A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, November 4, 2007
Luke 6:20-31
This time of year is rich with meaning. Harvest season is rapidly giving way to early signs of winter, and Thanksgiving is three weeks away. Nestled in these days is a rich and ancient holy-day that’s unfamiliar to many of us. All Saints Day is November first by our calendar, and this first Sunday following is All Saints Sunday.
If you grew up Catholic you probably know your patron Saint, and may remember a few of the more important Saints for particular causes.
Certain Catholic saints are associated with certain life situations. These patron saints “intercede to God for [devout believers] who can take their special needs to them and know they will listen to our prayers, and pray to God with us.”
• So accountants have St. Matthew;
• doctors have St. Luke;
• dancers have St. Vitus;
• florists have St. Dorothy; and for those who have poor memory… well I don’t recall.
• St. Jude is patron of lost causes, desperate situations, and the Chicago Police Department.
• And for some reason grocers get three – Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.
There’s even an urban legend that surfaced seven years ago, after the 2000 Presidential election, around irregularities in Florida ballot counting. The story says there’s a patron saint of elections, and his name is Saint Chad… There really is such a saint … and no he wasn’t hanged. In fact there isn’t a patron saint of elections, but God knows how relieved we’ll all be when Election Day is behind us.
Well, by the 8th century the Pope had established November 1st to honor all the saints, known and unknown, and to make amends if any of the saint’s feasts had not been sufficiently observed. The night before All Saints Day was called All Hallows’ Eve, or in the old English, Halloween. In generations past both children and adults would parade in costumes that represented the saints. Once a minor holiday, today’s Halloween has emerged as one of the top six for retailers with estimates that this year shoppers in the US would spent nearly $5 billion on costumes and candy.
It’s interesting to note that the Celtic pagans had long observed this same day, October 31st, as Samhain (sow’-en). It’s half way between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, the final harvest celebration, and therefore the last day of the old year. As the earth seems to be dying, Samhain emphasizes mortal death and so is believed to be the time when the veil between this world and the next is thinnest. It’s easy to see why the popular emphasis on things that “pierce the veil” persists.
Since the Reformation in the 16th century Protestants shifted away from the Roman Catholic idea of saints as somehow super-holy disciples who can intercede between us and God. So November 2nd is more our day. It’s All Souls Day, more attentive to remembering all the commonplace, everyday saints who have touched our lives.
As our hymn says, the saints of God are just folk like me… and like you. We know how the love of God shines particularly through some people. I can list a handful of people I’ve known over the years who were true examples of the life of discipleship. You likely can, too. Let’s take a few moments right now in silence so each of us can remember and offer a prayer of thanksgiving.
[Silence]
I’m holding my mother very tenderly in my heart today. I thank each of you for your prayers and love, for each card and email and phone call since her death last week. Several of you met her before age and infirmity overtook her 13 years ago.
But few of you knew of her significant contributions to the United Church of Christ, particularly in the work of including women fully in its life. We may find it hard to imagine that 35 years ago women were marginalized both in church and society. But until a few strong women challenged the powers of male leadership there was more talk than change. My mother was one of many persistent pushers and prodders. (Parenthetically, I firmly believe that in 20 or 30 years our descendents will be amazed to think there was a time when gay and lesbian folks were marginalized in the church.)
Barbara Warren was the first-born in a well-to-do family in Holden, Massachusetts, northwest of Worcester. Her parents were pillars of the Congregational Church. In 1935 she graduated from Mt. Holyoke and followed her dream to continue her studies and become a Christian Education Director. Rather than going east to Boston she headed west and enrolled in Chicago Theological Seminary. There she met an adventurous young man, son of missionary parents, born in Japan. She and my father were married in 1937, and ordained together in the Congregational Church of Roundup, Montana, in 1938. They were the only pastors covering 900 square miles of forest and prairie. Their parsonage was a lean-to attached to the church, with an outhouse out back. They served together for that year but in 1939 my oldest brother was born and for the next 30 years, my mother’s primary focus was raising the four kids, supporting my father in his ministries, and leading various kinds of workshops.
Dad moved up the ecclesiastical ladder with calls to South Dakota, Oregon, Illinois, Wisconsin, and then Conference Minister of Southern California. In 1967, my dad died very suddenly of a heart attack. Mom was 53. His untimely death forced my mother into a new chapter. Ironically, it also confirmed a deep passion for justice and the strength to pursue it. She joined the national staff for the United Church of Christ, moved to New York City, and dealt with her bone-deep grief.
Then, in 1972, in one of those moments when grace and synchronicity seem to merge, she was called to be a catalyst in the emerging movement for the full empowerment of women within the church. At that time only 8.5% of students in UCC seminaries were women. Only 2.5% of the ordained pastors in the UCC were women. And only 1% of the pastors serving churches were women.
Mom was appointed by the President of the UCC to be the point person for calling the church – at all levels – to embrace the gifts of women for ministry. She was well-suited because she was trusted by the women who led the historic fellowships like Church Women United. She was trusted by the many who knew her through my father. And she was ideal because she was a strong, persistent, advocate who was no longer hidden by my father’s well-earned and loving, but very significant shadow. Mother stood tall all by herself. She told us later that she was treated shabbily by some of the powerful male leaders in the church who thought she and other women should just quiet down and be patient and get back in their places.
Just 18 months later, at the 1973 General Synod, the Task Force on Women in Church and Society, led by my mother, gave their report. The log jam was broken. And with a resounding vote of support, delegates established the Coordinating Center for Women in Church and Society. She was recognized for her pioneering work with an honorary doctorate in 1973, and with the Antoinette Brown Award for women in ministry in 1987. In her second career she moved to the Boston area and with her counseling credentials she worked for many years as a mentor and guide for seminary women who had a chance to meet one of the trailblazers, ordained so many years before.
The Rev. Dr. Barbara Warren McCall. Mom.
If each of us were to tell aloud about an everyday saint we’ve known do you suppose they’d have anything in common? Several things come to mind.
For one, I’d guess a true saint is the last one to recognize that she or he is a saint! The true saints among us are people of humility who don’t draw attention to themselves but simply go about life, doing the right thing and easing other’s burden. Think of Mother Teresa who took on the burdens of the poorest in India. Think of a hospice nurse or a patient therapist who can help others put their lives back together.
Secondly, I think saints teach the faith by living it much more than by talking about it: the quiet deed of kindness, or just being there. By being present to us in our times of questioning or anxious worry everyday saints give us perspective and hope.
Third, I think saints are those wise souls who keep the faith regardless of what life hands them. Everyday saints are persistent.
In our Gospel lesson today we hear Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. He says the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful and the persecuted can leap with joy because they will experience a great reward. When we encounter a truly godly person we may never see the struggles that shaped them. But we know that life’s most important lessons don’t come from times of comfort and ease, rather from times of challenge and disappointment.
On this All Saints Sunday we can thank God together for the everyday saints, and for each one who connects us to the larger life in the Spirit… certainly including some of you right here.