In March of 1935, a small group of Asheboro-ites—or whatever one calls folks from Asheboro—set out to form the first, and still the only, Episcopal congregation in Randolph County, North Carolina. There was no building. Their first operating budget was $300 for the year, and the monthly stipend for the priest was $16.50. By August they had found land for their new building while they worshipped in the chapel of the local funeral home. They needed $2000 to move forward, but by April of 1937 they only had $600. They needed $1400 more, still they chose to move forward on faith. By the grace of God, everything came together. A large crowd gathered to lay the cornerstone later on that same year in what one onlooker called the middle of nowhere. Why would anyone want to build a church way out here, she was overhead saying, to which Bishop Edwin Pennick responded, “If a person cannot find God in such a beautiful setting, I doubt they can find God anywhere.” By the end of the year, the roof was on and services were being held in the Church of the Good Shepherd.
Good Shepherd, Asheboro, NC
This church, for whom I am blessed to serve as rector, has undergone several changes in the decades that followed, not the least of which was our most recent Great Mold Remediation of 2019! Still, the dedication and faith of those saints who gathered in the funeral home, pushed forward with their plan for a church building even when they didn’t know where the funds would come from, and chose to put a house of God in the middle of nowhere, has made it possible for us to be here. Their love for God and desire to share the expressions of that love that are so powerful known in the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement have made Good Shepherd the special place that it is.
When I arrived here just over four years ago, I made the Feast of Pentecost my first Sunday among the faithful at Good Shepherd because, as the birthday of the Church, Pentecost is a day of new beginnings, a day that looks towards an exciting future that is guided by the Holy Spirit. In the same way, the Feast of All Saints seemed like a perfectly fitting day for us to return to our space after a lengthy process to clean up this holy house that saw us, like our ancestors, worship for a while in the local funeral home's chapel! Why All Saints? Because, naturally, it is the day that we remember that we are surrounded by the saints of God, and nowhere was that more apparent that gathering together for worship this past Sunday after being away from our sanctuary. Our holy fathers and mothers who put so much of themselves into our church, who worshipped here, who were baptized here, who were fed here, and who were buried here, they were all around us that day. Our parishioners know their names and speak of them often; in fact, several of them were prayed for at our annual All Saints Evensong liturgy to honor all those who have died in the past year. We may not be able to see them, but they were there, that great cloud of witnesses, the communion of the saints.
Our bulletin cover for the Feast of All Saints
It is the faith of the saints that sustains us in this journey of ours. What a comfort to know that we don’t go through it alone. Could you imagine? I need to be reminded that my mother is still with me—in the cardinal that rests outside our oratory window when I pray, or in the sunset over the surrounding hills that Asheboro is famous for. We all need those reminders, we need to know that we are not alone because none of us were ever meant to be alone. Blessedly, we Christians—crazy lot that we are—are promised that, when the world would have us believe otherwise, even death cannot separate us from the love of God in Jesus, it is the same love that abides in all the saints. In death, we are reminded in our burial rite, life is changed, not ended. And so the lives of the saints are not ended when they finish this earthly course, but they are merely changed. They continue to live and thrive, surrounding us with their grace and their prayers until the day we see them again.
That is their ministry now, to pray for each of us. In return, we pray for them. Some have asked me why we pray for the dead; after all, they’re with God, so they’re ok, they don’t need our prayers anymore. It’s not about need, though. It’s about relationship. Our relationship with them does not end in death, and to pray for them reminds us not only of that fact, but also of the good news for us that our own lives will not end at our earthly deaths. It’s a back and forth between the Church Triumphant, those who have gone on to glory, and the Church Militant, those on this side of the Kingdom who still face the struggles of our lives.
Relationship is perhaps the single defining characteristic of All Saints Day. We celebrate the relationship we have with those saints we love but see no longer, and through their examples of love and faithfulness—and yes, even failures and frustrations—we are reminded that we are among them, saints ourselves. Broken, yet beloved. Frail, yet freed. Sinners, yet saved. All of us are part of the communion of saints, continuing in the foundation of prayer, worship, and fellowship laid by our holy fathers and mothers.
That foundation, that cornerstone that was laid, is nothing less than Jesus Christ. Himself dead and buried, but by the power and grace of God made alive, a promise not only that we hold on to for him, but for all who die, including those we remember today, including ourselves. As the heavenly saints partake in that banquet that he set for them from before the foundation of the world, we earthly saints share in the same banquet, which we call Holy Eucharist, the Mass, the Lord's Supper, or Communion. In the great prayer of the Church we hear Jesus’ words to his apostles, echoed through eternity for all the saints, “Do this for the remembrance of me.” Remember. We do not parake in this holy meal to simply recall an event in history, no. We re-member; that is, we become a member again, we reconnect with Christ and with all the saints who partake in this Communion, and we reaffirm our place in the communion of saints by the communion of Christ’s body and blood. With those words of his, the lid is blown off of time. The past is brought into the present, and the eternal is now. We are tied to all who have ever offered this prayer before us, bound together with all throughout history who have shared the bread and cup. We are united through the future to the heavenly banquet that awaits us all, where the feasting with Christ and his saints never ends. In the midst of that celebrating, while moving beyond time, we are joined by the saints of God at every Communion rail. Standing or kneeling beside us, they are there. Our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, grandchildren, and dear friends. All Saints Day brings them to the forefront of our minds like no other day can, that we may, at all times and in all places, feel their presence among us.
Yes, brothers and sisters, the Church is not a building, and the last six weeks of remediation work have helped our congregation remember that. It is where ever the people of God gather, people home Saint Paul in his letter to the Ephesians called saints, and he wasn't talking about folks who had died, but rather those living and struggling through their respective journeys. Yet, I must say, this past Sunday it was good to be home. It was good to be back in our space, with the saints in Asheboro, surrounded by all the saints, and encouraged by our worship together to continue in the faithful work that was begun in them. May all the saints, who from their labors rest, pray for us.
