The Church of St.
Paul & Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
November 3, 2019
Year C: All Saints’
Sunday
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31
A School for Saints
If
you’ve been here over the past couple of weeks you know that we’ve been having
kind of a rough time.
On
top of all the usual challenges of life here in the big city, several
parishioners have faced serious illness and we’ve gotten the unwelcome news
that the rectory boiler and most likely the church boiler both need to be
replaced.
So,
it’s been a lot.
And,
since we’ve had to deal with all of these pressing matters, we’ve placed other
items on the back burner, pardon the expression!
So,
no, we haven’t yet moved the nursery to the back of the church, though I
promise that’s coming.
And,
no, the vestry has not yet finished creating a new mission statement for our
unified church.
Both
of those unfinished items on our to-do list – and there are a lot more, believe
me – have been on my mind, especially the mission statement.
What is my vision
of our church?
What is your
vision of our church?
And, most
important, what is our vision of our church?
Who
are we?
Why
are we here?
What
are we here to do?
Christians
have been praying and thinking about these questions for two thousand years and
have come up with many different visions - many different images - for what the
church is and how it should live out its mission.
First
and foremost, there’s St. Paul’s vision of the church as the Body of Christ in
the world – an image we heard in today’s second lesson from Ephesians.
There’s
also the image of the church as a boat providing safety in the stormy seas of
the world – that’s an image that’s expressed in lots of church architecture,
including ours. It’s why you’re sitting in a part of the church that’s called
the nave.
I
also like Pope Francis’ vision of the church as a field hospital after a
battle, here to heal the wounds of people who are so injured by life.
All
of those visions are beautiful and true but lately – and this won’t come as a
surprise to those of you who know my background – lately I’ve been thinking
about the church as a school – a school where we learn how to be saints.
A
school for saints.
Today
as we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, we give thanks for the apostles and
martyrs, the heroes of our faith, who have given away their lives for Jesus.
But,
as we celebrate the official Saints, we can’t let ourselves off the hook.
We need to
remember that you and I are called to be saints.
In
the words of the charming hymn we just sang, saints “live not only in ages
past, there are hundreds of thousands still.”
“You
can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in
shops, or at tea.”
Or,
to update that for our time and place, “You can meet saints on the PATH train,
or the bus, or at C-Town, or in Lincoln Park, or in Bayonne!”
(Sorry,
I’m not good at rhyming!)
But,
you know, being a saint does not come easily.
Just
look at the vision and the teachings that Jesus presents in today’s gospel
lesson.
It’s
a downside-up vision of the world where the blessed ones are those who are poor
and hungry and weeping and hated.
It’s
a downside-up vision of a world where the ones who are rich and full and
laughing are those who are in big trouble.
It’s
a downside-up vision of a world where we are called to not just respect our
enemies but to love them – to give away what we have – to do to others as we
would have them do to us.
Whenever
I read this passage I’m amazed that Christianity ever got going – because it’s
so hard, so counter-cultural, so counter-intuitive.
That’s
why we need a school for saints, a school where, yes, we learn about the great
Saints of the past but also where we learn to be saints ourselves, a school
where we are given the opportunities to become saints, a school where God
teaches us and where we teach each other.
The
school for saints is a place for lifelong learners.
We
can’t flunk out, unless we stop showing up.
And,
we never really graduate, at least not in this life.
And,
today, in the water of Baptism, we will enroll our newest student, beautiful
little Karina Edwards.
She
has no idea what she’s getting signed up for. But, her parents know. And, we
know, too.
And, together here
in our school, Karina and we will learn how to be saints, all with God’s help.
So, I started off
today’s sermon talking about the rough time we’ve been having around here
lately.
And, I’ll admit
that I was really feeling a little down about our troubles last Sunday –
worried about the lack of heat and the arrival of our Family Promise guests –
and how we are going to pay for it all.
The weather was
bad and so attendance was pretty light and the energy in the nave seemed way
lower than usual.
Anyway, after the
10:00 service, I hung out for a while in coffee hour, where, unusually, there
were quite a few empty seats.
But, then, I
remembered that the Sandwich Squad was working in the kitchen – and when I went
in there to see how it was going I found the place pretty well packed with
young people and not so young people all happily making sandwiches for people
they would probably never meet, people who would never have the chance to say
thank you, people who would never and could never pay us back.
Even on a gray,
stormy, downer of a day, the school for saints was in session, just as it is in
session right now, just as it will be in session today as we open our doors and
give up our space (as we give up coffee hour!), making room for families who
have no other place to call home.
And so, with God’s
help, here we are, you and me and Karina, all of us students in the school for
saints, learning together how to make Jesus’ vision of a downside-up world a
reality.
Amen.
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