RCL All Saints A
30 October 2011
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
Focus Text:
1 John 2.28-3.3
2.28 And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he is
revealed we may have confidence and not be put to shame before him at his
coming.
2.29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone
who does right has been born of him.
3.1 See what love the Father has given
us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The
reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children
now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when
he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him
purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Sermon Text
Beloved,
we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for
we will see him as he is.
From time to time my family and friends
have teased me about dwelling in the past.
To be sure there is some truth to this.
I have always loved history and, when in a good book store, I can most
often be found in the history or biography section. My favourite novels are historical novels,
especially mysteries set in the past.
My preoccupation with history has
been a source of particular humour for my children. Once, while shopping at Oakridge, Owen and I
met someone whom I knew well from our Diocese. The fact that I could not remember this
person’s name did not escape Owen who was waiting to see what I would do. Finally, I apologized to the gentleman and
asked him for his name --- I had remembered his parish and when we had first
met, but his name was not popping into my consciousness. He laughed generously and, after giving me
his name, said, “You meet a great number of people, Richard; I’m not
offended.” At this point Owen piped in. “Well,” Owen said, “if you had been dead for
at least five hundred years, I’m sure my dad would have remembered your name!”
Dwelling in the past is not
something that only afflicts certain individuals; it can afflict entire
communities. When the author of what we
know as 1 John wrote to a community of Christians around the year 100 c.e., one of his concerns was to move
that community from focusing too much on their recent past into focusing on
their future as God’s beloved.
This small community had been
overwhelmed by two storms, one external, the other internal. The external storm arose among their
neighbours who have begun to persecute the Christians for reasons that are not
clear. The internal storm is one that we
know all too well: divisions over what
it means to be a Christian and how we are supposed to live out our Christian
faith. This small cell of the Body of
Christ has become even smaller as at least one group has left to form its own
worshipping community.
This internal conflict and the
external pressure has caused those who remain in fellowship with one another
and with the author of 1 John to doubt who they are and what their future
is. Time and time again the author will
remind them that they are already God’s children and that their future is based
in this present reality. Nothing in
their immediate past can alter this fact nor prevent this hope from being
realized. If God has loved us so much
that Christ has come in the flesh to reconcile us to God, then can anything on
this earth obstruct that love from bringing the followers of Christ into
complete communion with God and with each?
To this question the author of 1 John answers with a resounding “No!”
My friends, it is true that
Christians spend a great deal of time in our common past, but we do so for a
present cause and a future hope. The
celebration of All Saints is not about the past nor is it an indulgence in some
nostalgia for a religious ‘good old days’.
We remember our past and the women and men who shaped that past in order
to claim our present identity as their heirs in the faith and as children of
the same God who empowered their witness to Christ in their days. We are God’s children now, we proclaim, and
we will live into the future that this identity promises for us and for all
human beings.
One of my theological heroes is the
English theologian, Frederick Denison Maurice, who was born in 1805 and died in
1872. His own times were times of
religious conflict in the Church of England and Maurice was one of those rare
persons who could affirm the best of all sides in the conflict. But he was not afraid to take sides.
Once he was the favoured candidate
for a teaching position at the University of Oxford. As was his custom he went for a walk with a
book to read along the way, a book that happened to have been written by one of
the people who was supporting Maurice’s candidacy. As Maurice read the book, he realized that
the theological position the writer was advocating would rob the average
Christian of her or his hope that they are now and always will be a child of
God. This was completely unacceptable to
Maurice and he later said so publicly.
He could not affirm any theological belief that suggested that God’s
gift to each of us in baptism could ever be erased. As you can imagine, he did not get the job!
Saint Faith’s and the congregations
like it throughout the Lower Mainland and the world are places that dare to
proclaim to one and to all that we are God’s children now, male and female, gay
and straight, believer and non-believer, wise and foolish. This is the message that our ancestors in the
faith dared to proclaim to their generations and the message that still needs
to be heard by thousands, if not millions, of people today, especially those
who have been marginalized by our society whether because of their gender,
their sexual orientation, their poverty, their woundedness.
They need to hear this message
because without it there can be no foundation upon which to build hope, hope
for a future in which we and all God’s children shall be free, free to be fully
human, free to be fully alive in the image and likeness of God. Beloved, we are God’s children now, but what
we shall be is not yet clear. What is
clear is that this future is Christ-shaped and we have been created for just
such a future.
Being a child of God is great gift,
but it also brings responsibility. Our
responsibility is to live as icons of God so that others will be drawn to us as
surely as iron filings are drawn to a magnet.
How we conduct our public and private lives, how we conduct our worship,
how we care for the assets entrusted into our stewardship, all these are means
by which God quietly but persistently calls men and women to their true selves,
children of a living God who is at work reconciling the world to God’s very
self and offering every human being the means to become fully alive.
Our times are no so unlike the times
of the community of 1 John and Frederick Denison Maurice. Outside our doors are many who believe that
religion is irrelevant at best, dangerous at worst. Inside our doors we have experienced a
lengthy time of religious conflict over many questions. There are people who have left the church to
form other communities and still others who have simply left the church. Some writers are even so bold as to predict
the end of the so-called ‘mainline’ churches.
To all of them, to all of you, all I can do is to
speak the words of the author of 1 John:
3.1 See
what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God;
and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did
not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children
now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when
he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him
purify themselves, just as he is pure.
We are
God’s children now. Let us live as God’s
children confident that we and our future are in God’s hands. Let us share with others the faith of all the
saints, past, present and future, a faith that welcomes every child of God and
that works to bring each one of us into the fullness of the stature of
Christ. Let us have this confidence and
let us live this faith and all will be well and all manner of things shall be
well. Amen.
