All Saints Sunday 17

All Saints Sunday November 5, 2017

“Almighty God, you have knit your people together in one communion in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord.” The Church of the Savior is coming up on our 40^th anniversary. Our first service was July 2, 1978 in Smokey Chapel. Almost 5 years later in April, 1983 the Lutheran Episcopal fellowship was officially organized, and the first weekend in July that year Bishops Wolber and Weinhauer dedicated our church.  It’s like a marriage; we keep the public wedding anniversary, but the relationship really began some time before that.

The God who made us loves us. Our personal relationship with God begins before birth, before we are aware, before we can become aware. The paradox is that we are born alone and we die alone, but we do not live alone. At birth we have mother, father, and other members of a family, a community of people who care about us.  We become part of a spiritual community, the mystical body of Christ. We are spiritual descendants of Abraham, joined in his covenant with God, and joined in the new covenant of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

It is a covenant of faith. In Acts 16, when the Philippian jailer asked “What must I do to be saved, St. Paul told him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” In the last chapter of St. Mark’s gospel Jesus said, (16:16) “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.”  Faith and baptism are signs of salvation. Faith is God’s gift. Faith is not dependent on feelings; feelings come and go, but faith, God’s love, and God’s salvation in Jesus is everlasting.

Baptism is a sign to us of God’s love in Jesus Christ. Lutheran, Episcopal, Orthodox, Catholic churches all agree about the sacrament of baptism. The Episcopal catechism (BCP 857) defines sacraments as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace. Grace is God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.” We are spiritual bodies, and baptism is our bodily response to God’s gift of faith in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

We are blessed to be able freely to respond to God in baptism. Many cannot. In the late 19^th century British missionaries opened hospitals in Persia. From the village of Tafti a young woman came to learn to be a nurse, but in obedience to her Muslim parents she returned home and married a Muslim. She was a secret Christian, and her son Hassan was later an army officer and then a priest and the first native Persian Anglican bishop. He served there for 20 years, but when the revolutionaries attacked him, wounded his wife, and murdered his son, he fled to England. The German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner (1904-84) wrote of “anonymous Christians,” like Bishop Deqani-Tafti’s mother, Christians prevented by circumstances from being baptized or enjoying the benefits of church fellowship. In the early church people were baptized only at Easter after several years preparation. Sometimes these catechumens were martyred in persecutions before they could be baptized. The church said they had been “baptized by desire” and counted them among the saints.

Baptism is an important human response to God’s grace freely given all his people, but of the ways churches have misused their spiritual authority to impose restrictions on the grace of God. The Spanish speaking congregation at St. Paul’s Church, Smithfield, NC, where I was twice interim rector, began when some Spanish speaking men came to the employer, a member of that church, to complain that the local Roman Catholic church would not baptize their children because the parents had not been married in the church in Mexico. In that country the civil marriage is done at city hall; the church wedding costs extra. The boss responded, “We’re Episcopalians; we baptize anybody.” I did some Spanish language baptisms there. 

When I was rector in Shelby, Jenny Schwartz, a beautiful and talented 11 year old, was a leader of the youth choir. Her mother Florence was active in the church; her father Mike was from a leading Jewish family in Georgetown, SC. We noticed that when Jenny sang her father cane to church. When I visited them we’d talk about God and Jesus. One Sunday was a baptism; Jenny and the youth choir sang.  As I went down the aisle at the closing hymn, Mike asked me, “Can I be baptized?” “Yes, when?” “Now?” When the hymn ended I said, “If you a roast in the oven feel free to leave. The rest please stay for Mike Schwartz’s baptism.” We formed a men’s group and twice a month for almost a year met for breakfast and discussion to help Mike learn and grow in the Christian faith.

Florence died young of cancer, but Jenny and Mike continue in the church. Florence, with Hassan Dequani-Tafti, his wife, and his mother, continue in the communion of saints, “one communion in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord.”   

My mother used to say, “We’re all examples for one another; some of us are good examples.” Everyone I have known in the body of Christ has contributed to my spiritual growth. On this All Saints Sunday I invite you to remember and to thank God for those saints who have contributed to your own spiritual growth, and I want to list some of the saints who have been God’s agents in my own spiritual life. First are my parents, Nelson and Elizabeth Rightmyer. Most of what I know of God’s love and grace I learned at home. My father was a priest and a seminary professor; that helped. Walden Pell was headmaster at St. Andrew’s School, Middletown, Delaware. When his office door was open we could go in and talk about anything. God is always available.  Jim Reynolds was Chaplain; I learned from him about the beauty of holiness. Tom Fraser was bishop of North Carolina. He taught the younger clergy by word and example to be hard on ourselves and easy on others.  I could go on, but you get the idea. Give thanks to God who has made know to you by his Word Jesus and the example of the saints in your life that he loves you, that Jesus has saved us and given us new life in the Holy Spirit who guides us and all the saints in truth and power.  Amen