Hole-y Shoes, Holy People of Grace

A sermon by the Rev. C. Dean Taylor

All Saints Day, Nov. 1, 2009

It’s become a kind of ritual with the Pre-School children, at least a couple of times a week. When they come upstairs and wait for the parents to pick them up, they line up in the hall way, sitting down, “backs against the wall,” as the teachers tell them.

Sometimes I hang out with them as they’re waiting to be picked up, and you never know quite what will happen. On one particular day last Spring, I happened to have come in out of the rain. And, as it happened, the shoes I was wearing—I tend to wear shoes ALL THE WAY OUT, and I never know how bad they are, well, until it rains usually.

So it had rained, and I mentioned to one of the teachers, “Well, I just found out that I have a hole in my shoe.” One of the kids heard this and was instantly fascinated. “Where?” he said. “Right here” I answered, and showed the shoe, the hole.

“Whooooah, look!” he said, and everybody was completely fascinated. They had to see it, closely inspect it, turn their own shoes over to see if they had any holes in their shoes; some even had to poke their finger in the hole to make sure it was real. (Sorry, parents, I don’t guess that’s your idea of why you sent your kids to Pre School, or your idea of the best hygene.)

And even to this day, they MUST see my shoes, to inspect for holes. In fact, I just keep the old pair in my office with the holes, so as not to disappoint. But I finally asked last week, “What should I do?” Lots of helpful answers:

“Scotch Tape. Yeah, tape ‘em up.” “Get your Mama to get you some new shoes.” “Umm, Umm, I don’t know what you can do! ”So I say, in a dark, low voice, “What happens if I don’t fix these shoes?”

“Oh, you’ll die,” says a sweet faced girl, quite matter of factly.

2.

Which is, I suppose, the spirit of All Saints. No fear about death here. To this child, the concept of death is about as ordinary as going out the door. Wash your hands after you sneeze, or you’ll die. Don’t fix those holes in your shoes, you’ll die.

Very ordinary: you’re here in this room now, and later, you’re not. I suppose birth is probably the same. One minute you’re not here, another minute, you’ve walked through the door into the room.

You might say that All Saints begins as a celebration of all of those souls—Greek is “hagios” or saints—all those souls “in Christ” who have gone on through the door ahead of us. But it’s more than that. It’s also a reminder that we, too, on this side of the door, are also saints, saints in light.

A reminder that to be, as we say, God’s people, headed for the kingdom, means that there is an abiding presence, an abiding force of being that we can only call love, that somehow knew us even before we were born, guides and heals and forgives and inspires us in this life, and even goes before us, leading us through that door into the Kingdom.

What’s through that door? All we know is that our wildest imaginations can’t contain it. Can’t describe with words or images how much Love Itself will draw us into the Kingdom and, well, love us. Even the wild imagery of Revelation in this morning’s lessons can’t really come close.

There’s this great throne, and beings in white simply worshipping and rejoicing. In other words, it’s something like a big party. And the one thing we absolutely know about this realm on the other side of the door is that at this party, there is no more hunger or thirst or scorching heat, only springs of living water. And, the ONE on the throne will “wipe away every tear from every eye.”

All Saints Day reminds us of that future reality, so that we can have the confidence in this room to be those “blessed” people—people who know where they’re going—and be free to be peace makers, and justice makers, and healers, and lovers.

3.

But then I suppose that leads us to the other important thing, which is this. We are all saints not because of something we did or refrained from doing. No, not at all. We are all saints because God who is love made us his children. He knew us even before we were conceived, and made a decision to take us in as his children. The word in our language to describe what happens when love takes in the beloved is “adoption”.

In a sense, to be a child of God is to be adopted, adopted as God’s children, God’s saints. In some ways the liturgy of adoption found in our Prayer Book, is the most perfect reflection of the way God who is love chose us all. It is intentional and explicit. It is a choice, which lies at the heart of love itself.

“Do you take this child for your own?” “I do.” In some way that we try to describe in that doctrine called the Trinity, God had that dialogue within God’s self, and said, to each and every one of us, “Yes. I do. I take this soul as my own child, and I will never let her go, through this door, that door, wherever. She’s mine. No power in heaven or on earth can separate me from this soul.

In the litany of adoption, the priest says this: As God has made us children by adoption and grace, may you receive this child as your own daughter.

That sums it up quite well; All saints reminds us that all of us, all of us saints, all of us, God’s children, are so “by adoption and grace.” Nothing random here, nothing accidental, no happenstance, no. By the providence of God, there is an adoption in all our stories.

We are all adopted, all children by His choice, children of the one unseen presence of love, whose spirit hovers over our lives, and infuses it with a love that we can scarcely imagine.

God has made us all his children, by adoption and grace. Happy All Saints’ Day. Welcome to the kingdom.