Sunday, November 16, 2014

All Saints Sunday, November 2, 2014 - Communion as the Reward of the Saints


Revelation 7.9-17
Psalm 34. 1-10, 22
1 John 3.1-3
Matthew 5. 1-12

Walter Mosimann, Kay Stuckart, Douglas Campbell, Rosalie Mutschall, Kay Barnes, Martha Lee, Wilma Olson, and Philip Sorg. These are the saints of this congregation who went to be with the Lord this year, and whom we remember today particularly in our prayers. 

If you were at the funeral services of any of them, you would have heard many details about their saintly lives, and about how they were committed Christians who always did good and never harmed a soul. You would have heard about all of their wonderful characteristics, and about the struggles that these saints had overcome, and about the great things they did in their life, and about how they are now experiencing their reward and rest in heaven, saints before the heavenly throne. And although I never met any of these saints, I’m certain that all of it is true. 

I’m also certain that’s not all there was to their lives. Because funeral sermons so rarely give us the whole truth. At funerals, we don’t hear about the big mistakes that the saints have made, or their biggest regrets. We don’t hear about who they hurt along the way, or about any of their failures or shortcomings. As the saying goes, we don’t speak ill of the dead.

And so what happens at funerals, and then what happens on days like today, All Saints’ Day, is that we hear about these wonderful, saintly lives, and then we leave feeling somewhat inadequate. We think about our own lives, and about how unsaintly they are. We think about our own mistakes, we mull over our own regrets, we think about our failures and shortcomings, and about the people we know (or suspect) we’ve hurt along the way. We often feel like we should be doing something, living more full Christian lives, helping the church more, the way these saints did. We feel guilty that we aren’t doing more to be better Christians, as these saints so clearly were. And the longer we live, the more funerals we attend, and the more we reflect on whether we have done enough with our lives. Whether our lives are equal to those of the saints, and whether we ought to have done more. There’s some irony there, actually. The older you get, the more funerals you attend, and the more you feel that you should be doing something as a good Christian, which all starts happening at the same time that you find yourself less and less able to do all of these things. Paul said that he had “run the good race,” but, unlike a typical race, which speeds up as you get closer to the end, in the race of life, we all find ourselves slowing down as the finish line draws closer and closer. And so, when we go to these funerals of the saints, and hear about their lives and about the saintly reward they have now earned, we wonder about whether we, too, have done enough, and are doing enough, to receive this reward.

Well, one of the most important Christian traditions at funerals is to reflect on baptism. We don’t do this because it offers some nice symmetry - at the end of life we return to the beginning. We do it because baptism is at the heart of the Christian life. In our first reading, from the Book of Revelation, we heard that the multitude gathered before the throne “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” And as much as I’d love to get into that powerful imagery that washing in red blood makes us white, the point of this verse for today is that this multitude are washed. They are washed in the blood of the Lamb, and what the writer of Revelation is saying, is that they have been baptized. This is a reference to baptism. The saints are gathered before the throne of God because they have been baptized.

Which is really important. Because as our second reading, the first letter from John, emphasizes, baptism is a once and for all thing that is not our thing to do, but God’s. The first letter from John says, “we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. ... Beloved, we are God’s children.” What we proclaim in baptism is that becoming a saint is not about what we do, it’s about who we are. And the particularly wonderful thing about Lutheran baptism, is that it happens to most of us when we are babies. We have absolutely no choice in the matter, and  so it is very clear that baptism is not something we have done - most of us just probably flailed around and maybe cried a bit, since babies don’t do much else. Infant baptism is a tangible reminder to us that our Christian lives as saints do not begin with doing. We are baptized. We are. There isn’t any doing in “are.” Our saintly lives begin with be-ing. We are. We be.

And when our saintly lives and reward depend on who we are, and not on what we do, the kind of lives we live become irrelevant. The things we have done, or not done, come to no account. Whatever big mistakes we have made, or regrets we have (because we all have them), whatever failures we have amassed, whatever injuries we have caused to others (because we have all done that), these are part of our saintly life. Because we are baptized (I don’t like to say that we “have been” baptized - it sounds like something that happened only in the past and has no relevance for today), because we are baptized we live in that state of baptism every day, and every day that we live is as one of the saints.

So where, then, is our reward? Do we really have to wait until we die? Is it not enough to have lived through the “great ordeal” of life - which, by the way, when Revelation mentions the “great ordeal” they are talking about life and about the tragedies and deaths of everyday life that we experience. So, where is our reward? 

One of the biggest misunderstandings about the Book of Revelation, and there are a lot of them, but one of them is that this book is talking about something that is going to happen in the future. But it’s actually talking about what is happening right now. Now, I’m not talking about any kind of apocalyptic conspiracy theory, “these are the times” that this magic book is talking about. No. The book of Revelation is speaking to people now, in that it is speaking to every reader through the ages, and through the centuries. Particularly, the book of Revelation is a book of comfort that tells us that no matter what you are going through now, no matter what ordeal you are going through now, your reward is also now. We see this particularly at the very end of Revelation, when the writer talks about the city of God with its heavenly temple coming down to earth to create the New Jerusalem. This is not something that is going to happen in the future. This is happening now. This is the writer’s proclamation that, in the midst of whatever grief or hunger or thirst for righteousness, or whatever persecution or ordeal you are experiencing, the Lamb of God is bringing the kingdom of heaven and its saintly reward down to you right now. There is more symmetry here - as we proclaim Christ lifted up on the cross and then ascending into heaven, we also proclaim the kingdom of heaven coming down to earth. The reward of the saints - your reward - is now.

So what, exactly, is this reward? 1 John says that our reward is that we will be like God. Matthew says that the reward is the relief of the things that oppress us, of the things that make our lives an ordeal. The reward is comfort in the midst of mourning, the gift of the earth to those who are meek, being filled with righteousness to those who have had to hunger and thirst for it. The reward is mercy to those who are merciful, and visions of God to those who are pure in heart. The reward is peace to those who are children of God. (And notice, please, how these are all things that people are and not things that they do.) Revelation says that the reward of the saints is that they will be sheltered from oppression, and, most importantly, that their reward is to stand in the city of God and to worship in the heavenly temple.

And what is this worship, exactly? Look to the front of the church. What do you see? Closest to you is the baptismal font, the heart of our faith, a reminder that you are a saint because of who you are and not because of what you do. Then you see the altar. You see the elements of communion, the place where you hear the grace of God through Christ proclaimed. If baptism is at the heart of our faith, communion is at the heart of our worship. Every Sunday when you come to worship, we celebrate communion - the Word of God in the bread and wine, the foretaste of the feast to come. Communion is the kingdom of heaven come down to earth for a brief few minutes. Communion is where all the saints are gathered, and where we are united with every Christian across time and space. If you could step outside of time and see every communion ever celebrated, past, present, and future, you would see “the multitude before the throne of the Lamb, praising God.”

Your reward, then, for being a saint, for being baptized, is to experience the comfort and fulfillment and mercy and peace of communion. Your reward is that you are freed from having to do anything at all but to come forward and receive. You do not have to do anything, just be. In the bread and wine, God gives you comfort and fulfillment and mercy and peace. Because communion is where you leave behind all of the things you have to do, and where you just be. 
And as you be, God grants you the forgiveness that God has granted all the saints and that God has granted to all of the saints of the congregation whose names I read earlier. Your comfort is here, righteousness is here, mercy is here, peace is here, Christ is here. For all the saints. For you. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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