“God’s Handkerchiefs”

“God’s Handkerchiefs”

Luke 6:20-31

November 7, 2004

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming, Senior Pastor

More than any other day of the year, today is a family reunion day for the church. Today reminds me of the homecoming worship services that we had when I was the pastor near Camden. The smaller of the two churches, the Lakeside church (which, by the way, didn’t have a lake anywhere near it) would have a homecoming worship service every September. On this Sunday, their usual attendance of fifteen swelled to almost fifty. Fifty persons filled that church. People who had been there, maybe even grew up there, and had moved away came home and after the worship service, there was dinner on the grounds complete with casseroles and hams and turkeys and rolls and pecan pies and cobblers that would have fed most if not all of Ouachita County. The dinner took place under the old oak tree that was at least as old as that old church. It was a reunion of sorts.

Neither side of my growing up family, the Moores and the Flemings, had family reunions. Oh, we might have had one or two in our family’s history, but I was too young to remember them when they happened. But still, I know the kind of thing that happens at family reunions. At some of them, you sit around and talk with your cousins that you have not seen in years. You catch up with your aunts and uncles who, maybe live far away. The new babies are passed around and held. The children hear about how much they have grown in the last year. At family reunions, you eat, at least every family reunion that I know about and have heard about, includes gathering around several tables with the offerings of the best cooks in the family. And if the reunion lasts long enough, someone or several someones pull out the old family photograph album. What happens next is that you glance over someone’s shoulder to see the pictures, or you wait your turn, to flip through the pages.

So today is like a family reunion day for the church. The Sunday after All Saint’s Day is the day for pulling out the photo albums and looking at the pictures and reminding ourselves who we are and where we came from. This place is full of spirit. The balcony, if we had one, would be full with few seats to spare. Filling them would be the ones who have walked the halls of our church. I sometimes wonder if they are hanging out behind those closed doors up there, waiting for the chance to come out and say “hi” on this one Sunday a year. The truth is that you cannot walk around here without bumping into them. I can see the ladders put together in a crazy kind of way and climbing them without fear is Max Bolar changing the light bulbs in this sanctuary. I do not know if you have noticed it or not, but there is a light out just above the pulpit. It was installed less than a year ago when we had some electricians doing some work for us. They told us that it would burn for several months, if not years, but it has not done that. It quickly burned out. And I am not about to climb a ladder or a combination of ladders to change it! I can see Imogene Knox, one of the saints who died this year, making her way down the hallway out there, on the way from what was the Saxon-Orr Class to find her place in the sanctuary. By the time that I knew her, her voice was quiet, but I understand that her faith was lived out loud. I can see Lewis Norman, standing in front of the altar here, with his faithful wife by his side, renewing his wedding vows on his fiftieth wedding anniversary and then joining the church. Now his church membership is in the triumphant church. I can see Billy Sunday Clark, walking hand in hand with his wife, making his way to his place in the sanctuary. I can see Don McKay. I was not the pastor here when he came up for a cup of coffee most mornings. I saw him in his home and in a nursing home room. I can see Murray Sewell and Bobbie Lusk in their pews. I look back to the choir loft and see the ones who robed up in days past, people like Ernest Efird and Gus Remmel. There are names on every brick and on every pew and in our particular case, at this church, in the stained glass windows.

So today we think about the people who have been here or who have been in our lives and who now are a part of the church triumphant. But then there is this I do not think that I would be doing my job as your pastor if I did not tell you that today is also a day when we also think about our identity as saints and our real calling to be saints. That is where I think the problem is. Even the best of us do not think of ourselves as saints. Sinners, yes, but saints, no. The apostle, Paul, helps us along with his definition of a saint. Bryan reminded us of this in our staff meeting the other morning. According to Paul, saints are baptized Christians. So when he writes to the churches that he was responsible for, he greeted the saints at Ephesus or Philippi. If he were around today, taking responsibility for the life of this church, and writing us a letter, he might say, “To the saints at St. Paul Church in Little Rock, grace and peace to you from the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I am not sure if we are even ready for that. If you really think about it, who really wants to be a saint? There was a woman in the Harmony Grove Church who I considered to be a saint in every way. She blessed her family with her prayers. She raised them to know God and the Bible and to grow spiritually. She worked hard at that. Wanda took one of the Bible studies that I taught there and shared this with the group one night. She said that Trent, her grandson, then maybe ten years old said this, “Grandma, sometimes I just want to be bad!” Now, isn’t there a little bit of Trent in all of us?

What does a saint really look like? How do they act? Are they scary? Are they dull, doing nothing more than praying, reading their Bibles, and doing good works all day? Are they holier-than-thou or goody goody? Is that who you want to be? Sometimes saints suffer. I do not want to suffer. I wonder if saints ever have a good time. For sure they take the world and themselves way too seriously, I suspect. I am just not sure that I want to be a saint? What about you? I think that I want to tell you this. The idea of a saint and what that means needs changing. Perhaps we could wipe away some of the expectations of sainthood and make it a little more inviting. I like what Frederick Buechner says in one of his books about saints. These are his words, “In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.” I remember reading a book in my first year in seminary. I pulled the book off my shelf the other morning because I remember that it’s title was Ordinary Saints. And in the preface to it, the author, Robert Benne says this, “Ordinary people because ordinary saints, not because of either their heroic or ordinary deeds, but because of the extra-ordinary grace that is given to them. As they receive that grace, they are called to live Christian lives of faith, hope, and love within the ordinary places of responsibility that they have been given.” Now, that makes being a saint or at least trying to live that life seem a little easier. I think that it also seems to suggests that saint making is more God’s business than it is our business. It means that it is a real possibility in our lives, because all things are possible for God. So we should not shrug our shoulders so quickly and say that living such a life is beyond us and something that could never happen.

I guess that I ought to mention our scripture lesson for this morning, from Luke’s gospel, the sixth chapter, words that are what we have come to call the beatitudes. If we were in Matthew’s gospel, which is definitely my preference when it comes to this powerful sermon that Jesus gives, we would say that this is the Lord’s sermon on the mount. Luke has Jesus saying these words on the plain. For Luke, Jesus’ location is more theological than it is geographical. Luke is the one who has Jesus coming for everyone, especially the ones who have been left out, particularly the poor, the hungry, the ones who cry and the ones who are hated. Matthew’s version is a lot easier. In his version, the ones who are blessed, the ones who will be happy one day when the kingdom is the way that it is supposed to be aren’t the poor, they are the poor in spirit. The ones who hunger, hunger for righteousness not food. It is a little easier to talk about the ones who are pure in heart and the ones who are meek. Luke’s version is harder to preach. I usually avoid it, given the chance to choose between the two. Beyond the particulars of the blessings, Luke also has woes. No preacher really likes to preach the woes.

What I want to say to you today, what I really want to say to you today goes beyond the beatitudes to the words on the other side of it, Jesus’ instructions to us who are called to live this different life. Jesus says this, “But I say to you that listen...” He means those of us who are really open to hearing what He wants to say to us and how we are to live. “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those that curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. If someone hits you on the cheek, turn around so they can hit the other one. If someone takes your coat, give them the shirt off of your back. Give to anyone who begs from you. If someone takes your goods don’t ask for them back.” And then the words of the golden rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” The world puts the rule another way. The world puts it this way, “Do to others before they have a chance to do it to you!”

These are the words that Jesus held up to the disciples of any age, the standard. I know that it is a tall order. Maybe living this way is impossible. and I know that it is a tall order. Maybe it is impossible, I don’t know. What I do know is this, the longer I live, the more I grow in my life with Christ, the more I want to try to do these things And why do I try? Why do I want to do them? Because I really believe that living these words, even if I fail from time to time, can make a difference in the world. And the one that I want to hold on to the most and try the hardest at is the last one, to do to others, to treat others as I want to be treated. Maybe that is why we remember some of the ones that we’ve named in our hearts. Perhaps they tried their best to live this kind of a life.

It has been over a year, but I still believe that my aunt, Julia Lee Moore tried to live that way. As a school teacher and principal, she lived her faith. She would have never considered herself a saint or even saintly, but to me she was. She spent a lifetime encouraging elementary kids to live the golden rule. At her funeral last September, we sang the notes of John H. Hopkins, Jr.’s tune and Lesbia Scott’s words, I Sing a Song of the Saints of God. A hymn that says in a powerful way that we can all be saints. Sing the last verse with me again. “They lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still. The world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will. You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, in church, by the sea, in the house next door. They are saints of God, whether rich or poor, and I mean to be one too.” And you can. Let us pray.