For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one, too. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
The nave of All Saints Episcopal Church, Norton, VA.
Nestled in the coalfields of Southwestern Virginia, in the
town of Norton, is little All Saints Episcopal Church. It is the last Episcopal Church you’ll
find in Virginia before you reach the Kentucky state line. It can seat up to 70, maybe 80 folks—depending
on how comfortable you want to be. Down
through the years this little church has lived up to its name. The saints who have worshipped there have
included Joe Straughn and his booming bass voice sitting in the back of the
choir. Joyce Winston, the wife of a
local judge, who faithfully sat in the second pew on this side. Seated next to her for so many years was her
good friend Frances Herndon, dedicated head of the altar guild, who always panicked whenever the acolytes walked around carrying fire. You'd find Dr. Ernie Ingram, a tiny lady with a
huge heart who introduced my mother to Cursillo and changed her life. Way in
the back, still to this day, is Leola Wooten, the last known children’s
Sunday School teacher at the church (because there hasn't been children's Sunday School there since 1995!). And for years, in the second pew on the left, you’d see a father tracing the words of
the closing hymn for his son to follow along and sing at the top of his lungs, even though neither could read music; little did anyone know that that
son would be the first All Saints parishioner to get ordained in that
little church, and that the father would be the second. All Saints, Norton has always embodied—at
least for me—what this day is all about.
A collection of people, broken and flawed, but beautiful and redeemed,
all brought together to worship the Lord Jesus Christ and to work together to
heal the world in his name. The saints
of All Saints were not perfect by any stretch, but they were faithful. And that’s all any saint can ever hope to
be.
(Left) The first All Saints parishioner to be ordained. (Right) The second.
It’s easy to think of the saints as the
exemplars, as those folks who are higher than us, better than we could ever
be. They’re
the ones who have stained glass windows and icons and statues made in their
likeness. But they weren’t
perfect, either. James and John, the
sons of Thunder were pretty self-centered and arrogant, demanding that Jesus let them sit on his right and his left in the Kingdom. Not exactly saintly behavior, in my opinion.
Peter denied ever even knowing Jesus when push came to shove, and he didn't even believe Mary Magdalene and the other women when they came and told the apostles that the Lord had been raised. Even Paul--the first theologian, without whom it can be argued that we do not have a church--was a strong persecutor of the
faith and was likely responsible for the death of Steven, the first
martyr. No, saints aren’t
perfect, they’re faithful.
To be faithful is to listen to the voice of Jesus, to
listen to who it is it that Jesus is calling us to be and to respond to Jesus’ call. To be faithful is to share the light of Christ
with those around us—through our words and especially
through our actions. The people of All
Saints, Norton, certainly did that, otherwise I wouldn’t
be standing in this pulpit today. To be
faithful is to promise to live into the very vows that we will all renew today—striving for justice and peace, loving our neighbor as
ourselves, respecting the dignity of every human being. Will we fall short of those vows? Absolutely! Heaven knows I fall short all the time. But we keep trying. We keep coming back. That’s also why, when we make those vows,
we say, ‘I will, with God’s help.’ Because being faithful means
realizing that we can’t do it alone, that everything we do
is with the help of Almighty God, as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit and seeking to
follow the example of Jesus Christ.
It is is to this pantheon of the faithful that we welcome
Vincent Blackwell and William Marks. As
we renew those solemn vows, Vincent and William will be washed in the waters of
baptism, their old selves gone, giving way to new lives in Jesus. They will be sealed and marked as Christ’s
own, marked as saints, forever. And all
of us will promise to uphold them, to encourage them, to be there for them when
they stumble, and to love them as Jesus loves them. Vincent and William will make mistakes, as
all the saints have. They need not be
perfect. Merely faithful.
So on this solemn
feast of All Saints let us bring to the forefront of our hearts and minds those
who have shown us what it means to be faithful.
Take a moment and picture them.
And let us pray
that we may have the grace to be saints ourselves. Not to be perfect. But to be faithful. May all the saints, who from their labors rest, pray for us.
