Friday, October 30, 2020

All Saints, Beatitudes and Christian Living

 


God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon title is ABC: All Saints, Beatitudes and Christian Living. My focus is our gospel. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”  Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

All Saints’ Day is a Christian festival celebrated in honor of all the saints, known and unknown. In Western Christianity, it is celebrated on November 1st by the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran and other Protestant churches. Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate it on the first Sunday after Pentecost and others on the first Friday after Easter.

All Saints’ Day stems from a belief that there is a powerful spiritual bond between those in heaven (the "Church triumphant") and the living (the "Church militant"). In many historically Catholic countries, it is a national holiday. In Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden, the Day assumes a role of general commemoration of the dead, and usually takes place on the first Sunday of November. Lutherans celebrate All Saints' Day after Reformation Sunday, and in many congregations, we remember the dead while celebrating Christ's victory over death.

Lutherans do not believe that saints can receive prayers or intercede for a petitioner because, according to the Lutheran Church, there is no evidence to support this in the scriptures. In the Lutheran Church, a saint is anyone who believes in Jesus Christ, tries to live an exemplary life and is an example of what everyone else can aspire to become.

The reason that Lutherans do less with saints is Luther’s belief that in Christ’s kingdom all the baptized are saints. All received the same gift of grace and are equal and not better than anyone else. Luther was cautious about a hierarchy where some could be seen as better than others. He was also cautious about praying to saints as intercessors for us before God, believing that in Christ we have direct access to God and need no intercessor.

In his essay on Public Worship in 1523, Luther wrote, “All the festivals of the saints are to be discontinued. Where there is a good Christian legend, it may be inserted as an example after the Gospel on Sunday. The festivals of the Purification and Annunciation of Mary may be continued, and for the time being also her Assumption and Nativity, although the songs in them are not pure. The festival of John the Baptist is also pure. Not one of the legends of the apostles is pure, except St. Paul’s. They may either be transferred to the [closest] Sunday or celebrated separately, if one so desires.”

Luther made similar remarks in his revision of the Latin Mass, “If any desire to approve the introits (inasmuch as they have been taken from Psalms or other passages of Scripture) for apostles’ days, for feasts of the Virgin and of other saints, we do not condemn them. But we in Wittenberg intend to observe only the Lord’s days and the festivals of the Lord. We think that all the feasts of the saints should be abrogated, or if anything in them deserves it, it should be brought into the Sunday sermon. We regard the feasts of Purification and Annunciation as feasts of Christ, even as Epiphany and Circumcision. Instead of the feasts of St. Stephen and of St. John the Evangelist, we are pleased to use the office of the Nativity. . ..  Let others act according to their own conscience or in consideration of the weakness of some—whatever the Spirit may suggest.”

In general, Lutherans kept the feasts associated with the life of Jesus, as well as those saints from the Bible, particularly the New Testament. For example, on June 24th, we observe the Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist.

The Lutheran Service Book adds a few more feast days for Saints, including Michael the Archangel, Paul, Barnabas, Joseph, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Timothy and Titus. It also includes a list of commemorations for Old Testament saints – Abraham, Samuel, Esther – and other saints from the history of the church – Polycarp, Lawrence, Anselm, Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz and C.F.W. Walther.

We do not have strict rules governing which saints we must celebrate and which ones we cannot. Much of this is left to the discretion of the pastor. In general, we don’t want to obscure the work of Christ or detract from the main message of the gospel. We certainly should not spend more time talking about the saints than we do about Jesus. And when we do speak about the saints, the focus is still on Jesus. The Apology to the Augsburg Confession mentions three particular ways that we remember the saints: Thanksgiving – When we remember the blessing that these people have been to the church and world, all thanks and glory goes to God alone. Examples of Mercy – In the saints we see how God used sinners like us as His servants. Moses, David, Peter, Paul and the rest were forgiven for their many failings, and that gives us hope. Examples of Faithfulness – God gives us examples to follow through the faith shown by the saints and by their acts of service. You can remember Saints’ Days as part of your daily devotions, school chapel services or devotions at church meetings.

Since the role of the Saints is never to distract or detract from the work of Christ, but to give examples where we can see Him at work throughout the history of His Church and today, we move from A to B, from All Saints to Beatitudes.

We usually consider The Beatitudes as the eight blessings recounted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. Each is a proverb-like proclamation, without narrative. Luke reiterated four of the blessings in the Sermon on the Plain followed by four woes which mirror the blessings. In all, Matthew and Luke contain 28 of the 44 beatitudes that appear in the New Testament.

The Greek word for blessed or happy is makarios. Beatitudes have roots in the Greek world and in the Hebrew world to connote praise or the act of blessing.

In the Old Testament, blessedness refers to persons experiencing the fullness of life because of trust in the Lord, deliverance, prosperity or justice.

We read in the Psalms, “Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie!”[1] And later, “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry.”[2]

In the New Testament, beatitudes, such as those in today’s Gospel, focus on the paradoxical reversal of human values. They require openness in faith, which is the appropriate context for understanding the challenge of the Beatitudes.

The Sermon on the Mount, the wider context of the Beatitudes, is a compilation of sayings that Jesus used in different settings. It was also the basis for his ministry. Matthew adapted Jesus’ Sermon and Beatitudes to the changing needs of the Church separated from Judaism and the synagogue.

The Beatitudes shed light on the actions and attitudes characteristic of the Christian life, and are paradoxical promises that sustain hope in the midst of tribulations. They proclaim the blessings and rewards already secured, however dimly, for Christ's disciples.

They respond to our natural desire for happiness. We all want to live happily. In the whole human race, there is no one who does not want to be happy. So, what does it mean for us to be happy?

To answer that, and to segue into my third point, Christian Living, let me tell you about a book I read this past summer entitled Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers by Christopher Hall. While Luther’s Small Catechism does not cite Church Fathers, all of the other documents in the Book of Concord do. The first Lutherans quoted the Early Church Fathers against the new (false) teachers of the Roman Church, in order to show that Lutherans were in line with the historic creeds and teachers.[3] They also turned to the Fathers for help in the arguments against radical protestants – Anabaptists, Zwinglians, Calvinists – who rejected infant baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Hall points out that the Ancient Fathers heard music in Scripture where we remain tone-deaf. Despite their occasional eccentricities, theirs was a hearing refined through long listening in song, worship, teaching, meditation and oral reading. And like true masters they challenge and correct our modern assumptions as they invite us to tune our ears to hear the divine melodies of the Bible.

Hall writes about the Fathers quoted in the Book of Concord who offer insight into how Christians today can live the Beatitudes. One of them, Augustine, wrote this:

We must search out the life of happiness, we must ask for it from the Lord our God. Many have discussed at great length the meaning of happiness, but surely, we do not need to go to them and their long drawn out discussions. Holy Scripture says concisely and with truth: Happy is the people whose God is the Lord. We are meant to belong to that people, and to be able to see God and live with him forever, and so the object of this command is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and a sincere faith.[4]

I quote Augustine because many people view the Beatitudes as a guide to happiness. Some even rename these verses as the Be-Happy-Attitudes. In his succinct analysis, Augustine was correct when he cited Psalm 144: Happy is the people whose God is the Lord.[5] We don’t need to seek every spiritual writer or worldly-wise person offering happiness in a twenty-dollar book or a two-hundred-dollar seminar. Happiness comes freely for the asking from God.

Happiness comes freely for the asking from God. If you ask God for happiness, God will give it freely, even in the midst of your greatest troubles and difficulties. I say that because one of the people I wrote to as I was preparing this sermon was Peg Durachko. I have known Peg for more than 30 years. The two Beatitudes that stood out for her when she responded to me earlier this month are Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied; and Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. She said that for her the former stands out because of how Mother Teresa of Calcutta dedicated her life to serving God, and the latter because at the beginning of this Millennium, Pope John Paul II declared the Second Sunday of Easter Divine Mercy Sunday.

Now, you may be wondering why I am quoting a devout Roman Catholic’s musings on the Beatitudes in a Lutheran Church, a week after Reformation Sunday. One reason is because our observance of Reformation Sunday need not replicate the Lutheran Church of the 16th century. In spite of those who remain steadfast, many Lutherans and Catholics live harmoniously in the same neighborhoods, work cooperatively in the same business, serve the same community as firefighters and coaches, and sometimes even pray for one another and with one another. The second reason is because Peg Durachko was married to Richard Gottfried, the dentist murdered at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, two years ago.

Richard was a devout Jew, a community servant, a loving husband, a connoisseur of fine wines and full-bodied cigars, a dedicated dentist and a friend of mine. Through many conversations and activities, Rich taught me lessons of life and happiness. And when I think of Happy is the people whose God is the Lord, I think of Rich, for he lived his religion not on his sleeve, but in his heart and in his home, in his dental practice and in his community. In other words, Rich and Peg offer us an example of my third point, Christian Living.

They each studied the Scriptures and their faith. Rich even leaned Hebrew so he could serve as a cantor. He was the president of New Light Congregation and chair of its religious education committee.

Rich and Peg introduced me to personal development seminars, Marriage Encounter and his rabbi at New Light. This led to me leading a session at their adult education class, and Rabbi Harvey leading one at my congregation. Ecumenical, open-minded and loving, they prayed for everyone’s needs. And when people asked Peg what they could do to help, she replied, “Do not let his death be in vain. Drive out evil from your own life and help another to drive it out of their life. The only way to combat evil is with love.”

Drive out evil from your own life and help another to drive it out of their life. The only way to combat evil is with love. My friends, as you observe All Saints’ Day, contemplate the Beatitudes and consider how you will live the Christian Life today, open yourself to those who might offer you a lesson on the latter, no matter what his or her religion, and then, for others be an example of Christian Living by living the Beatitudes and becoming a saint for them, for when you do, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.



[1] Psalm 40:4.

[2] Psalm 146:5-7.

[3] https://lutheranreformation.org/history/lutherans-early-church-fathers/

[4] From a letter to Proba by Saint Augustine, bishop (Ep. 130,12,22-13,24; CSEL 44,65-68)

[5] Psalm 144:15.

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