Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Colossians 1:1-8, Romans 1:6-7, Ephesians 3:14-19, II Corinthians 13:11-13, Jude 1:3
April 15, 2004
“Bless us and save us,” said old Mrs. Davis.
“Joy, joy,” said Mrs. Malloy.
“Mercy, mercy,” cried Governor Percy.
“Saints, preserve us,” yelled old Richard Purvis.
That line (with multiple variations) was yelled by the boisterous and cantankerous husband in Frank Gilroy’s wonderful play, The Subject Was Roses. Which moved me to tears when I saw it 35 years ago. But from which I can remember no other line, save the one that opened the first act and closed the last: “Can’t anybody ever get a good cup of coffee in this house?”
Funny, isn’t it, how something can get into your head and stay there? Would that there were a “flush button” for the brain (other than the one called “Alzheimer’s”)….or a rummage sale where the only things they accept are used words. If so, I could have long since gotten rid of:
“Bless us and save us,” said old Mrs. Davis.
“Joy, joy,” said Mrs. Malloy.
“Mercy, mercy,” cried Governor Percy.
“Saints, preserve us,” yelled old Richard Purvis.
But there those words were, boxed away in my brain’s basement when I needed a title this morning, given that I wanted to talk about saints….not from the perspective of what makes ’em, but from the perspective of who needs ’em.
Those of you who have heard me do a hundred funerals or more (and there are some who have heard me do a hundred funerals or more) have heard every means I have of getting into and out of a funeral sermon. Sure, the biographical part is new every time….given that each of us is a unique, unrepeatable miracle of creation. But on the way to the biography….and on the way beyond the biography….there are only so many ways for a preacher to start and finish. Which is why some of you, spotting me in the hall before a funeral, have occasionally been so gutsy as to say: “Well, what’s it going to be today? The New Orleans jazz memoir? Neil Diamond’s ‘Done Too Soon?’ That airplane thing? Save your fork?” Why, it wasn’t but three or four days ago that Jeff Nelson said: “When I die, I want to make sure you do your bit about Vince Lombardi and the Packers.” Given the 30-year age advantage Jeff has on me, the odds are great that I won’t preach his funeral. Or attend it. I figure that my job, in Jesus-like fashion, will be to do for him there what I have already done for him here….“prepare a place,” I mean. But who knows.
If you have funeraled with me since 1990 and 3, you have heard me express my belief that these halls are haunted and this pulpit is crowded. Start with this pulpit. When I came here, I figured I was the only one up here. Which was arrogance talking. But with each passing year has come the realization that this space has been (and is being) defined, not only by those who share it with me, but by those who occupied it before me. Just three days ago someone gave me a collection of sermons by Dr. Thomas. And the very next day I participated in a pair of conversations which referenced the sermons of Dr. Wright and Dr. Ward. Then last night at dinner, the conversation turned to Dr. Runkel and the question of whether I resembled him more than I resemble the other three. But, this side of heaven, who will know?
Yet, in a way, they’re all up here, Sunday after Sunday….vying for space….adding their voices. Which is why the proclamation of the Word of God is never a solo, but always a chorus. And just as this spot is crowded, these halls are haunted. Pleasantly so. Haunted by those who have walked here before. I now know this building well enough so that I can walk around it in the dark. You know you’ve been somewhere a long time when you no longer need to turn on the lights late at night. Well built as it is, this building has relatively few creaks and groans. But the voices speak.
Just the other day, the subject turned to finance campaigns and the creative things we have mailed to promote them. One year, when the theme was “The Race That Is Set Before Us” (Hebrews 12), my letter came enclosed in a baton. Last year, when we focused upon “Living Water” (John 4), my letter came enclosed in a bottle. Which led someone to remember the year we mailed you an entire church….a cardboard church….with roof, floor and sides arriving in a trio of envelopes. We trusted that you would be clever enough to save the pieces and nimble enough to assemble them. And Dick Sneed, who was at that time in a nursing home….and was at that time dying in that nursing home….did just what we expected. He saved the pieces. He assembled the pieces. Then he announced to a visitor: “I know….I just know….there’s going to be a fourth mailing. More cardboard. And it’s going to be a steeple. A steeple for the church.”
Well, there wasn’t going to be a fourth mailing. And there wasn’t going to be a steeple. But in his years at First Church, Dick never left a job three-quarters done. So we got some cardboard…. made a pattern….cut along the dotted lines….and fashioned a steeple for Dick’s church. And he died. Although his voice still haunts the halls when I walk them in the dark.
Is there a connective thread to all this? Sure there is. And it is simply this.
While everybody speaks during their time, some speak beyond it.
More than once, I have invited you to go back with me to grade school, zeroing in on the day the regular teacher stayed out and the substitute teacher came in. A new substitute. A green substitute. A very young, very scared, easily flustered substitute. And even though you and your friends were only third graders, you could smell fear. You knew that your first chance to unravel her would come when she called the roll. Down the names she went. And everybody who was in the room answered, “Here.” Everybody who wasn’t in the room answered, “Here,” too. Three kids who were out sick each told the teacher they were “Here.” The kid who was in Pittsburgh for his grandmother’s funeral answered “Here.” Even the kid who was sent back last week to the second grade said that he was “Here.” Why, it was funny as all get-out.
Of course, the numbers didn’t add up. The teacher could see 32 names in the book. But she could only count 27 bodies in the seats. Three times she called the names (with 32 answers each time). Three times she counted the bodies (stopping at 27 each time). It was only 9:15 in the morning, but she was fried for the day.
It was funny in grade school. But it is reality in the church.
Everybody speaks during their time, but some speak beyond it.
For lack of a better word, we call them “saints.” About which a bit of Bible study would appear to be in order. But when one undertakes it, it will confuse more than clarify. For the word “saint” means, at times, almost anyone and everyone. In the Old Testament, saints are those deemed faithful to the Covenant….dedicated to God….good….holy. Sometimes it means a special few. But occasionally it means the entire nation of Israel (Psalm 149:1).
In the New Testament, saints are depicted (on different occasions) as those who are committed to Christ….“in Christ”…..martyrs for Christ….or those among the martyrs who died heroic deaths because of Christ. But in Paul’s writings, “saints” is a generic term for all Christians….as in “all the saints greet you” (II Corinthians 13:13).
Here and there, one finds a passage where saints are equated with the worldly poor, humble servants, even virgins. Generally speaking, they reflect “high ethical standards” (Ephesians 5:3) and demonstrate their love in “practical service” (Romans 12:13). The little book of Jude limits saints to the first generation of Christians (those to whom the faith was initially delivered). But no other passage in the New Testament seems to agree with Jude, meaning that the saints haven’t all been dead for two thousand years. And aren’t now. Though some are.
Can saints be pretty much anybody?
Biblically speaking, yes.
Can saints be pretty much everybody?
Biblically speaking, yes.
Has the church sometimes sought to narrow that theology and erect fences around that terminology?
Historically speaking, yes.
Roman Catholicism has, of course, limited the term to certain individuals who have practiced Christian virtues to such a heroic degree that, having passed through death into fullness of life with Christ, they can be officially honored….the better to serve two functions.
1. So that we will imitate their lives on earth.
2. So that we will benefit from their efforts in heaven.
Roman Catholics venerate saints….pray for saints….pray to saints….pray through saints….name churches and schools after saints….setting apart special days for saints. The first such veneration actually preceded Roman Catholicism, occurring when the followers of Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna decided to hold an annual celebration of his death as a martyr (which occurred in either 156 or 157 A.D.). But the process we know as canonization for sainthood….linked institutionally to papal authority….was not formalized until the canonization of St. Ulrich of Augsburg in 993 A.D. So now you know (assuming you care).
But we’re Protestants. Are we “into” any of this? No, not really. As saints go, we Protestants have no process for nominating them and few liturgies for honoring them. Like Paul, we believe they could be any of us. Or all of us. Incredibly democratic bunch, we Protestants. We don’t pray to them. Neither do we pray through them….although if that is something you feel inclined to do, no one will stop you. And as to whether you need them to put in a good word (in heaven) for you, we say you don’t. Quite unlike the chums and buddies of Detroit’s mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, who are finding out that it never hurts to have a friend in high places.
Once a month we say: “I believe in the communion of saints.” That’s a line from the Apostle’s Creed. We have also been known to sing about “friends on earth and friends above.” That was in our opening hymn this morning. So what does that mean?
I think it means that there is a solidarity of effort that links us both across history and through eternity. People come and people go. And we are empowered by them both while they are hereand after they are gone. Even in their physical absence, they are capable of answering the roll….present and accounted for. Are there limits to that solidarity? I suppose so. But I suspect those limits are far fewer than I once thought.
Will we see them again?
Yes.
Will we know them again?
Yes.
Will we be surprised by the breadth and number of them?
Yes.
Will we draw encouragement from them at some time in the future?
Yes.
Can we draw encouragement from them now?
Yes.
Are they aware of our present-day struggles in life….in church….in faith?
Yes.
Are they capable of offering aid and comfort in those struggles?
Yes.
Do I understand any of this rationally?
No.
Do I believe all of this passionately?
Yes.
Try as I might, I cannot shake these incredible lines from the pen of Colin Morris:
For a battle, cosmic in scope, the militant church requires supernatural allies. And it has them in the Church Triumphant. We must not, in assessing our strength, ignore those regiments camped over the hill. So we would do well to wait until the whole army is assembled before we dismiss our numbers as derisory or our faith as weak. “Therefore with angels and archangels….and with all the company of heaven”….constitutes a formidable fighting force, divided in time and gifts, varied in temperament and resources, but united in a common loyalty to Jesus, by the power of whose cross the legions of hell have been, and will continue to be, put to flight.
In a world where much is against us, they are both aware of us and for us. They are far from indifferent to us. “‘Saints, preserve us,’ yelled old Richard Purvis.” They have. And they will.
* * * * *
Leaving one question hanging. Do you have to be dead to earn the title? Not in Paul’s church, you don’t. And not in my church, either. Every day I see people who have honored the covenant, led by example, rendered practical service, and served Christ. They are numbered among my saints….not because in death they will put in a good word for me, but because in life they have put in a good word for God.
Fred Buechner has a marvelous one-liner for saints. Says Fred: “In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. Those handkerchiefs are called saints.”
They are all over this church, those handkerchiefs….clearly visible to those with eyes to see. I find them….collect them….mop up my messes with them….sop up spilled words with them…. wipe the world’s runny nose with them….cool my sometimes-fevered brow with them….and, occasionally, stuff the pocket closest to my heart with them.
This is the last Sunday in this church for two of them. They are moving on Wednesday. “To everything there is a season,” the Bible says, “and a time for every purpose under heaven.” These two have looked after our bread….both the bread we ingest and the bread we invest….along with a whole host of other things in between. God plucked them from, of all places, Ohio State. Which only proves that God has both an incredible sense of humor and a mighty transforming power. Now God will plant (or drop) them in Pennsylvania.
But the next time the secretary calls the roll and lands on the name Yager (as in “Yager, Paul” or “Yager, Alta”), I will boldly answer, “Here.” And few there are who will call me a liar.
Note: I did not set out to preach a number of sermons on phrases in the Apostle’s Creed. But during the last six months, I have preached sermons entitled “He Descended Into Hell” and “I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body.” This sermon could well have been entitled “The Communion of Saints.” In reality, it was triggered by the mid-August departure of cherished laypersons, Paul and Alta Yager, for Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As with any such sermon, it could have been applied to any number of persons at First Church.
For purposes of effect, I dropped a handkerchief from the pulpit at the appropriate time in the sermon. Fred Buechner’s wonderful line about saints being handkerchiefs dropped by a holy and flirtatious God can be found in his book Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. The wonderful statements about “the regiments camped over the hills” can be found in a book by Colin Morris entitled The Hammer of the Lord. For those unfamiliar with Morris, he is a British Methodist who once spent several years as a missionary to Zambia and, as a close friend of Zambia’s president, Kenneth Kaunda, played a prominent role in Zambia’s freedom struggle. Returning from Africa, he served Wesley’s Chapel in London, following which he became General Secretary of the Methodist Missionary Society of England. Unfortunately, I have lost track of him in recent years.
Information on the word “saints” was gleaned from a trio of biblical dictionaries including those published by Westminster, Harpers and the Interpreter’s Bible series. I also researched the word in Abingdon’s Dictionary of Living Religions.
