Golden Rule Saints
Sermon
Ten Hits, One Run, Nine Errors
Gospel Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Last Third) Cycle C
On All Saints' Sunday there is a pastor who likes to take a camera into the pulpit with her. She tells the congregation that she wants some snapshots of modern, living saints. Not artists' conceptions of long-ago saints with old-fashioned clothes and halos around their heads -- but today-saints. Then she snaps pictures (with flash) of the entire congregation, from left-to-right.
The congregation is startled the first time, because they have heard of Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, and Saint John -- but the people here in church today?
Nevertheless, most Protestants are supposed to believe that all Christians are saint and sinner at the same time. In spite of our sins, we church-going Christians are indeed "saints." In the words of Martin Luther, God "calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith."
Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters -- with all proper respect -- seem to believe that saints need to be special people. More than 2,000 of these special people saints are listed in a layman's concise biographical dictionary of the saints. Keep in mind that this difference in interpreting saints is nothing to get all upset about. It is just one of the differences that make church life interesting.
There was a pharmacist in a small corner drug store; some affectionately called him "the funny druggist." He saluted occasional clergy-customers with a "Happy Saint Swithin Day!" greeting. "Was there really a Saint Swithin, and who was he?" a clergy-shopper wondered. Sure enough, he found Saint Swithin in a church history book. Saint Swithin was a bishop in Winchester, England, who lived more than 1,100 years ago. Saint Swithin performed small miracles -- restoring, for example, a basketful of broken eggs which had been dropped by an old woman in the market.
"I found Saint Swithin," the pastor told the pharmacist. "July 15 is Saint Swithin Day." "You mean there really was a Saint Swithin?" the druggist asked. "I thought it was just something funny to say."
So we have Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, Saint John, Saint Swithin, 2,000 more special people saints in a biographical dictionary -- plus everybody here in church today.
For many of our church denominations today's proper altar color is white. It is a reminder of a description in Revelation 7:9 of that great reunion we look forward to heaven:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes....
Today's Gospel has a list of saintly characteristics:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you ... on account of the Son of Man.
At first glance today's Gospel appears to be that beloved passage of Scripture known as The Beatitudes, but today's Gospel takes a less familiar nasty turn with its list of "woes":
But woe to you who are rich; for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you....
What happened here? With just a little study we remember that The Beatitudes which we love and sometimes memorize come from Matthew 5:3-11. No doubt both Matthew and Luke have given us true quotations from Jesus. For some reason Matthew chose to emphasize the positive; Luke balanced it with some negatives.
An alumnus' description of his fiftieth high school class reunion sheds some light here. He had graduated from high school in 1951, and his graduating class had its share of beautiful people: the class kings and queens, the football and basketball stars, the cheerleaders, and the "socials." There had also been the scholars, the loners, the less than attractive ones, and mostly the unknown and unremembered.
What would they all look like now, fifty years later? He discovered in a surprising number of instances that now they looked and acted just about the same as each other. Many of the kings and queens had aged ungracefully, and many of the loners had blossomed into attractive happiness. Aging and time had been great levelers.
On All Saints' Sunday we consider among other things what we are now, and what we will be in the next world. Today's Gospel tells us that death and resurrection are the great levelers. Status things which seem so important to us now -- money, gourmet food, entertainment, and popularity -- should not seem important to us saints in this world; and they will be worthless when we are saints in the next world. That is the reason Jesus said both the "blesseds" and the "woes" in today's Gospel.
We live in a time when winning and success are so important, that coaches who lose too many games are fired, the bottom line of a company's profit-or-loss statement gets the most attention from stockholders, and even congregations are judged as "successful" or "unsuccessful" by comparing this year's average attendance with last year's. All Saints' Sunday is a good time for us to hear once again the words of an old-time sports writer who wrote these words which sadly seem embarrassingly quaint today: "And when that Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He will ask not if you won or lost, but how you played the game."
Outside Jordanville, New York, is a Russian Orthodox monastery and seminary. It is hard to find, and its Byzantine-Russian architecture, golden onion-shaped domes, and black-robed monks make visitors feel out of place and out of the twenty-first century. Everything is Old World Russian, including the cemetery with its row on row of grave markers: Orthodox crosses with a short horizontal piece above our more familiar armspiece, and with an off-angled footpiece closer to the bottom. Except for the names of the people buried there, every gravemarker cross is the same. That cemetery is a witness to All Saints' Sunday's description of the next world, where there is no rank and no privilege.
Today's Gospel also contains The Golden Rule: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." People who shop at Penney stores may remember that their founder, J. C. Penney, while he was alive, tried to operate his stores "according to the Golden Rule." J. C. Penney tried to treat his employees properly, sold good quality merchandise at fair prices, and used his own wealth in generous ways.
Historians of Toledo, Ohio, speak of "Golden Rule" Jones, who was an enlightened manufacturer ahead of his time. He provided picnic tables for his employees and their lunch boxes at mealtimes. There was also a park for employees' families on holidays. Sam "Golden Rule" Jones became mayor of Toledo, Ohio, from 1897-1904.
Some of our church books of worship have included names of men and women for "commemorations": Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin Luther, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Calvin, Pope John XXIII, Johann Sebastian Bach, Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, and George Frederick Handel. We do not put the word Saint in front of their names, but they are part of the communion of saints we celebrate today.
At our church conventions once a year we hear read the names of pastors who have died during the preceding twelve months. Usually we sing the hymn "For All The Saints." Every pastor there knows that some day his or her name will be read aloud, and others will do the singing:
Oh may your soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old
And win with them the victor's crown of gold.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
We are thankful today for all the saints who have gone before us and prepared things for us. We want to be saints like them.
The congregation is startled the first time, because they have heard of Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, and Saint John -- but the people here in church today?
Nevertheless, most Protestants are supposed to believe that all Christians are saint and sinner at the same time. In spite of our sins, we church-going Christians are indeed "saints." In the words of Martin Luther, God "calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith."
Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters -- with all proper respect -- seem to believe that saints need to be special people. More than 2,000 of these special people saints are listed in a layman's concise biographical dictionary of the saints. Keep in mind that this difference in interpreting saints is nothing to get all upset about. It is just one of the differences that make church life interesting.
There was a pharmacist in a small corner drug store; some affectionately called him "the funny druggist." He saluted occasional clergy-customers with a "Happy Saint Swithin Day!" greeting. "Was there really a Saint Swithin, and who was he?" a clergy-shopper wondered. Sure enough, he found Saint Swithin in a church history book. Saint Swithin was a bishop in Winchester, England, who lived more than 1,100 years ago. Saint Swithin performed small miracles -- restoring, for example, a basketful of broken eggs which had been dropped by an old woman in the market.
"I found Saint Swithin," the pastor told the pharmacist. "July 15 is Saint Swithin Day." "You mean there really was a Saint Swithin?" the druggist asked. "I thought it was just something funny to say."
So we have Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, Saint John, Saint Swithin, 2,000 more special people saints in a biographical dictionary -- plus everybody here in church today.
For many of our church denominations today's proper altar color is white. It is a reminder of a description in Revelation 7:9 of that great reunion we look forward to heaven:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes....
Today's Gospel has a list of saintly characteristics:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you ... on account of the Son of Man.
At first glance today's Gospel appears to be that beloved passage of Scripture known as The Beatitudes, but today's Gospel takes a less familiar nasty turn with its list of "woes":
But woe to you who are rich; for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you....
What happened here? With just a little study we remember that The Beatitudes which we love and sometimes memorize come from Matthew 5:3-11. No doubt both Matthew and Luke have given us true quotations from Jesus. For some reason Matthew chose to emphasize the positive; Luke balanced it with some negatives.
An alumnus' description of his fiftieth high school class reunion sheds some light here. He had graduated from high school in 1951, and his graduating class had its share of beautiful people: the class kings and queens, the football and basketball stars, the cheerleaders, and the "socials." There had also been the scholars, the loners, the less than attractive ones, and mostly the unknown and unremembered.
What would they all look like now, fifty years later? He discovered in a surprising number of instances that now they looked and acted just about the same as each other. Many of the kings and queens had aged ungracefully, and many of the loners had blossomed into attractive happiness. Aging and time had been great levelers.
On All Saints' Sunday we consider among other things what we are now, and what we will be in the next world. Today's Gospel tells us that death and resurrection are the great levelers. Status things which seem so important to us now -- money, gourmet food, entertainment, and popularity -- should not seem important to us saints in this world; and they will be worthless when we are saints in the next world. That is the reason Jesus said both the "blesseds" and the "woes" in today's Gospel.
We live in a time when winning and success are so important, that coaches who lose too many games are fired, the bottom line of a company's profit-or-loss statement gets the most attention from stockholders, and even congregations are judged as "successful" or "unsuccessful" by comparing this year's average attendance with last year's. All Saints' Sunday is a good time for us to hear once again the words of an old-time sports writer who wrote these words which sadly seem embarrassingly quaint today: "And when that Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He will ask not if you won or lost, but how you played the game."
Outside Jordanville, New York, is a Russian Orthodox monastery and seminary. It is hard to find, and its Byzantine-Russian architecture, golden onion-shaped domes, and black-robed monks make visitors feel out of place and out of the twenty-first century. Everything is Old World Russian, including the cemetery with its row on row of grave markers: Orthodox crosses with a short horizontal piece above our more familiar armspiece, and with an off-angled footpiece closer to the bottom. Except for the names of the people buried there, every gravemarker cross is the same. That cemetery is a witness to All Saints' Sunday's description of the next world, where there is no rank and no privilege.
Today's Gospel also contains The Golden Rule: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." People who shop at Penney stores may remember that their founder, J. C. Penney, while he was alive, tried to operate his stores "according to the Golden Rule." J. C. Penney tried to treat his employees properly, sold good quality merchandise at fair prices, and used his own wealth in generous ways.
Historians of Toledo, Ohio, speak of "Golden Rule" Jones, who was an enlightened manufacturer ahead of his time. He provided picnic tables for his employees and their lunch boxes at mealtimes. There was also a park for employees' families on holidays. Sam "Golden Rule" Jones became mayor of Toledo, Ohio, from 1897-1904.
Some of our church books of worship have included names of men and women for "commemorations": Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin Luther, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Calvin, Pope John XXIII, Johann Sebastian Bach, Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, and George Frederick Handel. We do not put the word Saint in front of their names, but they are part of the communion of saints we celebrate today.
At our church conventions once a year we hear read the names of pastors who have died during the preceding twelve months. Usually we sing the hymn "For All The Saints." Every pastor there knows that some day his or her name will be read aloud, and others will do the singing:
Oh may your soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old
And win with them the victor's crown of gold.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
We are thankful today for all the saints who have gone before us and prepared things for us. We want to be saints like them.
