Party Invitations for Everyone
November 3rd 2024 All Saints’ Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Exodus 17:1-7 and Revelation 21:1-4
“Party Invitations for Everyone”
Douglas T. King
There is an old Jewish folktale that I am going to do my best to pull up from memory. There were three rabbis sitting in the synagogue debating how to discern when the dawn of the day has officially arrived. The first rabbi said the dawn of the day arrives when there is enough light to discern the difference between a purple strand of thread and a blue strand of thread. The second rabbi said the dawn of the day arrives when there is enough light to discern the difference between a blue strand of thread and a black strand of thread. The third rabbi announced that the dawn of the day arrives when you can look in the face of all those who cross your path and you can recognize they are beloved children of God.
This is a story we need to carry with us on this day of our liturgical calendar, and in this season of our lives together.
Today is All Saints’ Sunday when we celebrate and remember all of those who have left behind their mortal limitations and have gathered around heaven’s throne, one and all redeemed and sanctified. In our reformed tradition we do not focus upon individual uber-do-gooders but upon the gift of God’s grace which leads all of us, oh so vastly imperfect as we are, into sainthood. Our text from Revelation tells of a glorious wedding feast, a celebration to end all celebrations, as God finds a home among us and invites us past all of our failures and imperfections as individuals and as a society. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, it is believed every time we gather for worship the angels descend into the sanctuary and a raucous party breaks out where one and all celebrate and one and all are celebrated.
This is also the Sunday before our upcoming national election, and that hardly feels like a celebration. In the midst of the current climate of division there is no sign of one and all being celebrated. In a nation with so many blessings there is rancor and mistrust and fear. Which brings us to our text from Exodus this morning. The Israelites have been led by God’s powerful hand from slavery to freedom. They have been greatly blessed. And they have been promised that they will be led to a land of abundance. But right now they are in the wilderness. And they are filled with rancor, and mistrust, and fear.
It is the final line of this text from Exodus which always captures my imagination. “Is the Lord among us or not?” In English it is a fairly straightforward complaint. Where are you God? How come you are not taking care of us? At this point in their journey in the wilderness they are very young in their lives as liberated people. For generations they had been enslaved by the Egyptians. And now they are going through the growing pains of what it means to stand on their own. They are like cranky teenagers learning to navigate the world and always blaming external sources for their struggles.
But this complaint, “Is the Lord among us or not?” has a multivalent tone in the original Hebrew. The word for “among” is “bekirbenu.” “Bekirbenu” can be accurately translated as “among,” but it can also be translated as “within.” Listen to how the closing line of how this text sounds with this alternative translation. “Is the Lord within us or not?” To my ear that brings a significant shift to the call of complaint. It is no longer a finger pointed outward solely blaming the external for the current crisis. It is also directed back upon themselves. Perhaps the Israelites are also asking, are we struggling because we have not welcomed the divine within ourselves? Perhaps they are beginning to explore what it means to be freed people with their own agency to respond to the challenges before them. God has done extraordinary things for them. And God has made them an extraordinary promise of what awaits them. They need to face the challenge of living in the in-between time. It is not the easiest task to live in the time between receiving such a great promise and having that promise fulfilled.
We as Christians live in our own in-between time. In Jesus Christ, we have not only been promised that we are forgiven for all of our shortcomings and failures; we have also been promised we will be led beyond all of our shortcomings and failures. We will be sanctified. We will be the people God created us to be. When all is said and done, we will be saints at that great celebratory party.
Admittedly, for most of us, that is a difficult thing to imagine, being saints. But I am here to tell you, it is going to get a lot harder to imagine. As we stand here, having yet to receive the promise of the perfection of God’s reign realized in our midst, we still have death and mourning. We still have crying and pain. We still have a world that is struggling to live together. We still have toxic divisions in our nation. We still often view those who disagree with our political perspective as the other; as two-dimensional caricatures of moral failure. And here is the hard part. Those people who we view as stupid, or unworthy or ethically lacking, they are going to be at the party. They are going to be saints right beside us.
All Saints Day brings us two realizations. The first? God has deemed us worthy enough to lead us to perfection. The second? God has deemed those whom we believe are less than worthy, worthy to be led to perfection.
We have received the promise of all that is to come as God makes a home in the midst of us mortals. It is a remarkable gift and a humbling gift. It is humbling because how is it possible that God would choose the likes of you and me to become saints? And it is humbling because all sorts of people that we believe are less than worthy have been chosen by God to be saints as well.
It has become increasingly popular for all of us to blame the problems of the world on “them,” those who differ from us. We are oh so ready to yell and complain to Moses; to believe that what is not working in the world is always external to us. “Is the Lord among us or not?” But let’s hear the alternative translation in these days, “Is the Lord within us or not?” If we invite God to be within us, we are being called to think about others the way that God thinks about them. Those with whom we disagree, even vehemently, are saints in the making,
as are we.
As we enter this week of uncertainty and tension and discord let us be reminded of the promises given to us by our God. We are being promised that we are on the journey to sainthood. And those with whom we disagree have been promised that they are on the journey to sainthood. Let us be filled with both gratitude and humility, even and especially in these tumultuous times. Let us strive to have the Lord within us that we may extend that grace to all of God’s saints in the making.
When can we tell that the dawn of the day has arrived? When we can look in the face of all those who cross our paths and we can discern that they are beloved children of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Exodus 17:1-7 and Revelation 21:1-4
“Party Invitations for Everyone”
Douglas T. King
There is an old Jewish folktale that I am going to do my best to pull up from memory. There were three rabbis sitting in the synagogue debating how to discern when the dawn of the day has officially arrived. The first rabbi said the dawn of the day arrives when there is enough light to discern the difference between a purple strand of thread and a blue strand of thread. The second rabbi said the dawn of the day arrives when there is enough light to discern the difference between a blue strand of thread and a black strand of thread. The third rabbi announced that the dawn of the day arrives when you can look in the face of all those who cross your path and you can recognize they are beloved children of God.
This is a story we need to carry with us on this day of our liturgical calendar, and in this season of our lives together.
Today is All Saints’ Sunday when we celebrate and remember all of those who have left behind their mortal limitations and have gathered around heaven’s throne, one and all redeemed and sanctified. In our reformed tradition we do not focus upon individual uber-do-gooders but upon the gift of God’s grace which leads all of us, oh so vastly imperfect as we are, into sainthood. Our text from Revelation tells of a glorious wedding feast, a celebration to end all celebrations, as God finds a home among us and invites us past all of our failures and imperfections as individuals and as a society. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, it is believed every time we gather for worship the angels descend into the sanctuary and a raucous party breaks out where one and all celebrate and one and all are celebrated.
This is also the Sunday before our upcoming national election, and that hardly feels like a celebration. In the midst of the current climate of division there is no sign of one and all being celebrated. In a nation with so many blessings there is rancor and mistrust and fear. Which brings us to our text from Exodus this morning. The Israelites have been led by God’s powerful hand from slavery to freedom. They have been greatly blessed. And they have been promised that they will be led to a land of abundance. But right now they are in the wilderness. And they are filled with rancor, and mistrust, and fear.
It is the final line of this text from Exodus which always captures my imagination. “Is the Lord among us or not?” In English it is a fairly straightforward complaint. Where are you God? How come you are not taking care of us? At this point in their journey in the wilderness they are very young in their lives as liberated people. For generations they had been enslaved by the Egyptians. And now they are going through the growing pains of what it means to stand on their own. They are like cranky teenagers learning to navigate the world and always blaming external sources for their struggles.
But this complaint, “Is the Lord among us or not?” has a multivalent tone in the original Hebrew. The word for “among” is “bekirbenu.” “Bekirbenu” can be accurately translated as “among,” but it can also be translated as “within.” Listen to how the closing line of how this text sounds with this alternative translation. “Is the Lord within us or not?” To my ear that brings a significant shift to the call of complaint. It is no longer a finger pointed outward solely blaming the external for the current crisis. It is also directed back upon themselves. Perhaps the Israelites are also asking, are we struggling because we have not welcomed the divine within ourselves? Perhaps they are beginning to explore what it means to be freed people with their own agency to respond to the challenges before them. God has done extraordinary things for them. And God has made them an extraordinary promise of what awaits them. They need to face the challenge of living in the in-between time. It is not the easiest task to live in the time between receiving such a great promise and having that promise fulfilled.
We as Christians live in our own in-between time. In Jesus Christ, we have not only been promised that we are forgiven for all of our shortcomings and failures; we have also been promised we will be led beyond all of our shortcomings and failures. We will be sanctified. We will be the people God created us to be. When all is said and done, we will be saints at that great celebratory party.
Admittedly, for most of us, that is a difficult thing to imagine, being saints. But I am here to tell you, it is going to get a lot harder to imagine. As we stand here, having yet to receive the promise of the perfection of God’s reign realized in our midst, we still have death and mourning. We still have crying and pain. We still have a world that is struggling to live together. We still have toxic divisions in our nation. We still often view those who disagree with our political perspective as the other; as two-dimensional caricatures of moral failure. And here is the hard part. Those people who we view as stupid, or unworthy or ethically lacking, they are going to be at the party. They are going to be saints right beside us.
All Saints Day brings us two realizations. The first? God has deemed us worthy enough to lead us to perfection. The second? God has deemed those whom we believe are less than worthy, worthy to be led to perfection.
We have received the promise of all that is to come as God makes a home in the midst of us mortals. It is a remarkable gift and a humbling gift. It is humbling because how is it possible that God would choose the likes of you and me to become saints? And it is humbling because all sorts of people that we believe are less than worthy have been chosen by God to be saints as well.
It has become increasingly popular for all of us to blame the problems of the world on “them,” those who differ from us. We are oh so ready to yell and complain to Moses; to believe that what is not working in the world is always external to us. “Is the Lord among us or not?” But let’s hear the alternative translation in these days, “Is the Lord within us or not?” If we invite God to be within us, we are being called to think about others the way that God thinks about them. Those with whom we disagree, even vehemently, are saints in the making,
as are we.
As we enter this week of uncertainty and tension and discord let us be reminded of the promises given to us by our God. We are being promised that we are on the journey to sainthood. And those with whom we disagree have been promised that they are on the journey to sainthood. Let us be filled with both gratitude and humility, even and especially in these tumultuous times. Let us strive to have the Lord within us that we may extend that grace to all of God’s saints in the making.
When can we tell that the dawn of the day has arrived? When we can look in the face of all those who cross our paths and we can discern that they are beloved children of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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