All Saints Sunday
November 3, 2019
Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31
In 2003, a new book burst on the fantasy/sci-fi scene,
similar to Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. The big difference was that the
author was only 20 years old and had started writing the book at age 15. The
book, “Eragon,” is the first book in a four-book series called the Inheritance
Cycle, and it tells the story of an orphaned farm boy named Eragon, who finds a
mysterious blue stone in the woods. The stone turns out to be a dragon egg, and
the series follows the adventures of Eragon and his dragon as they fight
against the evil king and Eragon learns of his true inheritance. His parents
had not simply abandoned him to be raised by his aunt and uncle, as he’d
believed. His father was a famous dragon rider who’d gone into hiding and his
mother had died shortly after his birth. Eragon becomes a famous dragon rider
in his own right, although there is no happy ever after in this story. At the
end, Eragon and his dragon leave their home to go train with other riders and
dragons elsewhere.
How many times have we received an inheritance that we’re
not even aware of? I remember a friend in my early 20s who, after meeting my
mom, pointed out that I sit the exact same way that she does. It’s easy to
identify the physical things that we inherit because we can see them and hold
them, like a piece of jewelry. It’s easy to see in my children the abilities
they’ve inherited, from my daughter’s art skills that are already better than
mine (she gets them from her dad) to my son’s love of baseball and throwing
arm, that goes back generations on my dad’s side of the family. It can be
harder to name the things we can’t touch, the things we can’t see. Here in the
church, we have received an inheritance, also, with some tangible pieces, like
a church building, and some pieces that are intangible, like our faith. We have
received an inheritance that spans 2,000 years of church history, and even
longer when you consider the whole
story of God and God’s people, going back to creation.
Did
you know that the first definition of tradition isn’t “a long established way
of acting and thinking” and it’s not “a continuing pattern of cultural beliefs
and practices”? Tradition, at its root, is “the handing down of statements,
beliefs, legends, customs, information, from generation to generation.” The
root is Latin, “traditio,” which
means to hand on. Our inheritance in
the Church is something that’s been handed on to us, the next generation. I’m
sure most of us can name people in our lives who were instrumental in our receiving
this inheritance. Sunday school teachers, godparents, pastors, other adults in
the church all taught us about our faith and showed us how to live our faith.
They passed it on to us. The Church is a living tradition as each subsequent
generation inherits the faith and tradition of those who have gone before. Does
it mean we do it exactly the same? No. Each generation practices it in their
own way. It’s the same inheritance being pass on, the same Christian faith. Yet
it looks a lot different to be a Christian today than it did 50 years ago, and
different from 150 years ago, and different during the Protestant Reformation
and different during the Middle Ages and different in the early church. Same
faith, same inheritance passed on from generation to generation, and the origin
of it is Christ.
In
Ephesians we read, “In Christ we have received an inheritance.” The version we
read this morning says that “in Christ, we were chosen.” Chosen for what? To
receive an inheritance. And the pledge of our inheritance, the sign of it, the
guarantee or down payment of our inheritance is the Holy Spirit. Verse 13 says,
“When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy
Spirit.” What’s that mean? When you were baptized, wherever it was, the pastor
made the sign of the cross on your forehead, marking you and sealing you as
Christ’s own forever. And the Holy Spirit was present there at your baptism,
sanctifying the water, making it holy. If you are baptized, then you have
received this inheritance that was marked by the Holy Spirit. If you’re not
baptized and feel the Spirit nudging you that you’d like to be, give me a call
this week and let’s talk, because this is the inheritance waiting for you.
Now,
let’s talk about the why. Why do we
receive this inheritance? Or perhaps, why does God through Christ Jesus and the
Holy Spirit offer this inheritance to us? So that you may know hope. Paul tells
the Ephesians, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be opened in order that
you may know the hope to which God has called you, the riches of his glorious
inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who
believe.” God has called you to hope. This is the glorious inheritance of God’s
people. That in the face of loss, in the face of suffering, in the face of
tragedy and evil, we might still have hope. We know that death is not the end. That’s part of why we celebrate All Saints
every year. We know that there is this great cloud of witnesses that surrounds
us and encourages us and supports us and nurtures us. And this great cloud is
both people here present with us as well as those who have gone before us.
Kate
Bowler was finishing her doctorate in church history at Duke while I was in
seminary there. Not long after we each graduated, she was diagnosed with stage
IV cancer. She’s about my age. She has a son right around my daughter’s age. In
the midst of dealing with all of it, she wrote a book to her son that she
considered to be a goodbye letter. It’s called “Everything Happens for a Reason
and Other Lies I’ve Loved”; it’s good, it’s short, I highly recommend it. Well,
she’s still around, she’s received tenure at Duke, and she’s begun a podcast
called “Everything Happens,” interviewing people about what they’ve learned
during dark times. One of these was a father whose two year old daughter died
in a random tragedy and one of the things he said that has stuck with me is
that “just because there isn’t a body doesn’t mean there isn’t a relationship.”[1]
Just because there isn’t a body, just because a person has died, doesn’t mean
you don’t still have a relationship with that person. Many of you know that my
last grandparent died this fall. Does this mean I’m no longer a granddaughter
or that my grandparents are no longer my grandparents? No! It changes the
relationship but it does not eliminate the relationship. Furthermore, I believe
I’ll see my grandparents again in heaven. They are still part of the great
cloud of witnesses that surrounds me, that surrounds us. That never changed.
And
continuing in Hebrews, where that great cloud of witnesses is found, it says
because they surround us and support us and nurture us, let us throw off
everything that hinders us, get rid of everything that gets in the way, and run
with perseverance the race that is set before us. Last week Paul said he had
finished the race, he had fought the good fight, he had kept the faith. He knew
his time was near and he was reflecting back on what he had done with his
inheritance. He’s now part of that great cloud of witnesses and because we have
this long history of the Church, because we have all these saints who have gone
before us, we can keep the faith, too. We can run the race that is set before
us, encouraged and with determination.
Also,
because we have received this inheritance, we have a responsibility to hand it
on, also. The tradition doesn’t stop here with us. The Church doesn’t end here,
with us. We are here to pass it on to the next generation. And in case you
haven’t noticed, Millenials are now all grown up. I’m talking about the next
generation, which I’ve heard called Generation Alpha. We went through X, Y, and
Z, and now what’s old is new again. One of my mom’s favorite hymns, to speak of
things inherited, is one by Charles Wesley called “A Charge to Keep I Have.” It
begins, “A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify, a never-dying soul to save,
and fit it for the sky. To serve the present age, my calling to fulfill, O may
it all my pow'rs engage to do my Master's will!”[2]
This is our charge, too. Our job is to hand on the story, the old, old story of
Jesus and his love, and the next generation will tell it in their own new way.
Even that hymn, “I Love to Tell the Story,” recognizes that the story gets told
in repeatedly new ways. It ends, “And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new,
new song, ’Twill be the old, old story, That I have loved so long.”[3]
It’s going to take on different forms, and that’s ok. It’s for the sake of
keeping the story alive. It’s because we serve a God who is ever doing a new
thing. Our brains are trained to notice what’s different and be alarmed by it.
However, each generation has always done things their own way. Church in 50
years isn’t going to look like church today, and that’s a good thing. Our job
is to pass along the message in a way that the next generation will receive it.
The form does not matter so much. In fact, sometimes the form can get in the
way of the message.
We
have received an inheritance that we are to pass on. We are the saints for the
next generation of Christians. We’re only here because of those who have gone
before us. And this isn’t an inheritance that can get used up and once it’s
gone, it’s gone. Oh no. We pass on the same inheritance, the same story of
Jesus and his love. It’s made a difference in your life. I know I would not be
up here if not for the inheritance I received and for the saints who have gone
before, nurturing, teaching, encouraging, and loving me. So, let us rejoice in God’s saints and thank God
for them!
 |
| Lisbon UMC altar on All Saints Sunday 2019 |
[1] Jayson
Greene: The Language of Grief, on “Everything Happens” with Kate Bowler, https://katebowler.com/podcasts/jayson-greene-the-language-of-grief/
[2]
UMH 413
[3]
UMH 156
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