All Saints?

Today I am again at All Saints, Worcester. It is their patronal feast day, which is just a fancy way of saying that they take their name from this feast day in the church calendar - this Sunday of All Saints. In celebration of this day the 10 am service and the 11:45 Spanish-language service have combined at 10:30 with a potluck lunch to follow. 

There is a new television ad for the Google Pixel Phone that has imprinted on my brain. Which, of course, is exactly what advertising means to do. Don’t worry, this is not a sermon brought to you by Google and I’m not endorsing any products today. But I think the ad has theological implications.

It begins like this: “when you change a period to a question mark, it changes everything.” And then they give some examples, in rapid succession:

• The earth is flat. The earth is flat? 
• We’re lost. We’re lost? 
• Cars need drivers. Cars need drivers? 
• Smartphones can’t get any smarter. Smartphones can’t get any smarter?

You with me? When you change a period to a question mark, it changes everything.

Some of you have perhaps seen the comma that has been used over the past few years by the United Church of Christ in an ad campaign. They want to say that God is still alive and still speaking through God’s people, and so they want to replace periods with commas to make this point.

But today, on this Feast of All Saints, your patronal feast day, I want to wonder out loud with you what happens when we change periods into question marks.

My experience teaches me that questions lead to deeper faith. Perhaps the patron saint of this truth is St. Thomas, whom we mis-remember as a doubter, when he was really just that guy who was willing to ask the hard questions.Certitudes truncate faith and certitudes are an equal opportunity offender: there are versions on both the left and the right. 

When someone knows something, for sure, they stop listening. Period.

They close themselves down. Period.

This is always a problem for Christian community. Statements tend to get debated. Questions get explored.

So when we change periods to question marks, it changes everything. We begin to wonder what we might not see or know and we wonder what others have to offer us to help with our blind spots. Our neighbor is no longer a threat, but a gift to us. We begin to embrace that baptismal prayer that we might have "inquiring and discerning hearts."

I’ve been with you now for just about a month. I’m here part-time in a position that requires full-time work. And I’m only here for another eight or nine weeks. So I am feeling free to say just about anything.

But here is what I want to say to you today, All Saints: you are in this together.

Literally as I look out at you today, I see a thing of beauty. I feel like John on Patmos, glimpsing what he saw: una gran multid de todas las naciounes, razas, lenguas y pueblos. You are all saints.

You are all saints?

One of my favorite preachers is Nadia Bolz-Weber, the founding pastor of a church called the House of All Sinners and All Saints. She’s a Lutheran, so those Lutherans as you may know are big on the fact that we can be simultaneously both sinners and saints. But it’s not just a Lutheran idea; it’s a solidly Christian idea.

What’s dangerous is to think that some are the saints and the others are the sinners. This not only destroys Christian community; it’s not true. There are variations on the theme: we are more saintly, the others are worse sinners. But that is just wrong.

When Luther nailed his ninety-five theses on the door of that Wittenburg Church five hundred years ago, he started asking big questions about the relationship between faith and works and the meaning of grace. One place that led to was a 21^st century congregation called All Sinners and All Saints which just about sums it all up.

Well, it’s probably too late to change your name, all saints. But your patronal feast day may be a good time to remember that being saints doesn’t mean always getting it right.

You are all saints? Yes, to be sure. And you are all sinners, saved by God’s grace.

Here’s the deal while we’re talking about sin: we can’t confess our neighbor’s sins. It just doesn’t work that way. We may see their sins more clearly than we see our own, but that’s no excuse! Their sins are not for us to confess.

Jesus had something to say about getting rid of beams in our own eyes before we worry about the splinters in the eyes of others, remember?  

You are all saints?

Some days we may not feel like we are, or that that person two pews in front of us definitely is not. But I want to tell you again as I look out today, this is what the Kingdom of God looks like: you are from every nation, or at least a lot of nations. You are from different tribes, and peoples, and languages, and today we hear just a few of them: Swahili. Spanish. English. Take a good look because this is what heaven looks like.

After this liturgy we’ll share different foods representing different cultures from the African diaspora and from different Latin American and Central American countries and from Europe and from native people who were here long before the Europeans came. We are many. And we are one. We are blessed by our diversity.

We are blessed by our diversity?

Some days it doesn’t feel like that, I know because it’s hard work. Division and mistrust permeate the dominant culture in which we live, but we come here to remember a deeper truth: that each of us is created in the image of the living God. That each of us is worthy of being treated with dignity and respect. We come here to remember that Jesus commands us to love one another. Though we are many, we are one.

In the past month I’ve discovered some ghosts in this place. Most of them seem friendly enough. Former rectors who were great theologians, like Father Huntington, and clerics who became bishops, like Vinton and Davies and Hastings and Beckwith. When I wander the halls upstairs they all look so young. And of course for every former rector with a photo on the wall, there were countless choir directors and choir members and Sunday school teachers and vestry members and altar guild members and loud praying members and soft-spoken ones, too. We are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, and they were faithful in their time.

But here’s the deal: this is your time, all saints. All of us will eventually go down to the dust and join the heavenly chorus. But in the meantime we have work to do here. Work of healing and of reconciliation. Work of being faithful stewards, which is always about more than just being money managers.

When you change a period to a question mark, it changes everything. Keep asking: what does the Lord require of me? Keep asking what it means to be all saints and how you will commit to that, with God’s help. Keep asking how you can be part of the work of reconciliation, rather than of division. 

And then praise God, from whom all blessings flow.