Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-123; Luke 6:20-31
Preached by Rev. Dr. Jason Haddox
At my house, the kitchen and the living room are one long open
space, so I will frequently have the television on while I’m cooking
dinner. The other night—I think I was
watching one of the DIY home improvement channels—when the commercials came
on. Twice as loud as the regular
program. (Why is that? I mean really…) I was not paying the least attention to
whatever labor-saving product or gadget was being advertised, until the voice
proclaimed, in a still louder tone: But
wait—there’s more!
But wait—there’s more!
Whatever it was, was not all there was.
Just wait—there’s more.
Our Wednesday Wisdom Study Group is currently reading the Rev.
John Price’s book Revealing Heaven: The
Eyewitness Accounts That Changed How A Pastor Thinks About The Afterlife. It is not a long or difficult book, but it is
deeply challenging to many of the notions many of us learned in Sunday School,
or more probably from the pop culture images of heaven and hell we’ve picked up
from movies and television. Fr. Price
served (and continues to serve) in Texas as a parish priest and hospital
chaplain over several decades, and has collected these eyewitness accounts of
persons who have died and returned to life (“returnees” as he calls them) which
tell a consistent story—a story of profound hope, great peace, and reunion and
restoration in God with those whom we love.
The story of our lives, and the lives of those we love, does not end at
the moment of death. Just wait, there’s
more!
It is a story that we as Christians know, but sometimes we need to
hear it again. Often we forget. We are struck with a kind of amnesia,
forgetting what we know, because we’ve been pulled apart, torn apart,
dis-membered, by the powers of darkness and destruction and distraction. And so we need to be re-membered, rebuilt,
put back together, into the wholeness God intends for us. We need to hear once again the old, old
story, of the love of God revealed to us in the goodness of creation, in God’s
call to walk in the ways that lead to life, in the life and death and
resurrection of Jesus, and in the promise that the powers of darkness and
destruction and death shall not have the last word. That indeed, There Is More—Just Wait.
Today we commemorate the feast of All Saints, remembering the
“great cloud of witnesses” that have gone before us, showing us in this world
what it means to be one of the saints of God.
Which does not mean they were without their own faults and shortcomings
and imperfections. They were, and are, no less human, no less imperfect than
you or I are. Some of them are
well-known around the Christian household: St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Mary
Magdalene, St. Martha of Bethany. Some
are known most particularly to us here in Augusta: Mary Bragg.
Barbara Johnson. Johnny
Moak. Neil Phelps.
And one was a doctor and one was a queen, and one was a
shepherdess on the green. They were all
of them saints of God, and I mean, God helping, to be one too.
Because of this great community of love and prayer and spiritual
companionship in which we stand, today is one of the great days for Holy
Baptism. We baptize not for fire
insurance against catastrophe or damnation; we baptize because it is the way in
which we say “yes”, however tentatively and imperfectly, to God’s welcoming us
into that enormous, eternal reality even now.
It’s already happening, it’s already underway—we can only say “yes” and
then learn to live into that “yes.”
St. Paul talks about this in his second letter to the Christians
in Corinth, when he tells them: “As surely as God is faithful, our word to you
has not been ‘Yes and No.’ For the Son
of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you… was not ‘Yes and No’; but
in him it is always ‘Yes.’ For in him every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’
For this reason it is through him that we say the ‘Amen’, to the glory of God.
But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by
putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first
installment.” (2 Corinthians 1: 18-22)
God makes a first installment.
God puts down a down payment. On
us. Anointing and sealing us—with
baptismal words, water and oil, in the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit. The beginning of something
great, something huge, something we can barely begin to imagine. Just wait—there’s more!
And there is always more—more to learn, more to discover, more to
do; more room to grow, more love to share, more people to greet and discover
Christ already present in them. With
water and oil, candlelight and promises that we will:
“continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship…
…persevere in resisting evil…
…repent and return to the Lord…
…proclaim the Good News of Christ…
…seek and serve Christ in all people…
…strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every
human being…”
we commit ourselves to a great and huge and all-encompassing
undertaking.
Always there is more.
Always we undertake these things together, for we cannot possibly do
them alone. And always, always,
always—with God’s help.
Your vestry, working together on retreat in October, stated of St.
Augustine’s Church, that our vision for ministry is that we are, and we intend
to be:
A singing congregation, a resource
for children and families at risk in the community, and a place of profound
fellowship and hospitality centered around God’s holy table.
That is a high and lofty goal.
We cannot, any one of us, do such a thing by ourselves. But we are not by ourselves. Because there is, there are, always more.
And one was a soldier and one was a priest, and one was slain by a
fierce wild beast. And there’s not any
reason, no, not the least, why I shouldn’t be one too.
In commemorating the Feast of All Saints we bless and give thanks
for the whole of the Christian story and way of life. It is among the most ancient of Christian
festivals, this feast of All Saints.
From early on, it marked both The Ending and The Beginning, the
completion and consummation of all things in God, and the renewal of all things
in the promise of eternal and abundant life.
It both brings a conclusion to the story, and renews us in the knowledge
that the story does not end merely because our perception is limited. Just wait—there’s more.
Today we begin our annual Pledge Drive for the 2014. All that we have, all that we are, is by
God’s grace and gift. And there is much
that we have been given, many gifts with which we have been blessed. What we do with those gifts, and skills, and
assets (remember the Asset Mapping?) is our thanksgiving, our “first
installment”, our “downpayment” on the wholeness that we ultimately
intend—body, mind and spirit; right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot, and
whole self—shall be God’s. Nothing held
back; no fingers crossed. All In. Because after all, it is all God’s in the
first place, every bit of it.
There is cause for celebration, in this place, among our beloved
saints and friends of God. After mass,
please go to the Parish Hall for fellowship and refreshments, and see what has
been done there. Go out into St. David’s
Hall and look at the bulletin boards.
Walk through the memorial garden and remember those who have gone before
us. Give thanks for them; make an act of
eucharist (which means thanksgiving) this day; watch your mailbox this week,
and consider how you will support and contribute to the ministry of God’s
kingdom in this place in the year to come.
For indeed, there is much, much more to come.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea; in church or
in trains, or in shops, or at tea; For the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.
How about you?
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