November 7, 2004

All Saints Sunday

Luke 20:27-38

“Good Examples”

     The Saducees tried to discredit Jesus’ ministry.  They were highly respected religious authorities in those days, but so many people were following Jesus.  Jesus seemed to be a threat to their power and status.  His message of unconditional love was so radically inclusive, their exclusive, male-dominated faith (which was conditioned on racial inheritance), was challenged to its core.  They were certain Jesus was at least a fool or worse, a dangerous subversive.  They called him in for questioning and tried to trap him.  With a trick question about marriage they thought they could trip him up:

“If someone is married and widowed seven times in this life, to whom will they be married in the life to come?”

     Jesus probably just sighed and shook his head.  How could they be so narrow-minded, so blind?  Couldn’t they see that there is more to life than what we know today?  Things are different in the life to come.  People do not marry there.  Heaven is about a transcendent reality greater than anything we’ve experienced here.  There’s more to it than this.  There’s a bigger picture that is bigger, better, more beautiful than anything we’ve imagined thus far.

     It’s like sailing on Niantic Bay.  It’s a nice little piece of water and you can sail around and around and enjoy the scenery.  But Jesus is like that passage under the bridge which takes a boat into the Long Island Sound and beyond…bigger water, greater opportunity.  From there, you can sail around the world. 

     Jesus helps us see beyond ourselves, beyond material things and social structures, helps us see God, helps us see forever.

      And that vision is one of radically inclusive, unconditional love (Romans 8:38-39):

“For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

     Communion is a taste of this, a reminder that Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross was not conditioned on our worthiness, but a gift, an unconditional gift of love so inclusive it includes even us and nothing can separate us from it.

     The people who have gone before us in the faith, served the church locally and the Church universally.  We call them “saints”.  At their best, they served as good examples, showing us something better, beyond the narrow-minded and blinded shortsightedness of the day.  At their best, they loved us as Christ loves us, radically, unconditionally, beautifully.  They helped us see beyond ourselves to a better world.

     When we share such faith and vision now, we proclaim that even in difficult times like these…

“The light has come into the world and the darkness shall not overcome it!”

     There is a bigger and better picture, a heavenly kingdom, and you’ll be part of it in the life to come.  Actually, you are part of it right now.  It is just beyond the shoals…deep water, high adventure. 

     Dare to dream.  Think big.  Hoist a sail and catch the wind.  Let Christ show you the way.