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A lot of people wonder why Protestants celebrate ‘All
Saints’ Day.’ We certainly do have a different understanding and appreciation
for those the world has called “Saints.” This understanding comes Biblically
from the writings of St. Paul and another wonderful insight out of the
Reformation—we are both simultaneously saint and sinner or better known in the
origin Latin as simul justus et peccator.
This is humanity in a nutshell.
Christ Jesus gave us a way to aspire to have our light shine in the
world through His Gospel and the epitome teachings of His mission seen through
the Sermon on the Mount.
Those radically challenging divine statements of hope and
blessedness began as His ordination address to His 12 disciples, known as the
Beatitudes. Here you have it, folks,
here is the description of the New Nature potential within us all! Blessed to be a blessing through God to Love,
through our life, generosity, and care for our neighbor. What could be more beautiful than that I
ask? These profound explosive statements
were to jar our humanity out of our Chrysalis cocoons into the light of the
Kingdom of God itself. We have the
capacity, in that mustard seed faith to change the world or at least our corner
of it. Every life matters, everything we
do matters, especially as the Body, our church family gathered here this
morning.
Sometimes I wonder though, if we just don’t have enough
faith in ourselves to not only see the bigger picture, but be hopeful that we
can make things happen. Everyone’s life is an amazing journey with lots of
valleys and lots of mountain tops to climb over or climb out of. The other day I saw a Gofundme campaign for a
writer I knew back in Chicago. Her husband left her some 4 months or so back,
or basically when I had literally just moved here. He left her in the middle of
the night, without a note, without a goodbye or care for his children and left
her to fall into debt, once again. Here, was literally a self-made woman who
truly had, in some senses, an ongoing tragic life. I met her some 27 years ago through the arts
and poetry magazine, we would both contribute to. She was pregnant at the time, and soon gave
birth to her first son.
From what I came to learn from her, her entire journey
was fought alone. She was adopted, not
knowing her original parents and now she was alone, once again, with an out of
wedlock infant. Nearly straggling the rails towards a potentially homeless
future, she moves in with an aunt, out in a nearby suburb till she makes her
way back to the city to begin her life once again. As the years passed by, as well as her hopes
in finding someone to be there for her, she contracted Hepatitis C and nearly
died. Through the helpful hands of some
close friends, she, like the Phoenix, rose again from the ashes. She even wrote poetry towards that metaphor
of the Phoenix and her journey to survive.
A few more years would soon pass by, and her life began
to come together, it seemed, for the better.
I couldn’t have been more than delighted for her. My life as well started coming together at
that same point in time, because of Christ.
There would be an affinity there, I would come to realize, for she was a
devout Roman Catholic and even taught at a parochial school to thinly support
her and her son. Upon sharing our faith journeys, to some extent, though, still
very connected to our artistic past, I would be delighted for her once again,
that she finally found someone to settle down, marry and begin a complete
family with.
Their life together certainly saw much tragedy however,
for he had an alcohol and drug addiction problem and she would find herself,
once again, more or less, alone, now raising 2 more young children. They stayed married and she even tried to
jolt whatever love that was there, with a renewal of vows to be shared with
their growing children, family and friends.
On and off, she would contact me for advice, she would harbor many
moments she wanted to have an annulment and others where she truly just wanted
to do to him, what he did to her. In
fact, I believe, she may have cheated on him once or twice. As always, the tears, pain and suffering
would be masked in either her art or her public persona.
Sandy wanted everyone to think that everything was
fine. She was living the “perfect”
Bohemian life, married to a musician with gifted children she would
successfully steer into the performing arts.
All was, always to be “fine.”
Four or five years back, her home of some 11 years burnt down to the
foundation. She had lost everything
material-wise, nearly all of her art and many of the things she held from her
past that were from her adoptive, childhood family. At the time, I was in the midst of my
seminary studies as well as helping to plant churches, but I scrambled around
to get donations of things to help her and her family to get back up on their
feet.
Staying in an insurance funded home for nearly a year,
she found herself working 3 jobs, while her husband was once again absent… only
to be coming home late at night and passing out in the front door’s vestibule,
in front of their now teenage children. A year or so ago, I celebrated with her
that during that time of working three jobs, raising her teenage children, for
the most part, on her own, she finished her masters and officially could teach
as she had always dreamed of teaching.
She became a special education instructor for a local city college. She
even, was able to take the reins of running the college’s radio station
featuring the current Chicago art and poetry scene at the time. The last time I truly got to see her again,
was when I was blessed to have her come to my ordination with her sons and
daughter. We celebrated our lives’
journey where it grew and what hope it had, in store, around the corner for the
both of us.
Seeing this new campaign, plea for help, from her, the
other day, did bring tears from my eyes.
It was heartbreaking. Here is a woman who has done nothing but work hard
her whole entire life and she did it alone…
But then, I thought about that again, yes, she was alone without a
husband or earthly companion… but from every moment, that woman would suffer
and rise like the Phoenix from the ashes, she DID this through her faith. I remember seeing her last car that
unfortunately she wrecked in a recent car accident. There were Jesus stickers nearly coating the
whole back end of this car. I would come to find out, even through all of this,
she volunteered regularly, faithfully at her church helping with Sunday School,
visiting the elderly and donating a portion of the sale of any of her books to
her church’s operating funds as well as regularly served in worship. Nothing
came between her growing relationship with God.
Her faith was amazing and tested the strains of time.
I have just shared with you a journey into the world of
this one person’s life to truly reveal to you, how someone’s life can still
shine through the darkness, because of Christ.
When you think of the everyday people that the first twelve disciples
truly were… Jesus’ call to them to see
everything through the eyes of blessedness, lives to be obediently shaped by
humility, compassion, innocence, perseverance, temperance and suffering; this
does seem like an impossible order for them to take on. Many of the original twelve would succumb to
martyrdom for the cause of spreading the Good News of the Gospel.
It’s probably incredible for us to imagine some 2,000
plus years later, how the church has been built and carried upon the many lives
of thousands of martyrs or witnesses of living towards a Beatific life. They carried the Gospel, its cost of
discipleship and shared it, selflessly through their sacrifice, time and
talents for something greater; something that really matters. The true spiritual beauty of “being the
attitude” of the Beatitudes is that it is all about living for something beyond
the self, living, striving for something that really matters. Who are we, but a loving group of Christians
in our quaint church family on the east side of Las Vegas… We are so much more
through Christ Jesus who knows His children.
He knows where our church family has been, and He is cheering alongside
your pastor, for the wonderful hope and promise of our ministry together for
something that really matters.
The Beatitudes are not to be seen as new laws or a moral
striving for the Christian to follow, they are to guide us in seeing who we
really are, whose we really are and our potential. John of Patmos, the infamous writer of the
Book of Revelation, as well as speculated to have written the Gospel and its
epistle… would prove to be another amazing figure of faith fighting for what
really matters. Here’s someone who created a fantastically coded address to be
prophetically encouraging to those severely persecuted Christians of the early
church. During his exile to the island
of Patmos, he felt called and heard God’s spirit to prompt him to warn others
about the end of times. The end of days
he painted with poetic words following the style of writing of ancient prophets
such as Ezekiel and Elijah. We could
say, that he was using “art” to reveal the truth of our need to change, grow
towards the Kingdom of God.
It is a weird way to have ended the Bible with his
writings of warning to all Christians about the consequences of how we live in
awareness to our saint/ sinner reality… But it is also an amazing story of
courage and hope for us all to hear and think about. The Bible’s canon ends with several days in
the lives of those surviving, early persecuted Christians who strove for
something that really matters. It would be Christ, who gave their lives, a New
meaning and purpose to pursue and that is the eternal joy of the Kingdom of
God. Our 9-to-5 lives are always going to struggle with robbing us away from
things that really matter. We are called
through Grace, to fight it. We are
called to flourish in living a gracious hope in mission together as God’s
family.
This past Sunday revealed a wonderful and glorious hope
for us to strive towards. The moment
Betty and I walked outside and looked around at the literal hope-filled
foundation of our church’s future…. I
felt God’s blessing and the joy, potential of us all, together, being a
blessing to others. As I’ve said before, never say never, and we can, with and
through our time, talents and treasures, change our corner of the world as the
re-planted, renewed Body of First Congregational Church of Las Vegas, Nevada.
We have this potential within us, it is now the time to act, it is now the time
to Do and it is now the time to become—all things through Christ Jesus, who
indeed strengthens us all!
Let us Pray,
Gracious and Loving Lord Jesus
May we see and grow from the light and struggle
In our neighbors’ lives to truly know
What really matters is our commitment to Your Gospel’s
cause
May we harbor a transformative stewardship, witness
Through our hearts out through our voices, hands and feet
Together, never alone from Your love, grace and peace
Which inspires us all.
AMEN
November 5th,
2017; All Saints Sunday; Year A; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 149;
Revelation 7:2-17; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12
The Link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 9:30am
https://youtu.be/aUBaYiX0GkE
https://youtu.be/aUBaYiX0GkE
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