All Saints Day

Its All Saints day.  We are tempted to think of all the saints as the spiritual all star team.  You know the holiest ones, the best examples of our best human selves.  Someone that is not me, but I aspire to be like.  The saints are those we might strive to imitate in their faithfulness, their generosity, their kindness, their humility, their grace, their selfless contributions to the world.  We could name these people---from St. Peter to Martin Luther.   There are famous ones in every century, including our own; we could name some personal saints, ordinary men and women who touched our lives personally by their faithful devotion to the way of Christ and his church.  Sunday school teachers, pastors, grandparents, etc… I’ve met some of them right here.  Most of these folk are the All Stars in our estimation or in the world’s.

 When we think of the saints, we think mainly of the faithful departed. Those buried in our cemetery.  We think of the ones we have lost in the last year; namely our faithful sister Perette.  We give thanks for her life and witness as a believer. We remember our hope in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  Perhaps we spend this morning in our grief, reminded of those loved ones who have gone before us.  We light a candle to honor their memory.   We stand comforted, perhaps, by the Word of God; a word that promises us a heavenly banquet and an end to suffering and death.  We might think that these promises are too good to be true or are too far off to consider.   We might observe and remember those who have died unjustly in the last year.  Those who have died in war and in attempts to flee from it, from gun violence on streets and schools, in occasions of police brutality, and drug crime.  We might remember that death is the enemy, threatening to rob us of the joy and abundance of life.  We come to this day as a day to look back.  We fall back in time and think about our history as a Christian people here.  1889-2015. 126 years of Lutheran faith on Main Street in Akron.  Who do you recall on All Saints Day, for their faithfulness to this congregation? Let us give thanks to God for them.  All of them.   For those charter members, the many pastors and baptized people of God who assembled on this spot, in this and the former building.  For we would not be here in this assembly today were it not for the years of faithful service by those who came before us.  But this day is not only about our past.  In fact, the Word points forward.     

Isaiah describes the making of a feast for all people; this is indeed a multicultural banquet at which every tribe and race eat and drink together in peace.  He envisions the destruction of death.  The people who wait for God will see salvation on that day.  The revelation to John announces a whole new creation; where there are no more tears and no more dying, echoing the hope of Isaiah.  Perhaps only on the other side of death, in the heavenly realm, will this become a reality. Imagine that this reality took place in this generation, in our lifetimes.  How wonderful to consider.  No more wars, no more hunger, no more sorrow.  The Gospel of John tells a personal story of triumph over death in the resurrection of Lazarus.  John gives Jesus the power of God to defeat death. It is both anticipated and unleashed in this scene from John 11. One day, all the dead will be raised to new life.  No zombies or ghosts; real living, breathing, alive people. Restored, whole, new.  This is the Christian dream, our hope in a future that has not yet come.

As a community of both history and hope, the church lives in between what we were and what we will be.  We are a living organism and so, we breathe and move.  We are not an institution or a corporation.  We are a body.  And so we have organic properties; we change and age over time.  We mature.  We can die.  None of the churches St. Paul started exist today.  We also have reproductive properties.  Institutions and corporations do not have that. 

This church is undergoing a cycle of reproduction.  And even at the age of126, this is possible with our God.  Zion Lutheran may not be as large or active a body as we once were; but we have given birth to a new expression of church.  Peter’s Porch has been a bridge between Zion and the neighborhood around us; people who are struggling, suffering, seeking help.  It has also been an example of the church in action, on mission, in service to others and not in service for itself.  As a pastor/evangelist, I am energized by engagement with both long-time faithful Lutherans and seeker/newcomers struggling to see God in their lives. The Peter’s Porch bridge has opened access between us and allowed us to share our hope with them.  But we have learned that the bridge did not act as a way for people to get into church.  Though the fellowship hall has people in it during the week and on Saturdays, the pews are mostly empty.  And there is little we can do to change that. There is little we ought to do.  Instead the bridge and the people we have met have challenged us to become a church outside of this space.  Dinner Church emerged as a worship practice that connects with unchurched and dechurched people.  It is an entire liturgy within the context of a meal.  Between 30 and 40 people attend; many children.  They are mostly not members of Zion, Akron. But they belong to one another and see themselves as part of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.  We have baptized at dinner church.  We pray and sing.  We eat and drink.  Last time, there were more people at dinner church than at Sunday morning church. It is a viable expression of church and an extension of this body in the world.  Christ is present around this table in the morning and around the dinner table at night.  Both gatherings make us who we are as a community of history and hope.  We remember ancient stories and faithful people who have passed and we hope for a day that is promised for all of God’s people in a future that is not ours.  We are one of a few Lutheran churches in the country to give birth to a fresh expression, a new way of being church.   

Like a seed from a tree that fell to the earth and became a new sapling, so dinner church has emerged from you.  Without your support and prayers, we cannot nurture this new plant.  But it is the way of the Lord, to make us fruitful to multiply.  So rejoice saints, your faithful service has produced a new body, a daughter or son.  Their ways are not yours, but you gave birth to them.  Like Sara and Abraham gave birth to Isaac; like Elizabeth and Zechariah gave birth to John.  You are part of God’s new creation. You are part of the great and promised heavenly banquet as as we gather at tables to anticipate that future glory. Do not be afraid, children.  This is a time of resurrection and rebirth.  And we get to be part of it.