“Revealed”
Rev. Matthew Miller
Over time, there are scripture passages that are hard to read or hear without the associations that come with them. Today’s reading comes with two of those for me. One not so good, and another that is the best. The not so good came over 23 years ago when I was being examined for my first call. Not to get too into the weeds on how pastors in our tradition get ordained, but when a pastor gets their first call to ordained ministry in a church, they are examined by the local presbytery. We do this for elders and deacons too, but sessions tend to be a little more forgiving. Anyway, I was being examined and was asked what I thought we would be like in the resurrection. Being a recent seminary graduate, I was willing to give it my all. But I needn’t have bothered. The person asking the question was less interested in what I thought, and more interested in telling me what they already knew. You know how it goes. I think they call it mansplaining. He recited part of this third verse, “when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” In the spirit of compassion I imagine this was a very meaningful verse to the person who shared it. I’m sure that is was an encouragement to imagine oneself as God. I don’t know about that myself. When I’m being honest, I know a little too much about myself to see that as a possibility. But then I think about what we’re celebrating today.
All Saints day wasn’t something that Presbyterians and our Reformed forebears always celebrated. For the longest time we were defined in part by what we were not; namely not Roman Catholic with all those feast days for various saints. But over the past hundred years as we’ve grown more into who we are instead of who we aren’t, our theological underpinnings gave us the freedom to embrace this day and what it’s about. On the one hand All Saints is about honoring and remembering the dead who have gone before us. It’s where we get Halloween celebrations. All Saints used to be called All Hallowed. And just like Christmas, the night before was known as All Hallowed’s Eve; or Halloween for short. So, it sort of makes sense that all the spooky stuff gets attached to a day celebrating the dead. This celebration, however, comes from a fairly bold, and sometimes controversial belief. Namely, that saints are not made and named by us to be feasted on this day or that. Saints are by definition, made by God. To be a saint means to be sanctified, to be hallowed or made holy. When Moses approaches the burning bush in the book of Exodus, he’s instructed to take off his sandals, “for the place on which you are standing is holy,” he is told. It’s holy because God is there. Because God’s presence makes it holy as God his holy. And here is the controversial part. We are all made saints by the presence of God, by the image of God in which we are made. When he is revealed, we will be like him. I see why my examiner loved that verse so much now. Just as I understand why people get nervous when I address them as saints. “Oh, not me,” they’ll protest. “I’m no saint.” But yes. Yes you are.
Which brings me to the other association that I have with this text. The best association. I’m sure you spotted it. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” It’s the scripture that I recite at the end of every baptism. Sometimes I can barely get it out because I get choked up by the beauty of that promise that is sealed in the waters of our baptism. Sometimes it’s holding a baby who as barely roused from sleep for the event. Sometimes they’re wide-eyed and locking eyes with me like they fully grasp what’s going on. Sometimes they’re looking around at all of you strange people have watched them barely escape being drowned by some fool in a black dress. Sometimes they’re wailing, like they really grasp what’s going, like they’ve taken in the fact that their parents have handed them over to be buried with Christ in the waters of baptism, only to be raised with him to new life. Sometimes it’s a child, standing on their own, or with a sister or brother, or a brother from another mother. And sometimes it’s a grown adult; a mother getting baptized alongside her child, or a sixty-year-old man who never got around to it but finds himself eager to know the grace represented in a handful of water poured three times on his head- in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When it’s the babies, it’s easy to connect to those words, that we should be called children of God; that God should see us, and still sees us as this helpless babe, so dependent on those who will feed, nurture, shelter and protect them. But it’s no less profound to see it as full-grown women and men. Who know, in our deepest and most honest selves, that we still depend on those who would feed, nurture, shelter and protect us. I wonder which is more difficult? To believe that we are saints, or that we are children of God; beloved and made holy by the Holy One who has claimed us as their own?
When someone dies, we say that their baptism is made complete in death. What does that mean? Listen again to the words from this letter to the church. “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We are claimed as God’s children by those waters, and what we will be is revealed as that claim finds its fulfillment when we have shuffled off this mortal coil. Theologians often talk about this dynamic of faith: the already… and the not yet. We are already claimed, loved and made holy by God. And we are not yet who we will be as what is perishable in this world takes on imperishability. That is what we celebrate- yes, celebrate- as we remember the saints we have lost in this past year, and years beyond.
Every year when we renew our baptismal covenant, Essie and I fling water at you and say, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.” That is where the practice of gratitude begins. It begins in our baptism that names something fundamental to our life and faith. To remember that we are baptized is to remember that we are- all protests to the contrary- saints, made holy by the love of God that claims us entirely, that cleanses us entirely of our sin for a new kind of life. To remember that we are baptized is to see and know and remember what love God has for us that we should be called children of God, both now and when what we will be is revealed in our deaths. Knowing all that, remembering all that grounds our lives in gratitude because we are assured that the most important thing about us isn’t what we have, or make, or earn or acquire. The most important thing about us is our belovedness as saints of God, children of God. Thank God for that.
And thank God for the church, for the company of the saints past and present who have not only lived into their own belovedness, but who have promised to teach, nurture, pray and love us into our own sense of beloved holiness. When we are grounded in gratitude for all that God has done in us and for us, the natural next step is to ask what God will do through us. As those who have received so much, what do we have to give? Grounded in gratitude we thank God best when we share what we already have been given; all that love and grace and nurture and blessing promised to us in our baptism by the saints who came before us is what we have promised to all the saints who will come after. As well as all the saints who may not know yet or believe the good news that they too are beloved and made holy in the image of God. One great company of saints, children of God- everyone. It is the revelation that like the God who makes it so and called us God’s children, our giving too need know no ending because of the endless love that is ours to share with anyone, with everyone. As they may come to us, and as we may find them where they are- just as God finds us in Jesus Christ. That is our hope now, for all that is not yet.
