God Plays the Long Game: Nov. 1, 2020

Year A, All Saints                                               1 John 3:1-3, Matthew 5:1-12        

          If you read too much about All Saint’s Day, you will get confused.  It’s kind of a weird day. Most Episcopal churches celebrate it by reading the names of those who have died in the past year.  It’s an opportunity to mourn and remember. Yet the term “saint” is not what we think it is.  Frankly, I blame Billy Joel and his hit, “Only the Good Die Young.” One of the lines is: I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.  He makes a distinction between the sinners and the saints, saints being those who are perfect and boring, while the sinners are… everyone else. 

Now, Billy Joel isn’t completely to blame.  I believe it was the early church that started it.  They wanted to honor those who had died for their faith, the martyrs.  They declared them saints after they died which led to the idea that saints were Christian superstars, the people who were super holy. They might have sinned a little, but definitely not much. 

However, if you read the New Testament (especially Paul’s letters), you will find the definition of saints is far different. When the Apostle Paul refers to saints, he refers to all Christians—not just the really good ones who have died, but all Christians, anyone who has been baptized.  I think it is good and appropriate to read the names of those who we have lost because they were and are saints of the church. They were not perfect, but they were God’s children, just as we are.  It is interesting that we find it easier to identify saints as those who have died, rather than those of us who are still living.  I think that is partially because we still have that idea in our heave of a saint being an extra holy Christian.  But it’s also natural to remember those who have died for their good qualities.  And you know, I have to admit, that when I looked at our list this year, there were several who I knew well and I perceived as especially good and committed Christians, people I would feel comfortable referring to as a saint.  But I doubt most of them would have considered themselves that way. 

Our three readings today effectively depict the various ways we define saints.  The reading from the Book of Revelation considers the future, after Jesus comes again and all are gathered together in paradise.  It’s a very traditional All Saints reading because it is otherworldly/heavenly---and while we know that a saint is any Christian, we still associate this day with those who have passed. 

The Gospel reading (the Beatitudes) is much more relevant to the living saints. It talks about those who are struggling today, right now.  Those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek….they are blessed right now.  It refers to what will be, but the blessing is now.   It even goes further to describe the Kingdom of Heaven as a place we can inhabit right here, right now. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness safe, for theirs IS the kingdom of heaven.”  Even the kingdom of heaven is now.  The reading from 1^st John combines the past, present and future.  “See what love the Father HAS given us….we ARE God’s children NOW….when he is revealed, we WILL be like him…”

I had a hard time deciding which text to preach on.  If I went with the Book of Revelation, then the focus would be on the saints who have died, the saints we remember today.  If I went with the Beatitudes, then it would be about the living saints.  I was leaning toward the Beatitudes when I happened to read something about Paul.  While Paul is not represented in our readings for today, his description of a saint is a big part of this day. It said a theme of Paul’s writings is, “Become what you are.”  I had never heard that before.  It kind of sounds like something that I would hear in a yoga class, but the more I thought about it, the more relevant it seemed, especially for today.

In fact, it is exactly what our reading from 1^st John is saying, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”  It’s refreshingly simple compared to what Paul usually writes.  We are called children of God and that is what we are.  Become what you are.  My friends, we can wait for our death for people to see us as saintly, or we can become what we already are.  We can claim the sainthood that was bestowed on us at our baptism.  Why are we so afraid of that?  Partly we are afraid because we lack confidence in our identity as children of God.  I mean we hear it a lot, but we don’t really take it in. But I think we’re also afraid to claim our sainthood because it means that we have to be more like Christ.  It’s much easier to admire Christ then emulate him. 

It’s ok if we are a little rusty on living like saints, because we will have ample opportunities to claim our sainthood in the near future.  This next week will be one of the most divisive in recent history.  It will divide families, neighborhoods and it even threatens to divide churches.  I know this election is important.  I really am aware of that. But it’s not the most important thing.  Our political leanings cannot define us. Why? Because we are children of God first.  We are citizens of the United States of America.  But before that, we are citizens of the Kingdom of God.   That is our most important citizenship and our most important loyalty. And guess what, God always wins. It doesn’t always seem like that because God plays the long game, but God always wins. Vote. Pray. Be passionate.  But remember who deserves your loyalty.  Remember to whom you belong. You are a saint, in God’s kingdom.  You belong to God.

Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash

November 1, 2014: Rev. 7:9-17 & 1 John 3:1-3

Marshmallowy Paradise

Year A, All Saints                                                                

            When I was a child I asked my parents what heaven looked like.  They told me to imagine whatever it was that I loved and that would be heaven.  I figured that it would have to look cloud-like, so I imagined heaven completely made of marshmallows.  To this day, when I think of the physical place of heaven, I see marshmallows.  Most of us have some view of heaven in our heads, usually formed by what we see on TV or how it is described in a book.  The Simpsons, a long running cartoon, depicted heaven as divided into Catholic and Protestant sections.  The Protestant section looked a bit like a country club with people playing badminton and croquet.  The Catholic one looked like a big party with dancing, piñatas, and music.  Jesus was in the Catholic heaven having a blast.  While I cannot say this for sure, I am fairly confident that heaven is probably nothing like my childhood marshmallowy paradise nor the cartoon version depicted in the Simpsons.  That’s probably a good thing because while any one of these places might be fun for a couple of days, eternity would be a long time to play badminton or eat marshmallows.           

            The reason there are so many diverse views of heaven and why people feel so comfortable depicting it with artistic license is because the Bible doesn’t provide a great deal of clarity about heaven.  We hear references to heaven throughout the Bible, but there is no clear description.  There is no St. Peter at a gate determining who gets in.  It’s not full of chubby little cherubs on clouds playing the harp.  If you want to find the most detailed description of heaven, you go to the Book of Revelation. 

But if you are anything like me, you might find Revelation to be a little confounding.  It is very different from the rest of the Bible.  The writing is what we call apocalyptic because it is about the end of time.  And frankly, no one I know in the Episcopal Church likes to talk about the end times.  We leave that to other Christian groups and then we tend to judge them for their preoccupation with the end times.

I confess that I am not very comfortable with the Book of Revelation. I never have been. The imagery sounds bizarre to me.  Consider the reading we had today: “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.”  Why would people be washing their robes in blood and what is the deal with the lamb?  It makes no sense. 

Revelation depends heavily on symbolism and numerology.  You all know what 666 is; that comes from Revelation.  Revelation is believed to be written from a vision that John had and decided to share with the Christian community.  It contains vivid and often disturbing images: a great deal of blood, locusts with human faces, horsemen, dragons, famine, destruction, and so much more. The more I read it, the more confused I get.

Confusion is not necessarily a bad response to the Bible, especially the Bible as it pertains to end times.  Jesus was evasive about the end of the world.  In fact, there were a lot of answers that he did not give.[1]  I often think that if I had Jesus in the flesh with me in my day to day life, I could get a lot cleared up. I would not have all this confusion about things like the Book of Revelation.  But even with his disciples, he did not always explain these things in detail.  He said that some things would not be revealed until later.  The author of 1 John was pretty clear about this as well.  He wrote, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”  What we will be has not yet been revealed…

Christians are often criticized for focusing too much on heaven and not enough on earth.  The criticism states that by focusing on what comes next, we have an excuse to be lazy because we can say something like, “well we don’t need to help those people now because what happens on earth is temporary and we need to focus on getting these people into heaven.”  Perhaps we are occasionally guilty of that.  It is easy to get overwhelmed by the horrible things that are going on in the world.  This is especially true now when we know about every horrible thing happening everywhere because of 24 hour news and social media.  It is tempting to throw up our hands and say, “Let’s put our hope in the life that is to come.”  The world as we know it, a world saturated with violence, hatred, disease, starvation, self-indulgence, etc…is more than we can possibly process. 

            But we can’t take the easy way out because as the author of 1^st John says, we are children of God now.  And not only are we children of God, but all those people who are suffering here and abroad are children of God as well…now.  Sometimes we forget that these words are not just written for us.  They are written for everyone.  While I struggle with much of the imagery in Revelation, there is some that is quite profound and beautiful.  “After this I, John, looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne…”  Who cares what heaven looks like?  What matters is not whether the streets are paved with gold or marshmallows, but the fact that God wants everyone there.  There is no discrimination, no bigotry…people of every nation, every race will be gathered at the throne of God because we are all children of God…right now. 

It’s hard to picture that in our head given that Sunday morning is still the most segregated time of the week.  But it was probably even more difficult to imagine in Israel in the 1^st century when people of different faiths and ethnicities could not even speak to one another.  It was practically a caste system there was so much segregation.  People were truly separated into tribes and those tribes were often enemies.  But that was not the vision that God gave John.  The vision that God gave John was a great multitude, from every nation… At the time, that probably sounded crazier than locusts with human faces, dragons or lakes of fire.   

In some ways it is.  In this day and age, the most fantastic things can be portrayed in movies and video games.  If you can imagine it, it can appear.  Yet no one even bothers to imagine the vision of all the people of the world…of every color, every heritage, every nation, every socioeconomic status gathered at the throne of God.  I wonder if we are scared to imagine.  We don’t mind imagining dragons and great battles in space because we can’t do anything about those things.  But we can do something about bringing people together.  We can do something about sharing the love of God with our neighbors. 

“These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.”  I do not like the imagery of animal blood.  However, when this text talks about blood of the lamb, the lamb is Jesus Christ.  It is referencing how Jesus was sacrificed.  The people washed their robes not in their blood, but in the blood of Jesus Christ.  He was sacrificed for all.  So while we all have unique DNA and different blood types, we all share in the same blood, the same body of Christ. We are not one nation under God.  We are one world, one universe under God.  That is what heaven looks like.  We can start working on that here on earth and here at St. John’s…we can start working on that right now.   

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[1] Matthew 24:36