All Saints
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
The saints in heaven glory in an eternal sabbath.
First Lesson
Revelation 7:9-17
A Multitude Robed In White
John sees a great multitude standing around the heavenly throne. They are from every nation on earth and are robed in white with palm branches in their hands (v. 9). "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" is their cry (v. 10). Their appearance is reminiscent of the jubilant crowd in 2 Maccabees 10:7, who enter Jerusalem to celebrate the downfall of the tyrant, Antiochus Epiphanes: "Therefore, carrying ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place." The whole company of angels also fall on their faces to worship God, ascribing to God "blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might" (verses 11-12). One of the elders asks John if he knows who these are, robed in white. When John admits he does not know, the elder supplies the answer: "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal" -- in other words, they are the martyred saints. They have washed their robes "in the blood of the Lamb," leaving them dazzling white (verses 13-14). (As anyone who has ever done laundry knows, blood stains are among the toughest to get out -- but this blood is something else altogether.) This multitude worships God forevermore. They will never know suffering again. The Lamb on the throne will be their shepherd, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes" (verses 15-17). It is a beautiful vision of vindication for those holy ones who have suffered for the sake of Christ.
New Testament Lesson
1 John 3:1-3
Children Of God
"Children of God" -- that's how the author of this epistle describes the recipients of this letter (v. 1). How is it that they qualify for such an exalted title? Because of God's love and for no other reason. Implicitly addressing the subject of persecution, the writer explains that the only reason "the world does not know us" is because the world refuses to know God (v. 2a). The people reading these words are living in a world in which family relationships are crucially important. In the first-century Near East, there was much less of the individualism we take for granted today and more of a tendency to group people together according to social markers such as clan or nationality. Members of the beleaguered Johannine community have been accepted into God's family, the writer is saying. If the world rejects us, it is only because they are rejecting our paterfamilias. This is an attempt to explain suffering as part of the normal order of things. While that may not sound, to modern ears, like the most encouraging news, there is real hope that the suffering of the present time will not long endure: for "what we will be has not yet been revealed." When God's ultimate plan is made plain, all will be transformed (v. 2b). In the meantime, believers are to seek to live a life of purity (v. 3).
The Gospel
Matthew 5:1-12
The Beatitudes
These words, which are among the most beloved in all the New Testament, are so familiar that they are rather resistant to interpretation. Yet, a comparison with Luke's parallel version provides some insight into Matthew's particular perspective. In Matthew's version, unlike Luke's (6:20-26), Jesus ascends the height in order to speak -- evoking other mountaintop revelations, such as those of Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Carmel. Assuming that Luke's simpler version is probably closer to the "Q" source material, we can observe how Matthew both broadens and spiritualizes the original. "The poor" of Luke become "the poor in spirit" of Matthew (v. 3). Those who "weep now" become those who "mourn" (v. 4). The blessing of "the meek" is a Matthean addition; the English word fails to convey the richness of the original Greek, which suggests not mere passivity but an active commitment to kindness and gentleness (v. 5). Those who "are hungry now" become those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" (v. 6). The statements about mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking are all Matthean additions (verses 7-9). Unlike Luke's version, they imply an ethical obligation: in these troubled days, the faithful are meant to live as though God's reign is already present reality. With respect to the all-too-familiar reality of persecutions, both gospel-writers reassure their readers that there is great reward for the righteous in heaven (verses 10-12).
Preaching Possibilities
There are many definitions of the word, "saint," but perhaps this will do for a start: Saints are people who have so taken the ideal of sabbath into their hearts that they are living witnesses to God's purpose for creation.
In Revelation 7:9-10, a great multitude, robed in white with palm branches in their hands, is standing before the throne of God. Joined by the angels, they sing:
"Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen." (v. 12)
If the purpose of the biblical sabbath is to give glory to God, then this scene is pure sabbath. There is nothing, but nothing in this vision from Revelation that distracts this multitude from doing what they were created to do: praising God.
The biblical text promises that "the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life" (v. 17). This language is reminiscent of Psalm 23 with its promise that the Lord who is our shepherd will lead us beside still waters.
It's easy to see what this line of Psalm 23 refers to. The Hebrews were a desert people, and those of them who worked as shepherds knew the importance of leading their flocks past watering-holes, so the animals could drink their fill. A good shepherd knows all the oases, all the hidden springs, all the ancient wells. A good shepherd never lets the flock stumble into a vast and arid wasteland but rather leads them from watering-hole to watering-hole.
Yet, this line of the psalm is about more than simply finding drinking-water. The Lord leads the psalmist beside the still waters. To the Hebrew mind, this expression, "still waters," is in contrast to another biblical understanding of water: water as chaos. Remember how, in Genesis 1:2, "The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters"? This is not creation ex nihilo, as the philosophers say -- creation out of nothing. There is something there, before the heavens and the earth are created, and that something (in the Hebrew imagination) is water. Yet, this is not just any water: It's a roiling, chaotic sea.
Sooner or later, we all come to realize that the busyness in which we immerse ourselves as in a turbulent sea is of little consequence. It's as a wise person pointed out in a remark that's been quoted by many: "Nobody, but nobody says on their deathbed, 'I wish I had spent more time at the office.' " It is then that the vision of the still waters speaks to us.
One of the beautiful things about a spring of water is that it needs no maintenance. It is simply there, ever-flowing, for us to enjoy. Yet how many of us, rather than simply drinking from such a spring, concentrate instead on building a bottling plant? There is certainly a place for hard work in this life but, at the end of the day, God's plan for us is that we simply fall down on our faces and drink our fill before rising up to give God the glory.
Ask most people what their ideal home site would be -- the place where, if they had an infinite amount of money, they would build their dream house. Most people would probably tell you that dream house would have a water view. There's something inherently calming to the human spirit about the view across water. As any real estate agent will tell you, this is why lakeside or oceanfront properties command the highest prices (even though their owners have to cope with annoyances like water in the basement, beach erosion, or even the occasional flood).
There is a place in the midst of all the sound and fury of our overloaded lives in which we can find a haven of rest and peace. That place is the place of worship, the place of sabbath rest. We need the regular rhythm of waking and sleep, of work and worship, of clamor and stillness. We need the still waters.
There's something comforting in this vision from Revelation: that heaven, too, contains a spring of still waters, and that it is to this spring that our shepherd-Lord leads us. Those who know the joy of gathering around this ever-flowing spring are the holy ones, the saints.
Prayer For The Day
The words of a well-known hymn, "Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind," are in the form of a prayer. It has become a beloved hymn in the world of AA and other twelve-step recovery groups, among people who have come to value the importance of serenity, of finding their way again and again to the still waters. The last two stanzas, by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, go as follows:
"Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm."
To Illustrate
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
-- Lin Yu Tang
***
Sanctity has to do with gratitude. To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less.
-- Ronald Rolheiser in The Holy Longing http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/practices.php?id=11&g=1
***
One of my favorite stories is of Saint Teresa of Avila. She's sitting in the kitchen with a roasted chicken. She has it with both hands, and she's gnawing on it, just devouring this chicken. One of the nuns comes in shocked that she's doing this, behaving this way. She said, "When I eat chicken, I eat chicken; when I pray, I pray."
If you read the saints, they're pretty ordinary people. There are moments of rapture and ecstasy, but once every ten years. And even then it's a surprise to them. They didn't do anything. We've got to disabuse people of these illusions of what the Christian life is. It's a wonderful life, but it's not wonderful in the way a lot of people want it to be.
-- Eugene Peterson, "Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons: Eugene Peterson talks about lies and illusions that destroy the church," interview by Mark Galli in Christianity Today, March 2005
***
Many times people who are not monks living in the community see only the very best of the monks. Countless times people have come to me and said: "Brother so and so is truly a saint!" Because I live with "brother so and so" often I know that his saintliness may appear to others but not to his own community. Sanctity is often like that. Those who live close to saints know all of their human defects. Sanctity is not about the absence of irritating factors or even about the absence of human defects.
Sanctity is about the grace of God becoming the most important reality in a person's life and then transforming that person. We cannot make ourselves saints! True, all of us have a moral obligation to strive to give our lives over totally to God. Some of us take that more seriously than others. True saints obviously take it deeply to heart. That is why I realize that I am not a saint and sometimes don't even want to be one. I am inconsistent in my desires for God and in my desire to do his will. On the other hand, I do try to pray every day that God will change me and transform me so that I will be consistent in desiring his will. That seems the best that I can do at the moment.
-- Abbot Philip, of Christ in the Desert Monastery, New Mexico, Abbot's Notebook e-newsletter, 6/22/05
***
If there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe from falling, I know nothing of it -- for it was not shown me. But this was shown -- that in falling and rising again we are always kept in the same precious love.
-- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
***
A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.
-- Albert Schweitzer
***
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
-- Oscar Wilde, A Woman Of No Importance
***
All of us are somewhere on a journey to God… the gap between least and most advanced is infinitely smaller than the gap between the most advanced and God himself.
-- John Ortberg
***
All followers of Jesus are saints in the New Testament sense of this word. We have been set apart and called to live a life of holiness and devotion to Christ. Evangelicals, with all Protestants generally, have emphasized the priesthood of all believers to show that we are all redeemed by God's grace and that none of us can claim any special favors on the basis of ordination or office. But doesn't this same theology compel us to declare "the sainthood of all believers"? We are called to live lives that reflect the character of Christ in a world that knows all too little of God's love and grace. Evangelical spirituality is "for all the saints," that is, for all who know Jesus Christ and wish to make him known to others, even if we acknowledge with Martin Luther that we are saints and sinners at the same time (simul justus et peccator) and thus ever in need of God's mercy and forgiveness.
-- Timothy George, Introduction to For All the Saints:
Evangelical Theology and Christian Spirituality, edited by Timothy George and Alistair McGrath (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), p. 7
***
The antidote to exhaustion may not be rest. It may be wholeheartedness. You are so exhausted because all of the things you are doing are just busyness. There's a central core of wholeheartedness totally missing from what you're doing.
-- David Steindl-Rast
***
Sabbath Sense is anything that makes spacious what is cramped. That makes large out of small, generous out of stingy, simple out of complex, choice out of obligation. Sabbath Sense is anything that reconnects the necessities of drudgery to the marvelous uselessness of beauty. Sabbath Sense is acknowledgment of the presence of Spirit in the petty and the profound.
Sabbath Sense may be the chair we sit in when we come home, the coffee we enjoy once we get to work, the clothes we put on for a special occasion. Sabbath may be the breakfast out we have with each of our children before going to work on Friday. It may be hurrying up on some things so we can go slow on others. Sabbath is time spent remembering what time is for.
-- Donna Schaper, Sabbath Sense: A Spiritual Antidote for the Overworked (quoted in the Ministry of Money newsletter, Sept/Oct 2001)
***
A great benefit of sabbath keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us -- not by becoming passive and lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives.
-- Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly (Eerdmans, 1989)
The saints in heaven glory in an eternal sabbath.
First Lesson
Revelation 7:9-17
A Multitude Robed In White
John sees a great multitude standing around the heavenly throne. They are from every nation on earth and are robed in white with palm branches in their hands (v. 9). "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" is their cry (v. 10). Their appearance is reminiscent of the jubilant crowd in 2 Maccabees 10:7, who enter Jerusalem to celebrate the downfall of the tyrant, Antiochus Epiphanes: "Therefore, carrying ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place." The whole company of angels also fall on their faces to worship God, ascribing to God "blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might" (verses 11-12). One of the elders asks John if he knows who these are, robed in white. When John admits he does not know, the elder supplies the answer: "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal" -- in other words, they are the martyred saints. They have washed their robes "in the blood of the Lamb," leaving them dazzling white (verses 13-14). (As anyone who has ever done laundry knows, blood stains are among the toughest to get out -- but this blood is something else altogether.) This multitude worships God forevermore. They will never know suffering again. The Lamb on the throne will be their shepherd, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes" (verses 15-17). It is a beautiful vision of vindication for those holy ones who have suffered for the sake of Christ.
New Testament Lesson
1 John 3:1-3
Children Of God
"Children of God" -- that's how the author of this epistle describes the recipients of this letter (v. 1). How is it that they qualify for such an exalted title? Because of God's love and for no other reason. Implicitly addressing the subject of persecution, the writer explains that the only reason "the world does not know us" is because the world refuses to know God (v. 2a). The people reading these words are living in a world in which family relationships are crucially important. In the first-century Near East, there was much less of the individualism we take for granted today and more of a tendency to group people together according to social markers such as clan or nationality. Members of the beleaguered Johannine community have been accepted into God's family, the writer is saying. If the world rejects us, it is only because they are rejecting our paterfamilias. This is an attempt to explain suffering as part of the normal order of things. While that may not sound, to modern ears, like the most encouraging news, there is real hope that the suffering of the present time will not long endure: for "what we will be has not yet been revealed." When God's ultimate plan is made plain, all will be transformed (v. 2b). In the meantime, believers are to seek to live a life of purity (v. 3).
The Gospel
Matthew 5:1-12
The Beatitudes
These words, which are among the most beloved in all the New Testament, are so familiar that they are rather resistant to interpretation. Yet, a comparison with Luke's parallel version provides some insight into Matthew's particular perspective. In Matthew's version, unlike Luke's (6:20-26), Jesus ascends the height in order to speak -- evoking other mountaintop revelations, such as those of Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Carmel. Assuming that Luke's simpler version is probably closer to the "Q" source material, we can observe how Matthew both broadens and spiritualizes the original. "The poor" of Luke become "the poor in spirit" of Matthew (v. 3). Those who "weep now" become those who "mourn" (v. 4). The blessing of "the meek" is a Matthean addition; the English word fails to convey the richness of the original Greek, which suggests not mere passivity but an active commitment to kindness and gentleness (v. 5). Those who "are hungry now" become those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" (v. 6). The statements about mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking are all Matthean additions (verses 7-9). Unlike Luke's version, they imply an ethical obligation: in these troubled days, the faithful are meant to live as though God's reign is already present reality. With respect to the all-too-familiar reality of persecutions, both gospel-writers reassure their readers that there is great reward for the righteous in heaven (verses 10-12).
Preaching Possibilities
There are many definitions of the word, "saint," but perhaps this will do for a start: Saints are people who have so taken the ideal of sabbath into their hearts that they are living witnesses to God's purpose for creation.
In Revelation 7:9-10, a great multitude, robed in white with palm branches in their hands, is standing before the throne of God. Joined by the angels, they sing:
"Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen." (v. 12)
If the purpose of the biblical sabbath is to give glory to God, then this scene is pure sabbath. There is nothing, but nothing in this vision from Revelation that distracts this multitude from doing what they were created to do: praising God.
The biblical text promises that "the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life" (v. 17). This language is reminiscent of Psalm 23 with its promise that the Lord who is our shepherd will lead us beside still waters.
It's easy to see what this line of Psalm 23 refers to. The Hebrews were a desert people, and those of them who worked as shepherds knew the importance of leading their flocks past watering-holes, so the animals could drink their fill. A good shepherd knows all the oases, all the hidden springs, all the ancient wells. A good shepherd never lets the flock stumble into a vast and arid wasteland but rather leads them from watering-hole to watering-hole.
Yet, this line of the psalm is about more than simply finding drinking-water. The Lord leads the psalmist beside the still waters. To the Hebrew mind, this expression, "still waters," is in contrast to another biblical understanding of water: water as chaos. Remember how, in Genesis 1:2, "The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters"? This is not creation ex nihilo, as the philosophers say -- creation out of nothing. There is something there, before the heavens and the earth are created, and that something (in the Hebrew imagination) is water. Yet, this is not just any water: It's a roiling, chaotic sea.
Sooner or later, we all come to realize that the busyness in which we immerse ourselves as in a turbulent sea is of little consequence. It's as a wise person pointed out in a remark that's been quoted by many: "Nobody, but nobody says on their deathbed, 'I wish I had spent more time at the office.' " It is then that the vision of the still waters speaks to us.
One of the beautiful things about a spring of water is that it needs no maintenance. It is simply there, ever-flowing, for us to enjoy. Yet how many of us, rather than simply drinking from such a spring, concentrate instead on building a bottling plant? There is certainly a place for hard work in this life but, at the end of the day, God's plan for us is that we simply fall down on our faces and drink our fill before rising up to give God the glory.
Ask most people what their ideal home site would be -- the place where, if they had an infinite amount of money, they would build their dream house. Most people would probably tell you that dream house would have a water view. There's something inherently calming to the human spirit about the view across water. As any real estate agent will tell you, this is why lakeside or oceanfront properties command the highest prices (even though their owners have to cope with annoyances like water in the basement, beach erosion, or even the occasional flood).
There is a place in the midst of all the sound and fury of our overloaded lives in which we can find a haven of rest and peace. That place is the place of worship, the place of sabbath rest. We need the regular rhythm of waking and sleep, of work and worship, of clamor and stillness. We need the still waters.
There's something comforting in this vision from Revelation: that heaven, too, contains a spring of still waters, and that it is to this spring that our shepherd-Lord leads us. Those who know the joy of gathering around this ever-flowing spring are the holy ones, the saints.
Prayer For The Day
The words of a well-known hymn, "Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind," are in the form of a prayer. It has become a beloved hymn in the world of AA and other twelve-step recovery groups, among people who have come to value the importance of serenity, of finding their way again and again to the still waters. The last two stanzas, by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, go as follows:
"Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm."
To Illustrate
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
-- Lin Yu Tang
***
Sanctity has to do with gratitude. To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less.
-- Ronald Rolheiser in The Holy Longing http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/practices.php?id=11&g=1
***
One of my favorite stories is of Saint Teresa of Avila. She's sitting in the kitchen with a roasted chicken. She has it with both hands, and she's gnawing on it, just devouring this chicken. One of the nuns comes in shocked that she's doing this, behaving this way. She said, "When I eat chicken, I eat chicken; when I pray, I pray."
If you read the saints, they're pretty ordinary people. There are moments of rapture and ecstasy, but once every ten years. And even then it's a surprise to them. They didn't do anything. We've got to disabuse people of these illusions of what the Christian life is. It's a wonderful life, but it's not wonderful in the way a lot of people want it to be.
-- Eugene Peterson, "Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons: Eugene Peterson talks about lies and illusions that destroy the church," interview by Mark Galli in Christianity Today, March 2005
***
Many times people who are not monks living in the community see only the very best of the monks. Countless times people have come to me and said: "Brother so and so is truly a saint!" Because I live with "brother so and so" often I know that his saintliness may appear to others but not to his own community. Sanctity is often like that. Those who live close to saints know all of their human defects. Sanctity is not about the absence of irritating factors or even about the absence of human defects.
Sanctity is about the grace of God becoming the most important reality in a person's life and then transforming that person. We cannot make ourselves saints! True, all of us have a moral obligation to strive to give our lives over totally to God. Some of us take that more seriously than others. True saints obviously take it deeply to heart. That is why I realize that I am not a saint and sometimes don't even want to be one. I am inconsistent in my desires for God and in my desire to do his will. On the other hand, I do try to pray every day that God will change me and transform me so that I will be consistent in desiring his will. That seems the best that I can do at the moment.
-- Abbot Philip, of Christ in the Desert Monastery, New Mexico, Abbot's Notebook e-newsletter, 6/22/05
***
If there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe from falling, I know nothing of it -- for it was not shown me. But this was shown -- that in falling and rising again we are always kept in the same precious love.
-- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
***
A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.
-- Albert Schweitzer
***
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
-- Oscar Wilde, A Woman Of No Importance
***
All of us are somewhere on a journey to God… the gap between least and most advanced is infinitely smaller than the gap between the most advanced and God himself.
-- John Ortberg
***
All followers of Jesus are saints in the New Testament sense of this word. We have been set apart and called to live a life of holiness and devotion to Christ. Evangelicals, with all Protestants generally, have emphasized the priesthood of all believers to show that we are all redeemed by God's grace and that none of us can claim any special favors on the basis of ordination or office. But doesn't this same theology compel us to declare "the sainthood of all believers"? We are called to live lives that reflect the character of Christ in a world that knows all too little of God's love and grace. Evangelical spirituality is "for all the saints," that is, for all who know Jesus Christ and wish to make him known to others, even if we acknowledge with Martin Luther that we are saints and sinners at the same time (simul justus et peccator) and thus ever in need of God's mercy and forgiveness.
-- Timothy George, Introduction to For All the Saints:
Evangelical Theology and Christian Spirituality, edited by Timothy George and Alistair McGrath (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), p. 7
***
The antidote to exhaustion may not be rest. It may be wholeheartedness. You are so exhausted because all of the things you are doing are just busyness. There's a central core of wholeheartedness totally missing from what you're doing.
-- David Steindl-Rast
***
Sabbath Sense is anything that makes spacious what is cramped. That makes large out of small, generous out of stingy, simple out of complex, choice out of obligation. Sabbath Sense is anything that reconnects the necessities of drudgery to the marvelous uselessness of beauty. Sabbath Sense is acknowledgment of the presence of Spirit in the petty and the profound.
Sabbath Sense may be the chair we sit in when we come home, the coffee we enjoy once we get to work, the clothes we put on for a special occasion. Sabbath may be the breakfast out we have with each of our children before going to work on Friday. It may be hurrying up on some things so we can go slow on others. Sabbath is time spent remembering what time is for.
-- Donna Schaper, Sabbath Sense: A Spiritual Antidote for the Overworked (quoted in the Ministry of Money newsletter, Sept/Oct 2001)
***
A great benefit of sabbath keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us -- not by becoming passive and lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives.
-- Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly (Eerdmans, 1989)
