All the Saints and God's Ongoing Story

On the first Sunday in November we celebrate All Saints and All Souls Sunday. We remember and celebrate all Christian saints throughout history AND we specifically remember those loved ones in our congregation who we lost this year. As we do that, it’s right and fitting that we peak ahead to the end so today's scripture text is Revelation 21:1-6a. 

Scripture read by Bill Eddy.

Sermon by Rev. Beth Demme
For more information, visit www.graymumc.org

Transcript

Bill Eddy (00:05):

Please join me in prayer. Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit that as the scriptures are read and your word proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you have to say to us today. Amen. Scripture reading is from Revelations chapter 21 verses one through six. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of a heaven from God prepared as a bride adorn for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, see, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them, they will be his peoples and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more mourning and crying and pain will be no more for the first things have passed away. And the one who was seated at the throne said, see, I am making all things new. And also he said, write this for these words are trustworthy and true. Then he said to me, it is done. I'm the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end to the thirsty. I give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life Here ends the reading.

Rev. Beth Demme (01:26):

My God, I had a blessing to the reading, hearing and understanding of this scripture on men. So I wanted to tell you today, I kind of confess to you that I have an annoying tendency. And then I thought, well, when I say that, they're all going to think of the thing I do that annoys them. You're all thinking of a different annoying tendency. But I have one particular annoying tendency in mind today, which is that I really like to know how things are going to turn out. So when Steven and I are watching a movie that's based on a true story or a show that's based on a true story, I have to have my phone out so I can constantly Google to be like, oh, did that really happen? And where are they now? And how did it all turn out? Just anybody else do that.
(02:13)
You just need to know. I like to know how things are going to end. When I think back to my childhood, I remember a lot of good times, so many good times. I remember feeling loved and supported. I also remember a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. My dad was often unemployed or what we might say today was underemployed. My parents didn't always have money to pay their bills. And my siblings, they're much older than me, 10, 12 and 14 years older. So they were kind of in and out of my life, in and out of our home. And for those and for whatever other reasons, I just was always worried about the future. I worried about whether my family was going to be okay. I worried about whether I was going to be okay and I wish I could go back and tell my younger self, all will be well little one, right?
(03:11)
Not that there are not going to be hard times, not that there aren't sad times, but it will be okay because you will find a way through them all will be well. Now that you know that I like to know how things end, you maybe aren't surprised that for our scripture reading today, I have skipped us ahead out of our reading plan where we're in Romans, I've skipped us ahead to the end of the Bible to Revelation where we'll be in eight or nine weeks in our reading plan. But we're skipping ahead today because we are celebrating all saints and all souls today. We remember and celebrate all the Christian saints throughout history and we especially remember specifically remember those loved ones in our congregation who we've lost since last All Saints since we lost in the last year. And as we do that it is right and fitting that we peek ahead to the end of the story in the same way that I like to skip ahead to find out how things end today.
(04:14)
We find ourselves asking about the ultimate conclusion of God's story and revelation gives us a glimpse of that. So spoiler alert, right, if you don't like to look ahead to the end of the story, I should have given you a spoiler alert. If you're wondering how God's story ends or how God's love ends, it doesn't. It goes on for eternity in today's reading. Gives that away, gives away the ultimate ending. God will wipe away every tear and will dwell with humanity forever. There will be no more sorrow, no more pain, and there will only be life in God's perfect presence. All will be well on an individual scale, on a cosmic scale. We have a future in God that is marked out not by despair, but by profound hope and transformation. All will be well. And here's the real twist. We think about eternity as happening in the future, right?
(05:14)
But actually God's new creation has already begun. It began a long time ago and it continues in us even now. We are part of God's ongoing story. It's just a story we already know. The ending to we already know how this ends all will be well. This is our spiritual inheritance and it's woven through the lives of the saints who have gone before us through the communion of believers, through the generations. This communion of saints, this community isn't just a memory, it's not just a promise. It's our reality right now as we worship with from the past, present, and future today on All Saints Sunday, we remember that we are knit together with those who have gone before us in a way that transcends life and death time and eternity. The Bible describes saints as those who are set apart by God and who live their lives to witness to the witness of God's glory.
(06:23)
So as United Methodist, we use the term saint in that biblical way. For any believer who exemplifies the Christian life, we don't worship saints or pray to them or through them. We actually pray with them and we celebrate that they pray with us. It's important to remember that God is the one who makes us saints. It's not something that we do. We can't make ourselves saints. This is the work of God in us. And the two attributes of a saint are holiness and righteousness. Remember, this is the work of God in us. So to be holy is to be set apart. God sets us apart to be holy, to be sacred. Through our relationship with Christ, the Holy Spirit works in us and through us for our whole lives to set us apart, make us holy and then righteousness. To be righteous means to be in right relationship with God.
(07:21)
Being in right relationship with God leads us to follow God's ways of justice and mercy. It compels us to want to make the world a better place, not for ourselves, but for our neighbors, right? For other folks in the world, a right relationship with God is only possible because of the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. God calls us into relationship. God calls us into righteousness and God makes it possible. And our response is to live a life where we do the will of God. We follow the teachings of Christ and living a holy and a righteous life. That whole process is what we call sanctification. And sanctification is God's work in us, God's grace working in us so that we can live our lives according to God's will. Sanctification is the work of God in us that makes it possible for us to experience holiness, to experience righteousness.
(08:23)
And this is true for every Christian and every time in every place. So we talk about the communion of saints, the community of saints. We're touching on this beautiful mystery that God's people are connected in ways that cross the boundaries of mortality. We're connected through God, through God's love. We're connected by bonds that are stronger than death. Now, I've told you this before, but the weekend before I started high school, my oldest brother, he was the one who was 14 years older, he was killed. He was taking a shortcut home and he was walking on the train tracks and for reasons that I won't ever understand, he didn't hear the train coming and he was hit and he was killed. Now you might think, oh, he died instantly, but he didn't. He did not die instantly. He died in the fleeting moments that it took us as a family to gather at the hospital.
(09:28)
So that was right before I started high school. If you know the graffiti bridge in Pensacola, they're on 17th Avenue. That's where it happened. That's why I haven't driven on or under, I'm driven on 17th Avenue or gone under that bridge in 35 plus years. So my brother died and then a few months later in English class we were reading a sonnet by the 16th century English poet John Dunn. And it goes like this, death be not proud though some have called the mighty and dreadful thou art not. So for those whom th think is thou dost overthrow, the ones death, the ones that you think that you've conquered, the ones that you think you've taken, they die not poor death, nor yet can thou kill me. And the poem goes on to say John Dunn goes on to say death is a slave to fate chance kings and desperate men.
(10:22)
And while death might make us sleep for a time after death, short sleep, we wake eternally and death shall be no more death thou shalt die. John Dunn's sonnet is based on one Corinthians 15 where the apostle Paul, who by the way is pulling from Old Testament texts. This is the communion of saints, right? He's pulling from Isaiah, he's pulling from Hosea and he writes, death has been swallowed up in victory. Where o death is your victory. Where o death is your sting. I cannot describe to you the comfort and peace and joy, the comfort and peace and joy that that truth brought me as I mourned my brother, I needed to know that death would not have the last word. Paul's words remind us that our hope in Christ transcends death and it binds us in a shared eternal story of resurrection. Death is a part of life.
(11:31)
It's not the end of life. And that's a truth that we come face to face with on All Saints Sunday there's a biblical scholar, I've quoted him before, his name is Dr. Boring. I've asked you not to hold that against him, but Dr. Boring says, the Christian conviction is that in the end we meet, not an event, but a person. All of the statements, the book of Revelation of the end are really statements about God. God is the eschatological, the ultimate reality who embraces all things. We are in God and we will always be in God. The saints who have gone before us are forever part of God's story. And we are part of God's story. We are God's ongoing work. I recently saw a reflection from a friend on social media. She happens to be a United Methodist clergy woman. And she posted a picture of herself from about a decade ago, maybe longer, and she said the woman in this photo has no idea the trouble that is coming for her. She has no idea the hard times that are just around the corner. But she also has no idea of how present God will be with her in those troubles. She has no idea that God is working in her life then and continues to work in her life today making all things new. I wonder if you could speak to your past self. If you could go back 10, 15, 20 years, what would you say to yourself?
(13:07)
What might your future self say to the you that's sitting in church today? What might future you want you to know? Maybe future. You wants to remind you that God's story doesn't end and you have a beautiful part in that ongoing story of transformation and redemption. Friends, you are on a journey of sanctification where God is continually calling you to grow and holiness and compassion where God is knitting you into a community that spans time and space. You are God's ongoing work. It's kind of neat that today is all Saint Sunday and it was also the end of daylight savings time, right? Because today the sun rose an hour earlier. It's fitting that sunrise would be an hour earlier today because we're celebrating on All Saints Sunday that darkness doesn't hold sway over us. We are people of the light. So we gather this morning to remember the saints, the people whose lives lit the way for us.
(14:25)
We pause to say thank you, remembering how they've shaped our faith and inspired our hearts. They are here with us somehow, some way this community, this communion of saints because when we gather in worship, we praise God with believers we cannot see. And when we celebrate holy communion as we'll do in a few minutes, we are feasting with past, present, and future disciples of Christ. We receive communion. We celebrate with our parents and grandparents who are among the company of heaven. We celebrate with family members who are living, but maybe they're three states away. We celebrate with our friends, those who are gathered here in the sanctuary and those who are not here with us today. We celebrate with past, present, and future believers in the communion of saints. We experience the communion of saints, the community of believers living in dead, a faith community that stretches beyond what we can imagine. And we commune with Christians around the world, believers who came before us, and believers who will come after us. We believe that the church is the communion of saints. And that you as a believer, you belong to that holy and righteous group.
(15:47)
Our belief in the communion of saints reminds us that God's gift of salvation, it's for everyone, everywhere, every time, every place. In a few minutes, when we do come forward for communion, I invite you to pause after you receive the elements, pause and light a candle for the saints in your life. Those who have gone on to glory, but who made a difference in your faith, who made a difference in your ability to experience God or speak to God or know that God is real. After everyone has received communion, we'll share in the litany of remembrance that's printed in your bulletin. And I'll name the six saints from our congregation who we lost this year. And you will have the opportunity to name the saints in your life too, even if they weren't part of this congregation, right? Because the communion of saints is so much bigger than just us.
(16:46)
The lives of all these saints remind us that the work of God is ongoing. We carry forward the legacy of those who paved the way for us. It's as if we're on a cosmic track, running a relay race and they've passed the baton to us and it's our turn. Or it's like there's a heavenly choir, right? And it's our turn to sing this verse. We join our voices with the generations of saints who've gone before us. And as we sing our verse of faith, we add it. We add to the harmony that began long ago, a melody echoing back to us, a call to which we can now respond. It's our turn, our turn to channel, the inspiration of the witness of those who have gone before us. It's our turn to live as God's saints here and now. To work for a world that reflects the new creation and God's promises.
(17:45)
We remember the contributions of the saints. We keep company with the generations who lived our faith with courage and humility. And we do our part to live saintly lives by stepping into God's holiness and righteousness. We are part of a community. We are part of God's ongoing story, a story we already know, the ending to. We're part of a spiritual family that binds us across time. We aren't alone. We are part of God's vast ongoing story where God is making all things new in our lives just as God has done in the lives of the people who came before us. And as we carry this legacy forward, we trust in God's promise that we too are woven into the story of God's kingdom now and forever. And that's the ultimate spoiler. We're part of God's ongoing story. We belong to a love that transcends time, so that in the end all will be well. Thanks be to God. Amen.