ALL SAINTS DAY SERMON Nov. 3, 2002 by CHRIS HINNEN  

1 John 3: 1-3 Matthew 5: 1-12

As I approached this sermon for All Saints’ Sunday I began to feel the paradox of this kind of day. As we celebrate the lives of those departed, we are aware of the loss of those whom we have loved.

Perhaps this year is a little more difficult for me as I am not preaching in the abstract. My mother died earlier this year so this celebration of all the saints has become a day of personal feeling for me. 

What I like about this day of celebration though is that is allows us to think of our loved ones death in a very spiritual way. Listen to John as he writes in his first letter.

“See what God has given us, that we should be called children of God.”
“And that is what we are!!”
“We are God’s children now . . . “
“. . . we will be like Christ. . . 
. . . and all who have this hope purify themselves as Christ is pure.

We grieve.
But, we celebrate.

We grieve.
But, we celebrate.

We celebrate the lives of those whom we have touched. 
We celebrate the lives of those who touched us, but who now touch us from their spiritual bodies. 
However life has been, and admittedly life may not have always been so great with the other . . . 
However life has been, we know that those whom we have loved are in a better place. 

This place is described in the Book of Revelation as a place where John saw “. . . . a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, from all tribes and all peoples and languages, standing before the throne (of God) and before the Lamb (Jesus Christ).”

We are a privileged people. 
We march in a grand processional.
We march with all the saints of all times and all places.
We march with people of all tribes and cultures toward the eternal place promised to us in the heavens.
We march with those whom we have loved but see no more.

Today is one of those days that seems to speak to us so powerfully.
The beatitudes take on special meaning today.
It is very real for us that those who hungered no longer hunger.
It is very real for us that those who were thirsty no longer thirst.
It is very real for us that those who mourned weep no more.
And, again from revelation, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Indeed, these speak not only of our loved ones who have died, but for us who are living as we remember them.
We are children of God. Those whom we have loved are also children of God, but they have gone home from their labors. They have found everlasting rest.

Melissa’s Response: June 16, 2021

Cassie and I read your All Saints Day sermon as part of your funeral 9 years ago. I still remember the heaviness and grief as we read the complex words of hope that you had proclaimed just months after Gramma died. 

The Gospel declares that we are all beloved children of God. And the reality is that for better or worse, we are also children of those who raised us. It’s good to remember the best qualities about those we loved, but I wonder if by “canonizing” them as saints, we lose site of the fullness of their complicated humanity.

I think about Gramma a lot, especially recently. Perhaps it’s because I am now a grandmother. I’ve always been fascinated and conflicted by her background, growing up in Yokohama’s British consulate in prewar Japan.

Her father died when she was less than a year old. He was only 29 but she never shared with me how that impacted her life or what it was like for her mother to raise her as a single parent. She wasn’t religious but somehow you and Aunt Margee both grew into committed followers of Jesus. Gramma was so proud of you and your ministry. 

As little kids, when my sister and I stayed with Gramma, we woke up to a metal tv tray next to our beds with a child’s tea set on it. We played with her make up samples and dressed up with her clip on earrings and beads, mimicking her British accent and sipping water from our tea cups. When she was still working at the pharmaceutical company, she let us help ourselves to office supplies and took us to the company cafeteria (where she would stash packets of sugar into her pocketbook).  She loved introducing us to her friends. As we got older and she didn’t know quite what to get us, she put cash in appropriately sized boxes with a corresponding note: This is clothes. This is music. This is a book. 

In our teen years, Gramma invited me and a girlfriend to stay with her for two weeks. What a brave woman! She took us to whatever movie we wanted to see. I still cringe with appreciation that she took me to see Purple Rain. Sorry. Not sorry. I was only 13 and the movie was rated R. Gramma kept trying to get me to go buy some popcorn but I wasn’t going to miss a minute of Prince.

We loved our dinners out, clothes shopping excursions, theatre nights, and browsing in the used bookstore at the bottom of her hill. Back at her house we made elaborate mocktails with ginger-ale while we watched hours of MTV since we didn’t have cable or soda at home. 

Later when I was a young unmarried teenage mom, Gramma embraced me and welcomed my daughter. And she never made me feel like she was disappointed or ashamed of me. Or that she loved me or Cassie any less. 

It wasn’t until I was older that I realized she struggled with a sense of self worth. She was hospitalized with depression, battled addiction to alcohol and pills, had an extramarital affair for years with a married man, and (courageously) left Grandpa and lived by herself in retirement. 

Certainly her challenges impacted you as her son in ways that I will never know. But I also wonder if it was in fighting some of her own demons and insecurity that the cracks in her humanity allowed her to create that safe space for me as her grandchild. We are so much more than the worst parts of ourselves – more than a dichotomy of saint or sinner.

There is a sense of wanting to protect Gramma and her memory. But in grieving loss and celebrating life we acknowledge the fullness of our loved ones’ experiences. The totality of who she was is part of who you were and what makes me who I am today. And as much as I miss you and her, there is celebration for the love you lived and the peace you have found in death, reconciled with our creator. Perhaps that is a better definition of what it means to be a “saint.” Those who lived the best life they knew how, complicated and messy, but always with a core of love.

We grieve.
But, we celebrate.

You preached on that All Saints Sunday:

I think we sometimes think of communion as just a ritual. But it is more than that. Through Holy Communion, we join together with the saints in our lives in a very real way.

As they sit around the table of Christ, so too, do we. – It is a table of communion. 

This means that we commune with them through the love of Jesus Christ who rose back into life.

This one is the same as the one who lives in that place of everlasting life with our family, friends, and neighbors who are no longer with us. It is a wonderful time of spirit engaging spirit. 

Creative Expression inspired by The Beatitudes: Matthew 5:1-12

By Melissa Hinnen 6/17/21

“Blessed are the children of single parents, for theirs is the kin-dom, the family, of God. 

“Blessed are those who are depressed, for they will know they will know joy.

“Blessed are those with cracks in their humanity, for they will be broken open and healed. 

“Blessed are the ones trapped by circumstance, for they will inherit freedom.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for love in all the wrong places, for they will be embraced by eternal love. 

“Blessed are the demon fighters, for they will receive peace. 

“Blessed are those who don’t recognize their sacred worth, for they will see in themselves the image of God.

“Blessed are the doting Grammas, for they will be doted on.

“Blessed are the elders who welcome rebellious teenagers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are the imperfect people, for they will be named saints.

“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, and as spirit engages with spirit, your life is celebrated in the fullness of the love you live. 

In the fall (2020), I took a New York Theological Seminary “Urban Leadership Seminar” with Bishop Alfred Johnson for continuing education. Our guest lecturer, Dr. Wanda Lundy, encouraged us to be aware of the gifts of our ancestors. How do their voices and lives shape our ministry? How do they continue to speak to us?

I thought of a treasure box of my dad’s sermons, tucked away in my home office cabinet and realized it is time to have some new conversations with my father.  As my “sending” pastor, mentor, and dear family friend, Bishop Johnson also had served as my father’s bishop so it is perhaps fitting that it was in his class that this project began to take shape. With the support of my Creative Haven sisters, I began the process this year.