All Saints Day 2009 Every saint has a past - every sinner has a future 11/1/2009

The day finally arrives: Forrest Gump dies and goes to heaven. He is met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter himself as Forrest approaches the gatekeeper.

St. Peter says, "Well Forrest, it's certainly good to see you." "We have heard a lot about you. I must inform you that the place is filling fast, and we've been administering an entrance examination for everyone. The tests are fairly short, but you need to pass before you can get into Heaven."

Forrest responds "It shore is good to be here, St. Peter. I was looking forward to this, seein' Mama and Jenny again. Nobody ever told me about any entrance exam. Sure hope the test ain't too hard; life was a big enough test as it was."

St. Peter goes on, "Yes, I know Forrest, but the test I have for you is only three questions;"

1. "Name at least two days of the week beginning with the letter "T".

2. "How many seconds are there in a year?"

3. "What is God's first name?"

"You may take some time to consider your answers, Forrest," says St. Peter. So Forrest goes away to think the questions over. He returns the next day and he goes up to St. Peter to try to answer the exam questions. Peter waves him up and says, "Now that you have had a chance to think the questions over, tell me your answers."

Forrest says, "Well, the first one. At least two days of the week that begin with the letter "T"? Shucks, that one's easy. That'd be Today and Tomorra."

The Saints eyes open wide and he exclaims, "Forrest! That's not what I was thinking, but . . . you do have a point though, and I guess I did not specify, so I’ll give you credit for that answer. How about the next one?" asks St. Peter. "How many seconds in a year?"

"Now that one was harder," says Forrest, "But I thunk and thunk about it and I guess the only answer can be twelve."

Astounded St. Peter says, "Twelve! Twelve! Forrest, how in Heaven's name could you come up with twelve seconds in a year?"

Forrest says "Shucks, sir, there's gotta be twelve: January second, February second, March second . . ."

"Hold it," interrupts St. Peter. "I see where you're going with this. And I guess I see your point, though that wasn't quite what I had in mind, but I'll give you credit for that one, too. Let's go on with the next and final question. Can you tell me God's first name?"

Forrest replied, "Andy."

"OK, OK," said a frustrated St. Peter, "I guess I can understand how you came up with your answers to my first two questions but how in the world did you come up with the name Andy as the first name of God?"

"That was the easiest one of all," Forrest replied "I learned it from that song . . . "ANDY WALKS WITH ME, ANDY TALKS WITH ME, ANDY TELLS ME I AM HIS OWN...

of course, without any word from the astonished St. Peter, the gates opened wide, and Forrest went in!

It is interesting to me that today’s readings are what would generally be considered as funeral readings. They have some sense of focus on heaven or afterlife or resurrection but today we are celebrating All Saints Day not All Soul’s Day. The difference? All Soul’s Day is the day we focus on the remembrance of the faithful departed, or as the speaker at Fall Camp this week said, those who have gone home. All Saints Day is the day we remember the entire communion of saints past and present, those living here and now and those departed from this life into eternal life.

I point out this distinction because we are here today to celebrate the communion of all the saints not just the ones no longer with us on earth. For example, today as we celebrate All Saints Day I want to give thanks for and celebrate the ministry Jim Chipps had among you for 13 years. Since remembering is difficult for him now, let us remember all the good ministry that he was able to do among you and with you in this community.

That too is what we celebrate today – our sense of community – community found in and with God. We are connected to one another more because of God than we are because of close proximity of living space which is why we are also in community with or in communion with folks near and far who believe in God as we have seen Him in Jesus Christ. We are the communion of saints because God makes us so not because we do. And we probably all hesitate to use that word of ourselves. “I am not a saint, I’m a sinner, or at least I’m just me – nobody special.” But there’s where you are wrong. You are a saint – made holy in the blood of Jesus Christ. Sanctus is the Latin word for holy and from it we get the English word saint. We will actually look at this, in some measure, in our Romans class later this morning.

All Saints Day is my reminder every year that I need to focus my thinking and my preaching on living as a saint not just repenting as a sinner. There is a great quote from a Jan Karon book entitled “Light From Heaven”, the last in her Mitford series. It says, “Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.” We all have pasts. Every one of us here is guilty of being a sinner. Every one of us has lied, cheated, stolen, or done some kind of wrong. We have in the past and we will. The marvelous thing is, we have been forgiven our past wrongs and will continue to be forgiven our wrongdoings. Which means that we all have a future. God has claimed each of us as His own and given us the title of saint. That is a reality, and we have the future hope that comes with it. So as we celebrate the feast of All Saints let us remember the gift of grace God has given us in declaring us saints. Then let us share His grace with others remembering that “Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.” Amen.