision and commitment enliven this place today.

Now it is our turn to show these newest saints the joy that comes in lives given over to God. For "God sees us as we will one day be by His pure gift and that pleases Him-and therefore it pleases us and we attend to His great love which is our joy."

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi