Called to Witness

“Called to Witness”

Revelations 7:9-17

 

November 2, 2014

 

All Saints Day Holy Communion Service

Church of the Wayfarer, Carmel 110^th Anniversary

 

Mark S. Bollwinkel

 

            Along with the 110^th Anniversary of Church of the Wayfarer, we celebrate All Saints Day today.  Begun as the “Feast of All Saints” and formalized in 835 CE to be held on November first, All Saints Day commemorates those who have died in the faith and now reside in Heaven.  “All Hallows Eve” or Halloween is a cultural creation held on the night before All Saints Day.  Halloween has nothing in common with the Christian understanding of death and afterlife.  For those of us who have survived the death of a loved on, All Saints can be a reminder of the hope, love and faith we can share in this life that can never die.

 

            United Methodists do not have a system whereby individuals are picked out for sainthood above others as the Roman Catholics and Episcopalians do.  We affirm sainthood in the lives of any and all believers, past, present and future.

            We most often think of famous Christians when we think of “saints”.

            John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement, was a scholarly Don at Oxford who burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit brought worship, sacraments and the Christian life to thousand of lower-class English who were segregated from the Church of England.  His Methodist Movement revolutionized 18^th century industrial England and was one of the most important elements of the pioneering development of North America.

            Anne Hutchinson, who lived between 1591 and 1643, was the first woman preacher in New England.  A mother of 16, she dared challenge the tyranny of the Puritans.  She suffered expulsion and banishments from Massachusetts to the “Indian” territories where she and many members of her family were murdered.  Her legacy was major influence on those who would write the Bills of Rights and the Constitution.

            Martin Luther King, Jr., could have taught in a university or lead one of the prosperous Baptist congregations in the north but after his graduate education in Boston, chose to return to his home in the south.  There he led the struggle for human rights among African-Americans.  He was killed by hatred and bigotry but his memory and influence are far from dead.

            Certainly we would consider Wesley, Hutchinson and King to be among the saints.  But saints are not just those from the past who are famous because of their deeds.  All saints, known and unknown, are those people whose faith is a way of life, much more than a social convenience.  Saints are those whose vision of the future reflects the promised Reign of God as proclaimed by Jesus.  Saints are those who dare to live in the present as if God’s future were now, as if love, compassion and justice really were the values of the world.  They live as if they know the end of the story.

            We hear it in our lesson from the last book of the Bible, Revelations.  God’s future is full of saints, more than can be counted, of every nation, race and class.  They worship God, they hunger and thirst no more, they are in one fellowship with God and each other, and their tears are wiped away.

            Citizens of God’s kingdom have “seen” what the end of history will be like, they know its spirit in their hearts and find the courage to live accordingly.

            Using this definition, we can rejoice that there are saints among us right now, right here in this very room!  I won’t embarrass them by blowing their covers.  We all know those who give beyond their resources; those who help, even before they are asked; those who have endured pain and brokenness only to become more loving and kind.  The saints among us live in spite of the odds, as if they live in a different world.  They do.  Their allegiance is to the Kingdom of God.

 

            Our “Milestones of History” reminds us that on August 18, 1940, the name “Church of the Wayfarer” was adopted by the membership. Dr. James E. Crowther had suggested the name based on a script and musical arrangement he had written in 1919 for a great religious drama/pageant, "The Wayfarer".  I don’t know if Pastor Crowther was a saint or not but he left a lasting legacy of good here in Carmel.   He recognized that the Carmel congregation in a community of artists, writers and bohemians was made up of sojourners from all parts of the country.   Christians are traditionally “wayfarers” along the way, as John Wesley put it we are all on the way to “perfection”.  The stone cross and bench, at the front of the chapel, is carved with the phrase, “Rest and Be Thankful”. The phrase is borrowed from another rough stone bench, which was located at the summit of a pass between Loch Long and Loch Fyne in Scotland.

            Just think of those who have gone before us leaving our church the wonderful organ, the glorious stained glass, the Wayfarer’s Garden that beckons hundreds every day in their midst of their vacations or travel to consider the beauty of the earth and something greater than themselves.  We are in debt to those no longer with us because their love lives in our hearts and minds still this day.

 

            On All Saints Day we do not celebrate death.  We celebrate that which in life can never die; the love we make and share with each other.  Love is the only thing we take with us into the next life, it is the only thing that gives life eternal meaning.  In the Beatitudes, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor, there is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn, they shall be comforted; blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth…” (Matthew 5:1-11).  That is why those who mourn know comfort.  That those who hunger for justice shall be satisfied.  That those who graciously give will know mercy.  And that those who make peace are the blessed among us for they are rich in the only things that really matter.

            It is the promise of our faith that those of us who live life under the rule of love shall one day in the next life be together again.  We hear it in the lyric we just sang; “O blest communion, fellowship divine!  We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.  Alleluia” It will be like a banquet where all our hunger is satisfied and all our pain in gone, and the need for tears will be no more.

            As we take Holy Communion together this morning, we enact what that eternal banquet will be. 

Spiritually we will be one with those who have gone before us.  Of course it is a mystery.  But it is one that can guide and shape the lives of potential saints like you and me as we plan for the next 110 years of this blessed church.                       

            Amen.