All Saints Day

Sermon Nov. 2, 2003 All Saints Sunday
Revelation 21: 1-6a John 11:32-44

Almighty God, whose people are knit together in one holy Church, the body of Christ our Lord….

What a hopeful opening to a prayer on, what is perhaps one of the more hopeful days in the Church year.

All Saints Sunday gives us a chance to dwell deeply in our belief that because Christ lives, so will we. Because Christ lives, so will our loved ones and through Christ we remain connected, united in one body. Today we remember not only the past and what has happened--the memories which may include, sickness, death, pain and loss….we also give thanks for the lives that have surrounded us. And, we look for our own future.

Many of those around us live in a world seems so hopeless, there is so much depair. They long for the day where there tears have been wiped away and pain and suffering will have passed away. So many live as if God has abandoned them---that they are alone to face the sin and evil of this world. Perhaps that is why today fills me with hope. It reminds me that, there is hope, and this is it:

God cares so deeply and profoundly that God in Christ Jesus, wept at the death of his friend and at the pain of humanity. God in Christ Jesus lives to make us live. You and I and with the whole Christian Church, trust that that our new life, is not only to come, but that it has come. In Christ we know not only the beginning of the new creation, but the completion of it as well—Christ the Alpha and the Omega—our beginning and our end—is light to dark world.

We have this to share---that with each splash of water and each meal of bread and wine, we are being made a part of God’s new creation, the real hope comes not just because they made us whole, but because it is our baptism and the communion meal that joins us with the saints---with them, we see and we are apart of God’s banquet feast. Yes, today feels most hopeful…..not just because we catch a glimpse of our future or even that we are united with the new creation, but we see in the Light of Christ, a glimmer of our purpose right here and now.

Robert Fulgham writes how he once asked the founder of a philosophical institute on the island of Crete an earnest question during the final session of a two-week seminar. “Dr. Paderos, what is the meaning of life? Fulghum asked. The other members of the seminar laughed, but the speaker seemed to take the question seriously.

Dr. Paderos pulled out a small piece of mirror from inside his billfold. He explained that he had been carrying the fragment since the day he found it on a road as a child during the war. It was a piece of a German motorcycle that had been wrecked. By scratching the fragment on a stone he had made the edges round and smooth.

Paderos explained how he played with the mirror when he was young. He became fascinated by the way he could reflect light into dark places that the sun could never touch. He would maneuver it so that the light would shine in old building and deserted houses. As he sat by a pond, he’d cast the light into the shadowy forest. The mirror entertained him for hours and something about it kept him company…it was always in his pocket. As he grew older Papaderos said he began to understand that what he had been doing was a kind of metaphor for the way he ought to live his life.

“I am not the light,” The philosopher declared to the seminar members. “I don’t contain the light,” he said. “Rather, I am simply a fragment of a mirror who is capable of reflecting light into certain dark places of this world where light might not otherwise shine. This is what I am about.”

Then holding that little fragment of glass at the right tilt and angle, Papaderos reflected light on Fulghum’s face and said, “This is the meeting of my life.”

It occurs to me that what God does in this world of ours is most often done through people whose tilt and angle of life is capable of reflecting God’s light. Their greatness isn’t measured by worldly fortune or, fleeting fame, or even the length of their life. Rather, their distinction is measured in the hearts of others who simply hold them dear for the difference they have made and the model they have provided. They are people who have made the experience of life a little bit brighter and a little bit better than it otherwise would have been without them. Through special ones such as these, our lives have been enhanced. Through them, and their life and death, God has given us a glimpse of the world to come.

You and I are apart of this mirror as well, we are just fragments, but our lives were given to us to shine the light of Christ into the darkness of this world. How we do it is an varied and unique as the lives we remember and celebrate today…

Today, as you light a candle and come forward to the font, I hope you catch a glimpse of the body of Christ which surrounds you--elbow to elbow--today in this congregation. As you light a candle in memory of a loved one or in celebration of a new saint, I hope you catch a glimpse of your own life reflected in the flicker of the flame or in the sparkle of baptismal water. It is what we are called to be—reflections of the Greatest Light, God’s light in Christ, shining for the whole world to know the promise, that because, Christ lives, we too, live.