"Those Saints Who Formed Us, And Those We Form" All Saints' Sunday November 4, 2007

All Saints’ Sunday draws us into cosmic reality. This morning we are especially conscious of the “one communion in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,” to use the words of the Prayer of the Day.

On All Saints’ Sunday we give thanks for those who have died in the faith. According to the faith of the church, those who have died are still members of the church – the church triumphant. In a few minutes we will sing about us and them, “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine.”

Today, especially, you and I give thanks for those saints whom the Holy Spirit used to form us in faith. For many of us, those were family members. This year, for instance, I give special thanks for my Dad, who, along with my Mom, considered getting out on Sunday morning for worship to be every bit as important as getting out on Monday morning to go to work. We never missed. (In fact, on Sunday morning, my Dad’s rule was that we could not begin reading the newspaper until we were dressed and ready to go. That prevented last minute struggles to get us kids out of the house! And so, each Sunday, my brother and I would be seen with our dress clothes on, shoes shined, ties knotted, reading the comics!)

I am blessed to have been born into a family culture that, for generations, has included deep devotion to the church. My children are continuing that family culture (God be praised). So, my Dad was in a long line of faith-filled people in the family. I get a kick out of this description of one of my great-great grandfathers, from a family history written 80 years ago:

Father, John William Ballentine, was confirmed in St. Peter’s (Piney Woods) Church. At the formation of Macedonia Church in 1847 he became a member of that congregation, in which all his children were baptized and confirmed. He was a member of the Council practically all his life. Though the old home was 5 miles from the Church, and the so called road was miserable, and there was a deep creek to ford, we do not know that he ever missed a service. And for about 35 years, there was not even a stove in the church. There was no organ in the church, and father sat in the “Amen” corner, and started the tunes. He also was a kind of peace officer during service. Macedonia had a door on each side, and one at the rear end, opposite the pulpit. Often those first on the Church grounds would remain out of doors, until the preacher would take his text, and begin his sermon, and then with screaking and screaming shoes, many of these young folks would come in the side door, walk between the preacher and the congregation, and go back to the rear end for a seat, or even in some cases go on out at the back door. Usually those who sat in the rear of the Church were mischief bent. We have seen them spit tobacco juice on the Church floor until a stream would run off from the puddle thus made. Usually such parties engaged also in some hilarious conversation during the Sermon. Many a time we have seen our father, from his vantage viewpoint in the “Amen” corner, look over his glasses, back over the congregation at such parties, get up from his seat and go back and sit down in the midst of the unworshipful group. It usually had the desired effect, there was no more talking during the sermon. He meant business, and they knew it, and what is more, they respected him.

It has been years since there was anyone alive who knew my great-great grandfather. Indeed, enough years have passed that few people now alive knew my grandparents. That’s the way it happens. For any of us, three generations on, there is little first-hand remembrance. Our lives are that short.

But God knows those who have died! We Easter people know that life in God continues, even after the human finality of death. “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.” And the Holy Spirit has passed the faith down, from generation to generation. There have been saints in each generation to form the saints in the next! The Christian faith is always one generation from extinction. Not one of us would be here this morning if there had not been saints who taught us to worship and to pray.

Who were the saints for you? Who did the Holy Spirit use to form you in the practices of the faith? What faces come to mind? Were they members of your family? Were they friends who invited you in childhood to Sunday School? (I have heard that from a number of adults over the years, whose parents never darkened the doors of a church building, and who grew into people of faith beginning with an invitation from another child!) Were the saints for you a pastor, or a Sunday morning teacher? Were they other adults who took you under their wings? We give thanks to God for those saints who, in glory, shine!

And here’s something else, that is most important on this All Saints’ Sunday. God the Holy Spirit has put others into our lives so that you and I can invite and nurture them, so that the Spirit can use us to form others in the faith!

Think of those with whom God has put you in relationship. What responsibility the Holy Spirit gives to parents and grandparents, in particular! Children. Grandchildren. Students. Co-workers. Friends. After you have been gathered into the church triumphant, who will remember you as one of the saints whom the Holy Spirit used to form him or her in faith?

I don’t know abut you, but to me this is profoundly holy and very exciting. What a mystical communion: the body of our Lord, Jesus the Christ. It includes those in the Church catholic, which means those of every place and every time – all those who have died in the faith, and all those now alive in the faith, and all those who are yet to be born into the faith! All are gathered together in cosmic reality, here in this place, especially as we share the bread and wine, as we commune with each other, and commune with God – who is in communion as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia