All Saints

All Saints 2007 Park UMC Rory Swenson
Texts: Romans 1:7 /2 Corinth 1:1 / Phiippians 1:1 4;21 / Collosians 1:2

Have you notice that Paul seems to be pretty generous with that word..”saints”...

.to all the saints.....in this place or that place ..and so on
.and then he writes to these people in these churches
who had to be guided and corrected..
..sometimes they let Paul down,..they seem to have plenty of problems. (usually that’s why Paul has to write that letter. In the first place)
,,sure..sometimes they got it right..
But basically..
they were simply the church..
They were just people..
.people of faith ..growing in Jesus Christ.. Saints.

So what is a saint..?

let me answer it with a story.
Once upon a time
back in the third century around Egypt
there was a young man who decided to become a saint.

He left his home
his family

he said goodbye to all his relatives

sold everything he had
and gave it to the poor.

Then he walked off alone,,, to the desert,,, to find God

He walked though the desert until he found a dark cave.


Here he thought, I know..I will find God

I will be alone with God
nothing will distract me from God..
. And so it was

he prayed day and night..

But still
God sent him temptations even in that cave
he thought about the good things of life

everything he had given away
everything he didn’t have
all the ways in which he denied himself..and avoided comfort and pleasure

but he was determined to just have God

and finally after many months

the temptations stopped..

St Anthony of the desert of
the first of the great desert monks
found peace

and he had nothing but God


But then
according to the legend



one day God told Anthony to leave his cave
and go to a far away town.

Anthony was told to look for the shoemaker in that town.

Knock on his door
and stay with him for while


Anthony did not understand why God would send him back in the world leek that.
but he went according to Gods command

the next morning
he got up
walked all day across the desert sands..

And just before nightfall
he came to that village

found the home of the shoemaker
and knocked on the door.

A smiling man opened the door.

Are you the town shoe maker?

Yes I am the shoe maker said
and the shoemaker could see how tired and hungry the hermit looked

“come in” he said, you need something to eat.
And a place to rest.”


The shoemaker called to his wife..... they fixed a meal..
A good simple meal..

and they gave Anthony a place to sleep

the holy hermit stayed with the shoemaker and his family for three days.

And while they were there

Anthony talked to them about their lives


but he said very little about himself
even though they were very curios about his life in the desert


but they talked a lot
. And they became good friends.


Then, as I said,
after three days Anthony the holy hermit, said good by
to the shoemaker and his wife.

He walked back to the cave
and he wondered why God had sent him to visit the shoemaker.

What was he suppose to learn ?

what could be so holy about their lives in the middle of a little town

well,,.God said .to Anthony
after he had settled back into the cave

What was that shoemaker like ?


.

And Anthony prayed and thought about his time in that house.
Anthony said

the shoe maker is a simple man.

He has a wife who is going to have a baby

they seem to love each other very much

he has just a little shop
where he makes shoes
he works hard

they have a simple house

they give money and food
to people who nee d help

he and his wife believe very much in you..

.
and they pray ,,,at least once a day

they have friends

and the shoemaker likes to tell jokes.

And then
God..
the legend says
listened to all of this very carefully
and said to Anthony
you are a great saint/

and God said

the shoemaker and his wife
they are great saints too.”

I know it a very simple story.
In fact it is deceptively simple

. But we need to hear its truth..
really hear
what it says..
because I believe it is also what the Bible is telling us.

The story is telling us
that sainthood can be all around us.
Our understanding of sainthood and holiness
is being opened up....

This is all saints Sunday ..as you know
And we Protestants.

All of us non Catholics
well
we still need to know our saints and celebrate our saints


A couple of year ago

Bishop Sally Dyck met with some of us on a retreat at the episcopal house of prayer

she told us about her prayer life
and what she was using in her daily devotions
we were taking about our spiritual practices

she introduced us to this book called
All Saints ; Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets and witnesses For Our Time..

She says she reads about one of those saints every day

it’s a wonderful l book .
.full of famous people
some of them are names
that I have heard of..

some of them are names I didn’t know anything about
well
Officially canonized or not.
they are saints..

And this book can inspire me and encourage me with the example of these saints

But even more so..
Than this book

I like that simple story about st Anthony
and the shoemaker and his wife..
Because they point me in this other direction...
..to look closer to home..


To hear about a God
and the wisdom of the church

that sees the sainthood..and the sacredness..
The spirituality of simple work
and simple living
making a life
and being family
trusting in god
hospitality...and generosity
daily prayer..and telling jokes and having friends..

We need to see the spirituality of the ordinary...that is close to home..
Hear and now

Sainthood according to that legend
is seems to me
is about living ..life...open
. To the deeper rhythms of God in the world
not outside of the world ..but in the world

sainthood
is about letting God be with us
in the common-ness and the daily-ness
and the business of life


And holiness
is not just found in the hermitage of a desert
it is not just found in the solitude of a cave

or the halls of a church
or a retreat center.

Maybe we should not just be looking for saints in stained glass windows
but maybe even in stains of our own lives..
.stains that point us to the grace of God.




Sainthood is not just about religion and churchiness

because we believe that holiness and sainthood...spirituality
can also
be also found in how
and why
we do our living in this world

Do you get this?)

Sainthood
holiness
is probably closer to us then we care to admit!

I can open a book like this(All Saints)
and I can read about great saints
st Antony of Egypt ... st Francis and st Teresa and st John of the cross

I can read about the people who did very famous..extraordinary and unusual things

or
I can open this sacred and holy book
I can open the Bible
and I can read about great Biblical saints
st Paul and St peter..st john and even st Mary magdalene

Again people
who seemed to do heroic and such faithful things


but I can also pick up the church bulletin today

and I can do what I will prayerfully do
and so will you
and we can read about our own near and great saints..

we can read can read these people
into our personal collection of saints

people who did those daily simple things..

People who worshiped with us.
Sang with us.
.supported this church...
Probably worked at the fair booth
or helped with coffee.
People who share daily talk
and work and friendship with us..

and these people have already

become the inspirational
saints in our
daily reflections of the heart

in those books of the heart
as we name and remember them

probably day by day

this is our book of saints

these are the people in our prayers

these are the people
who still guide us..
by memory and example or some unknown influence

These are the people whose stories
we know how to tell
.
these are the saints that God somehow
wanted us to meet..

as we give thanks for their love
their work
their friendship for us

they are brothers and sister
they are parents and grandparents
husbands and wives
they are co workers and friends
these are the people
That God used to touch us.


in such common and practically overlooked way
They still showed us
or gave us some light of God


or again
as that legend of st Anthony is also saying to us..

God does not just come to us in the separateness..
but in the relationships

There is a sacredness
in the people and the work around us..

The miracle is , that in them..
we can also have something of God...

The miracle .the gift..
is that is that the people around us can really be saints of God..

..........
In the front of this book
there is a quote from Thomas Merton.
.
(A person by the way who is listed on page 538 of this book.).

But the words being quoted are this

“There is now way to tell people that they are walking around shining like the sun..”


I don’t know if that really true.
. I think you can tell that to someone

Because we are getting close to something like that on day like today

remember what this is called
All saints day
this is our All saints Sunday
what if we are all...all saints.

look at the people around you

they are shining like the sun...
the light of God is in us..
you are the light of the world ..Jesus said
even now
we live in the communion of saints..
The fellowship of saints


and if that t is just really too hard for us to see and hear
in each other
while we are yet alive ..

precisely because we are so common..
so imperfect...
so
well you know..
“saints but yet sinners.”

then
let us at least hear the words.
From the hymn that we sang
for all the saints,
, we feebly struggle .. they in glory shine

and maybe we can just say
that it is true
we feebly struggle

that is just what we all do,,
but they in glory shine..
They now in glory shine.


praise be to God for the names of these 16 saints

and for all the saints that that still touch our lives.
Thanks be to God. Amen


I adapted the St Anthony story from The Sowers Seeds, by Brian Cavanaugh “On Being a Saint” p. 53 . Paulist Press 2004

The All Saints book that is referenced and from which I borrow the Thomas Merton quote is by Robert Ellsberg The Crossroad Publishing Company 2004