Sharing the Gift of Life

On this first November Sunday of the year we celebrate All Saints’ Day.  It is our named day as All Saints’ Memorial Church.  Generally, we think of saints as those people we have known who have gone before us.  They are members of generations past who have left for us the life we now live, lives of blessings as well as burdens.

At the time of the writings of Matthew’s gospel with the Beatitudes given by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, and the writing of the Revelation to John, the early Christians were living under Roman rule and they were often persecuted because they failed to obey the Roman imperial authorities.  The language in the Book of Revelation is symbolic; it contains images of the last days.  Those who do evil deeds will be punished by a just God while the faithful who persevere will be rewarded in heaven.

In Revelation a great hymn is sung around the heavenly throne: “All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God singing, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’” 

This hymn of blessing is about faithfulness and fidelity.  The fidelity of the early Christians mirrors God’s eternal fidelity.  The writer of the Revelation of John encourages suffering Christians to look forward, to keep their thoughts and visions on God’s eternal realm of heaven as they deal with and endure problems and persecutions.

Both the familiar beatitudes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the Revelation of John show that those who suffer most receive the greatest joy in heaven.  But don’t we all hope to attain great joy in heaven?  Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.  Are they the only ones to rejoice and be glad? 

You and I are people who want to be happy and successful.  We like to enjoy leisure time, watch or play sports, travel and have a good life. We work hard and we struggle against feelings of grief, suffering, pain and anger.  How odd it seems then that those who mourn, the poor and meek and persecuted are the only ones whose reward is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

We need to listen carefully to what Jesus said and what he is saying to us.  He doesn’t say that destitution is a blessing; the disciples are to relieve the suffering of those who have less than they need.  Those who mourn are blessed because they care and grieve over the injustice and oppression suffered by others.  Those who are truly poor in spirit do not spend time obsessing about their misfortune, they reach out to the bereaved, and they empathize with them in their grief.

Jesus asked the disciples to suffer with others during a time when the Romans despised pity, and when the stoics looked skeptically at compassion.  When mercy and compassion move the disciples in their concern for others, then the God of mercy extends mercy and compassion to them.

The blessing for the meek indicates that it is reserved for people who can face conflict without resorting to violence.  It implies strength, moral fortitude and spiritual courage.  The meek do not run away in the face of difficulty.  They show reverence for God and good will towards others.

The pure in heart are the people whose minds, emotions and wills are committed to God.  Their vision is free of greed and arrogance.  They are whole-hearted and seek a greater and deeper unity of being, a deeper relationship with God.   

The beatitudes are outrageous expectations of an extravagant God.  Outrageous because they go against all that we are taught about what it means to be a success, to really make in it banking, law, medicine, business, or politics, and to look out for number one.  Our cultural standards for success and human dignity are self-sufficiency, individualism, independence, and autonomy.  The  Beatitudes are different; those who take God at God’s word are the ones who are truly blessed.

Who then are the saints today?  They are not only those who have preceded us.  As the late William Stringfellow, a lawyer and theologian who lived on Block Island said, saints are "those men and women who relish the event of life as a gift and who realize that the only way to honor such a gift is to give it away.” 

Deepening our relationship with God by sharing the gift of life with those in need enables us to join with “all the angels [who] stood around the throne and … worshiped God singing, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’”  Amen.