All Saints

Luke 20:27-38

All Saints was on Tuesday this past week. We celebrate with special readings and with hymns, a board with saints remembered and a list of names. More than a list though is what the scriptures from the propers of today have to tell us about this day. Haggai the prophet asks the people to remember their story, not just a destroyed temple. Remember Egypt, then you have to remember Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. The three who led the Hebrew people through the wilderness. This is the beginning of faith. The fabric of history.

Jesus brings it up with the Sauducees, God is a God of the living, it is why Moses said you are the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. Those fathers of the beginnings of the faith. Yes, these are all people like you and me, they are all connected to us in story. The very fabric of failing and triumphing. The example of having faith and trust and being human. The very examples of faith and doubt. If you read their stories you see this in every single one. None are perfect, all are human.

This week a lot of stories have been told about the beginnings of black people being able to vote. How at the registration places they were given different tests that no white person had to do. They were made to walk from place to place until the voting centers were closed and they weren't able to vote. These were all reasons given as to why they vote. Know your history, know your story. Defend it with the right your grandfathers and grandmothers struggled and fought to gain.

This is what All Saints gives to us. Not a far wandering journey of our faith. It is much closer than that. First it is what is your story of faith? How do you come to be sitting here in this pew today? All of us have those saints in our lives who pointed the way. Mine is woven with a nana who gave me a children's Bible, a mother who took us to church every Sunday, a rich history of a great grandfather who rode a circuit, and a great-uncle I saw preach one Sunday and the sermon isn't what I remember. It is the memorization of the first part of John's gospel that has stayed with me. What is your story?

Even Holy Cross is a part of the story. What happened here, how it started, then every time someone new walks through and joins us our story is changed. Influenced by their coming and going. Whether its Barbara Wade or Bob Montgomery or Ron Cummings or Harold Bradon, or Dru Strahan it doesn't matter. They all were here, they all did different things to our story and this influence keeps going on. We remember that today. To be inspired we are not orphans, but we are God's children. All potential saints, all human, all  believing, all our failings and our successes, all a part of the fabric. And I want to be one too.