November 3, 2002 - All Saints!

Today we have another reading from the gospel of Matthew. As we approach Advent just four Sundays from today we will be ending our Matthew readings, and in the new church year Mark?s gospel will be featured. (The lectionary readings are based on a three-year cycle, each year going through one of the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.) It is in Matthew that Jesus is most harsh with the religious leaders of the day, and you will hear that in today?s passage. The "scribes and Pharisees" are on the hot seat, guilty of one of the great dangers of faith: to observe the law of God in order to be observed by others. In stark contrast to their preoccupation with status and the power that goes with it, Jesus says that his followers must be radically egalitarian in how they practice their faith. No one, he says, should be considered a higher teacher, a greater authority, than anyone else. We are all students, he says. There is only one teacher, that is, Messiah.

Before Sandie reads, a couple of explanatory notes: First, the word "phylactery" - a small, leather box containing verses from the Torah. In a symbolic gesture of devotion to Torah, men would bind this box to their hand or forehead as they prayed. The "fringes" mentioned are the fringes on the ends of the prayer shawls they would use. The Pharisees, says Jesus, would make a great show of how elaborate they could make their symbols of devotion, to draw attention to their piety.

And then the word, "father." We think that the way Jesus uses it here this is not one?s biological father, but rather it is a term of respect for someone older in the faith, a term sometimes used in that day for a religious teacher.

Let us listen now to the reading, to hear what God might be saying to us, in our time.

There are two great faults that we religious-types gravitate toward; two errors that people of faith in every time and place have tended to make. The first is that great sin of Hypocrisy that Jesus exposes and roundly condemns in the passage we just heard. Hypocrisy: teaching one thing, and doing another. Saying you are one thing, but being something quite different. "Do what they teach," says Jesus about the scribes and Pharisees. "Don?t do what they do." One of the great themes in Jesus? teaching was this warning about outward shows of religion, without an inward reality of that faith. People look on the outside; but God looks on the heart.

History is full of people for whom religion became a means not for serving, but for being served; people who wanted everyone to know just how faithful they were, how righteous, how devoted to God ? people who meticulously observed all the rules, and all the outward signs of faith, so that they might be observed by others, and respected and admired and given power.

But there is the opposite temptation ? one that we perhaps find more attractive in our tradition. That is not wanting to look "religious" at all! It?s rather like hypocrisy in reverse: Oh, we believe in God deeply, and we want to do what is right, and try to follow the way of Christ, we may even pray -- by ourselves -- and read the Bible daily -- but we don?t want people to know! "Who, me? No, no, I?m not religious! Heaven forbid!" We in the mainline churches, not wanting to appear to be closed-minded or worse yet unsophisticated, certainly not wanting to be accused of being dogmatic or fanatical about our religion, we prefer to keep our faith to ourselves. Quite private, thank you.

So the church staggers down the corridors of the centuries, sometimes being TOO religious - making a great show of faith, sometimes living it out, sometimes not - and other times ashamed of being religious, but sometimes living it out, sometimes not. And the amazing thing is this: the church at large, this "Body of Christ," around the world goes on, filled with people like us. "Saints," as we heard in the children?s time, and as we sang just minutes ago. Saints some of whom were just a little too proud of how religious they were, and they pushed it on others, and distorted the Good News; others were just a little too embarrassed by their faith, afraid to admit it to their neighbors, and so they too distorted the Good News. Saints: people who in their day, and in their way, believed this same gospel of Christ that we try to understand and proclaim and live out in our world. Saints: people like you and me who, in their best moments, believed what Jesus said, The greatest among you will be your servant.

A number of you have been to a venerable old, large church in London, on Trafalgar Square, St. Martins-in-the Fields. It?s an operating church, and a great place for concerts, and down below, in the crypt is of all things, a cafeteria open to the public. There you can dine seated over the graves of the saints departed ? an odd sort of thing, but it seems to work, and probably brings in needed revenue.

At some point in time long ago, back when churches didn?t lock their doors, apparently the church had some trouble with people going into the church without permission to bury loved ones in the dirt floor of the basement. So a sign was put up outside the church that read, "By Order of the Vestry, no one is to bring any more bodies into the basement of this church. The foundations of the church have been disrupted because of so many bodies. The stability of the building is being curiously impaired. [And our Building and Grounds Ministry thinks THEY have problems!] No one is to bring a body into this basement for burial without the express approval of the Vestry." That?s a policy we ought to have around here!

It's a funny sign, but what a great image for Memorial Sunday: The church resting, quite literally, on the foundation of the departed saints. We don?t have anyone (that I know of!) buried under this church. But figuratively we are built upon the generations that have gone ahead of us. Not merely because they built this sanctuary. But because they laid the foundations of all our ministries today, if only by making sure that the church went on in their day, so that it would be here for us today. We build on those who have gone ahead of us.

And we are the inheritors from untold great men and women not just in this church, but around the globe. What sort of world would we have without the philosophy of Plato, the science of Galileo and Newton, Einstein, the devotion of Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich, the discoveries of Pasteur, the art of Michelangelo, the music of Bach, the plays of Shakespeare, the theology of Augustine, or the courage of Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela. The list goes on and on. Memorial Sunday is a day when we give thanks for the saints who have gone before us ? the great ones we all know about, and the ordinary ones, known only to us. We give thanks for the saints because they were unique and had gifts to offer the same as we do. Today we remember our history, the people, their ideas and their quirks, their faith or lack of it that have shaped who we are.

For all the saints who from their labors rest,

who thee by faith before the world confessed

thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia!

At this Table of the Lord today we gather not just with one another, but with all the saints of all times and all places. Their journeys complete, they in the "Church Triumphant" are yet very much part of us, both because of what they have given us while we knew them on earth, and by their mystical presence among us yet. That presence defies explanation and description, but is nevertheless very real. As the risen Christ is among us ? the divine Host at this Table, seen in the Bread and in the Cup ? so too are those saints here with us, seen in one another, and in our remembrance. As we receive Communion today let us think of that line from the Apostles Creed that says, I believe in the communion of saints, to remember those who have contributed to our growth in faith - that parent, or teacher, Church School teacher, or youth leader, grandmother or father, pastor, friend; the writer who has helped you, the composer whose music lifts your faith, the artist whose works open God to you and you to God. As we eat this bread and drink of this cup, signs of our faith, acts of commitment to our Lord, let us give thanks for the saints who in their day gathered at this Table or one like it by faith, and tasted of the same grace that is ours today. Amen.

[I am grateful to the Rev. Steve Loy of Peace Lutheran Church, La Cruces, New Mexico, for the story of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.]