2 Advent

December 8, 2019

Romans 15.4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

December 8, 2019

Romans 15.4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

+ So, do you want to feel good on this Second Sunday in Advent? I feel this good this morning. I feel really good this morning. After 11 years as your Priest-in-Charge, I’m about to become your Rector. This is a big day.

And not just for me. It’s a big day for St. Stephen’s. But I’ll get into all of that in a moment.

It is also a big day for me too, I have to admit.  It is my birthday today. I’m 50 years old. So, I’m feeling very good and very thankful this  morning.

But do you want to feel good this morning? Do you want to remember something that will warm the cockles of your hearts (I don’t know what cockles are or where they are, but it sounds nice to have them warmed).

OK.

So, let’s go back.

Let’s go back to when we young and innocent.

Let’s go back to this time of the year when we were kids.

We have just turned on our big 1960s 1970s 1980s console TV.

And what do we see?

We see a blizzard, people pushing their cars from snow drifts.

We see newspaper headlines coming at us:

COLD WAVE IN 12^TH DAY and FOUL WEATHER MAY POSTPONE CHRISTMAS.

Then we see the credits:

RANKIN/BASS PRESENT

There’s Sam the Snowman, voiced by none other than the great Burl Ives, who proceeds to sing the title song.

RUDOLPH THE REDNOSED REINDEER.

You feel pretty good right now don’t you?

Our own Kris Vossler says that the film is actually not a very nice one, because the actual message of the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is this:

People are mean.

People are jerks.

Everybody made fun of Rudolph because he was different.

Then, when they needed him, when they needed help from his very imperfection—his shining nose—then they were nice. They used poor Rudolph. And that story is sad.

Rudolph shines with this bright beautiful light and he has to constantly hide his glow.

Poor Rudolph!

But for any of you who have been here at St. Stephen’s for any length of time, you know where I’m going with all of this. You know that I’m going to my favorite part of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

Yes, it’s the Island of Misfit Toys.

When I was a kid, that’s the what I loved the most. Or maybe I should say, that’s what I related to the most. After all, I always felt like a misfit toy. I never really felt like I fit in. I felt always a bit odd, a bit different.  (I know that’s hard to  believe because you have this with-it, together, normal priest standing before you this morning)

And so, I understood this place—this Island of Misfit Toys, this magical place where all the misfit, slightly off toys went.

A place where the toy train has square wheels on its caboose, or the cowboy who rides an ostrich, or a water  pistol the squirts jelly,

You’ve heard me say this over and over again, but if there was an Episcopal Church on the Island of Misfit Toys, it would be St. Stephen’s.

I could be the Priest, I would be the Rector.

I think the Island of Misfit Toys is a great analogy of what the Kingdom of God is like. Probably some hipster, pop theologian has already made this connection somewhere.  If they haven’t, I should probably put a copyright on this idea I had.

A kingdom built up not of the perfect ones. But a Kingdom built up of Misfits, though misfits made perfect in the eyes of God.

We, at St. Stephen’s, are a kind of Island of misfit Toys. We are place made of people who didn’t quite fit in in the other churches we belonged. And even we as a congregation are not quite like other congregations around us.

Our own Senior Warden shared a wonderful story a few weeks ago. Steve Bolduc was relating how there was a Regional Gathering here at St. Stephen’s about twenty years ago.  (This was before I got here). As the people were lining up for lunch, Steve overheard a long-time priest of this diocese say to someone else:

“Ah, St. Stephen’s it’s so low-church and plain, it should be called Mister Stephen’s.”

Well, we ain’t that anymore. We, this Island of Misfit Toys, went from the lowest low church congregation in the diocese to the highest Anglo-Catholic congregation.

You don’t believe me?

Did you smell the incense when you came in?

And come next week.

We’re the only congregation in this diocese bedecking ourselves in rose-colored vestments next week.

So, why do we do this? Because that’s just who we are. We like to keep ‘em guessin’… Just when anytime tries to peg us, we rebound and surprise everyone.

I, for one, love that and I love that that’s who we are. I love the fact that we are a place made up of people who felt like we just didn’t quite fit in there, but here we really seem to hit our stride, even despite the fact that our pews our don’t match and our bell doesn’t fit in the tower, and we have really smart mice who are really good at avoiding the traps we set for them ( as a vegan I’m actually kinda happy about that)

Imperfect as we are, we still celebrate a truly beautiful mass, we have lovely windows, we wear lovely vestments, we ring our bells really loud and we smoke the place up with incense and we actually go out into the world and try to change that world for the better.

The joke among the Catholics who know about us is that St. Stephen’s does Catholic better than some of the Roman Catholics.  And we do.

And none of what we do should be working.

We’re hearing people around us telling us the church is dying. But here we are doing what we do in our own way, and, for us, you know what? It works. And it works well.

For me the story of Rudolph is about really embracing our imperfections, and how what seems like imperfections to others, can be used in positive and wonderful ways.

Well, this morning, this Island of Misfit Toys, this strange, eccentric, slightly odd congregation of St. Stephen’s, is celebrating.

And we’re not just celebrating your imperfect, misfit  priest being 50, or even the fact that he’s being made your Rector.

We are celebrating what this Rectorship means. Rectorship is not just about the priest. It is about all of us. It is about a congregation that, although seemingly outside the norm, we have built ourselves up, with God’s love and grace. This is about all of the ministry we do here. It is about being a fully-functioning, fully independent congregation with a Rector—someone we get to choose, we get to call, we get to have share with us in our ministries.

For the first time since 2000, and with the change of policy in this diocese, we can now call our own  Rector. And, within the next few short months, we’ll have a deacon too!  And today all of that is what we celebrate.

Calling a Rector after almost 20 years is a sign that we have now returned to that place where we were decades ago, which is something you don’t hear about in churches these days.

You want proof of that?

A few weeks ago, on November 3^rd, we celebrated our 9^th baptism this year here at St. Stephen’s. The last time we had 9 baptisms in one year at St. Stephen’s, Lyndon Johnson was president (that was in 1967). I wasn’t even born yet. And I’m 50.

This year we were the 3rd largest congregation in the diocese. 15 years ago we were the seventh. 

As we hear stories of congregations faltering and losing members, and fretting over closing their doors, we celebrate the growth and the vitality that we have here at St. Stephen’s and, with it, we celebrate that ability to say “we have a Rector.” We don’t say that proudly. We don’t say that with conceit. We actually say all of that with tears in our eyes and true sadness for those congregations that cannot do that.

In fact, we, as a congregation, were, only 20 or 30 years ago, in the same place many congregations are now.  

Some of us here remember well those days of uncertainty, those days when these pews were not full, when we went years and years without any baptisms or weddings or new members or even visitors, when people were transferring their memberships in droves out of St. Stephen’s to other congregations, when the future of St. Stephen’s seemed uncertain, when people were saying, “St. Stephen’s should just close.”  We remember those days.

And if don’t, we should.

And we need to say, “Those days will never happen again.”

This is why we are grateful today.

See, it’s not just about Fr. Jamie being Rector today. It is about all of us today. And that is important.

In a few moments, after I am installed, we will process back to the baptismal font, we will renew our baptismal vows, we will be sprinkled with holy water and we will be renewed in ourselves to continue to do the ministries we do.

Today, we are being called.

Called to follow Jesus.

To be true disciples of Jesus in this world.

To be Jesus’ hands and feet and voice in this world.

Today we are being built up.

Today, we are all being affirmed, each of us, as truly loved children of a living, loving God.  Each of is being affirmed as individual special children of that loving God—a God who does not see misfits.

And it is very appropriate that we are doing this in this season of Advent, this season of excruciating expectation and hope.

Hope.

Today is all about hope. .

Hope.

Hope for us, as Christians, is a matter of confidence.

It is a matter of believing that no matter how fractured and crazy this life gets, there is the promise of newness and fullness to this life.

Hope means that, yes, we might be misfit toys on some exiled island, but we are not just misfits, but we are special and perfect in the eyes of God.

And we can make that island misfit fabulous!

Hope means that yes, like Rudolph, people are going treat us terribly at times, people are going to use us, but we will still rise above all of that because we are loved by a God who really does care, who does love us and know us

And you know what? like Rudolph, we will shine. We will shine with light of Christ!  And nothing can hide or dampen that light within us.

Today, though, we celebrate. We celebrate God’s goodness to us. We celebrate the wonderful things God has granted us. We celebrate the grace of our lives.

The kingdom of heaven is near.

That Kingdom of people—misfits, people on the fringe, people who swim against the stream, people who step outside the expected boundaries of the world a bit.

That Kingdom is near.

In fact it’s nearer than we can probably ever hope or imagine.

So, let us be prepared.

Let us watch.

Let us wait.

Let us hope.

For this anticipation—this wonderful and beautiful hope—is merely a pathway on which Christ’s shining Light can come to us here in our darkness and shine within us a brightness that never fade.

1 Advent

December 1, 2019

Romans 13.11-14

+ I have realized this in my life: there are two types of people in the world. There are morning people. And there are people who are not morning people. I don’t know what you would call those people.

I don’t think it comes as surprise to anyone here that I am, very much, a morning person. I love mornings. If you notice, I am often sending out text messages and emails fairly early in the morning.  I love getting up early in the morning, and I love getting most of my work done early.  I always have.  There is nothing like that moment of waking up to a new day. It’s always been special to me.  And I think I’m not the only one.

Which is why I love, on this first Sunday of Advent, this theme of waking up. That is what Advent is all about, after all.

Waking up.

Waking up spiritually.

It’s an important theme for us as Christians.

Jesus tells us in our Gospel reading for today, it is time for us to “Keep awake.”

Keep awake, we hear him say. Why? Because something big, something wonderful is about to happen. God is about to draw close to us. The veil between us and God is going to get very thin. And holiness will draw close.  It is a time for us to wake from our slumber, from our spiritual sleep, to be awake and aware.

In the reading from his  letter to the Romans this morning, we find Paul saying to us: “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.”

We know the time. It is definitely the moment for us to wake from sleep.

Just a bit later Paul gives us another  wonderful image, “”…the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light…”

On this First Sunday of Advent—the beginning of the Church Year—there is no better image for us that this.

What a great image for us! We know that feeling. Any time any of us have been through hardship in our lives, any time we have known the dark night of the soul in our lives, we know that true joy that comes in the morning after those dark situations. We know how glorious the light can be in our lives after having lived in spiritual darkness.  

On this First Sunday of Advent—the beginning of the Church Year—there is no better image for us that this. This season of Advent is all about realizing that we, for the most part, are living in that hazy world.  Advent is all about realizing that we are living in that sleepy, fuzzy, half-world.  Advent is all about recognizing that we must put aside darkness—spiritual darkness, intellectual darkness, personal darkness, anything that separates us from God—and put on light.  For us, this Advent season is a time for us to look into that place—that future—that’s kind of out of focus, and to focus ourselves again.

I love the image that Paul puts forth this morning of “putting on the armor of light.”  That is perfect, and precisely to the point of what this Advent season is all about.   Our job during Advent season is to “put on” the God’s light.  

But how do we do this?  How do we “put on” light, as though it were some sweatshirt or fancy Sarum blue vestment?

The fact is, we have already put God’s light on.  We put on that light on that wonderful day we were baptized.  We were clothed in God’s light on that day and we remained clothed in it to this day. This morning, in just a few moments, little Rory will be putting on God’s light when he is washed in the waters of baptism.

Still, even clothed in God’s light as we may be, we still occasionally fail to recognize this wonderful reality in our lives.  This moment of spiritual agitation and seeking after something more has been called the “Advent situation” by the great Anglican theologian Reginald Fuller.

The “Advent situation” is recognizing the reality of our present situation.  We are living now—in this present moment.  At times this present moment does seem almost surreal.  This moment is defined by the trials and frustration and tedium as well as the joys and all the other range of emotions and feelings that living entails.

But, for the most part, we don’t feel like it all “fits” for some reason.  It seems like there must be more than just this.  Instinctively, spiritually, we yearn for something more, though we aren’t certain exactly what that might be.  And that might possibly be the worst part of this situation.  We don’t know what it is we want.

The Advent situation of Reginald Fuller reminds us that yes, this is the reality.  Yes, we are here.  Right now. Right here. In this moment.  But we are conditioned by (and for) what comes after this—the age to come.

Many, many times you have heard me share a quote from the great Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said,

“We are not physical beings having spiritual experiences; we are spirits having a physical experience.”

Or as I saw on Facebook recently,

“You’re a ghost driving a meat-covered skeleton made from stardust, riding on a rock hurtling through space. Fear nothing.”

Baptism—that physical event in which we were spiritually clothed with light, in which we “put” the armor of God’s light—essentially translates us into this Advent situation.  And the Baptismal life—a life in which we are constantly reminded that we are clothed with Christ—is one in which we realize that are constantly striving through this physical experience toward our ultimate fulfillment.

We are spirits having this physical experience.

It is a wonderful experience, despite all the heartache, despite all the pains, despite all the losses, despite all the set-backs and frustrations.  And this physical experience is making our spirits stronger.

We should be fully awake for this wonderful experience our spirits are having.  We should be sharpening our vision as we proceed so that we can see clearly what was once out of focus.

In this Advent season, in which we are in that transparent, glass-like world, trying to break out, let us turn and look and see who it is there in the future.

Let us look and actually see that that the One who is standing there, the One we have been looking for all along.

That One is the One we have been searching for all along.  That One is, in fact, the source of the light with which we have been clothed.

Advent is here.

Night is nearly over.

Day is about dawn.

The One for whom we are longing and searching is just within reach.

Our response to this Advent situation is simply a furtive cry in this blue season.

Come quickly, we are crying. Come to us quickly

23 Pentecost

November 17, 2019

Malachi 4.1-2a; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19

+ Today, of course, is Stewardship Sunday. Today is the day in which we are asked to take a good, hard look at ourselves. At who we are as this strange, unique, eclectic, eccentric congregation in a hidden, out-of-the-way back corner of Fargo.

Stewardship time is a time for the mirror to be set up and to look. And to realize that we are unique, and eccentric and eclectic.

And vital.

And alive.

And…making a difference in the Church, in this world and in our community.

Let’s face it: there aren’t a whole lot of churches out there quite like St. Stephen’s. 

 We are an amazing place! I think we can say that.

And Stewardship is a time to say one important thing:

Thank you.

Thank you, O God, for leading us here.

Thank you, O God, for what you have done here.

Thank you, O God, for your goodness to us here.

Thank you, O God, for the refuge that we are to people who need a refuge.

Sometimes when we’re in the midst of it all, we don’t realize how amazing these things are. Sometimes we take it all for granted.

But let’s not do that. Let’s not take for granted what has been happening here.

It’s also not a time for us to become complacent.  There is still work to do.  There is still so much more ministry to do.

What’s even more amazing is that you—the congregation, the ministers of St. Stephen’s—you have truly all stepped up to the plate. You are doing the ministries here. You are the faces, the lives, the real heart of St. Stephen’s. You have taken this Stewardship time seriously. You have taken your “thank you” very seriously. 

 You have given of yourselves, of your time, of your talents, of your finances, of your very presence this past year. And that is amazing.

And we ask you to do so again this coming year once again.

As we look around at St. Stephen’s, I don’t think we fully realize what has been happening here. But also we need to know that we are more than these walls, than these pews, than these windows, than this tower and bell, than this building.

If we think following Jesus means safely ensconcing ourselves in this church building—and I seriously doubt anyone here this morning thinks that—then we are not really following Jesus.

As we, who are members of St Stephen’s know, following Jesus, means following him out there—out in the field, out on the battlefield.

It means being out there, being a presence out there, being a radical presence out there. It means shaking things up. It means speaking out—respectfully and in love.  It means being an example of a follower of Jesus in all we do outside these walls, as well as within.  It means giving people a new vision of what the Church really can be.

Although I scoff—and scoff loudly—at the prophets of doom, I can echo to some extent what they are saying.

What we are seeing is the death of the old Church. That Church we all knew 20 years, 30 years ago, fifty years—that Church is dying. And, in many ways, you know what? it should be dying.

That Church that prided itself on its privileged attitude—that Church that believed that all one had to do was come to a building on Sunday morning, and give a bit of money here and there and feel content in doing so, and that was all, without having DO anything—that Church is dying.

That Church that alienated and marginalized women, and LGBTQ+ people and divorced people and anyone else who was not “in”—that Church is almost dead.

That Church that used its position in the world to side with the powerful against the weak and the poor, to condemn and to hurt and to maim—that Church is in its death throes.

And the Church that we, at St. Stephen’s, are—this is the Church of the future. 

And I’m sure there are many people out there frightened by that!

We are a Church that finds it vitality and its strength and its purpose and its meaning in its worship of God, in its love of others, in being radical, in being welcoming, in being out there in the midst of it all—that is the Church that is being resurrected from the ashes of the old church.

Just this past Wednesday a young friend of mine came to St. Stephen’s for the first time. He is a college student and musician. And afterward, he told me how amazed he was by our Wednesday night Mass—by that simple Mass and all that incense.

“The respect and dignity you all have in worship and for the Sacrament—that’s amazing. And rare. What you do in the Mass is just different than most churches. And it’s wonderful.”

Remember what Bishop Keith said last Sunday: young people are really looking for true and meaningful worship of a true and living God.

We definitely do that here! We need to be a church that is alive and breathing and moving and changing.

Of course, because it is, our job has doubled. Of course we will continue on as we always have, doing what we’ve always done.

But we will also now have to help bury that old Church. We will have to sing the Requiem for that old Church.  We will now have to be the new face, the new attitude to those people who have been hurt or alienated by that old dying Church.

And there are plenty out there.

One of the areas we have really concentrated on in these last years is being a safe place for former Roman Catholics. More half of our church growth here is from the Roman Catholic Church. Remember last Sunday when I asked people who came from the Roman Catholic to raise their hands.  It was a sea of hands!

But not just Roman Catholics. There have been people who have been alienated and snubbed by Protestant churches as well. And we have provided a safe—and holy—place for them as well.

And, of course, we always continue to be a safe refuge for LGBTQ+ people who have definitely been on the receiving end of the Church’s abuses over the years.

There are plenty here this morning that have been hurt by the Church. Which is why we are here! We will have to help people change their attitudes about the Church.  That mantle is falling upon each of us.  And as it does, we realize that the words of this morning’s Gospel are made real in our lives.

To be that new, resurrected Church, we will have to face persecution. We will face people who do not want us—us radicals, us loud-mouths, those of us who make them uncomfortable—they do not want us being that new Church. We will face those people who are angry and uncomfortable over the fact that the old Church is dying.

Bishop Keith last week told us some hard words. The old ways of doing church are just not effective anymore. We will be on the receiving end of the anger of those people who are simply refusing to believe that the old Church is crumbling and dying around them. And…we will have to face ourselves.

And this, I hate to say, is the really hard one.

Ourselves.

Looking in the mirror also means seeing ourselves for who we are.  We will have to work hard not to destroy ourselves in the process. And that is a real possibility as well.

The old ways of doing things in church are over. And that means the way WE ourselves do things. We must not be like those church members in other churches who sometimes still get stuck in the old ways of doing things  as well.

That is NOT the way for the Church to work, because it undermines the work we have to do.

We need to be this new Church.

We need to be a healthy Church

We need to shed our old ways of doing things.

The church of the future is made up of people who step up to the plate and say, “here I am, Lord. I am willing to do it.”

We have our work cut out for us.  We do. There’s a lot of work to do.

But, none of that is anything to fear.

Jesus tell us not to be afraid. Nor should any of us.

Not a hair of our head will perish to them, he tells us.

Our words, seemingly falling on deaf ears, our example, seemingly lost to the hustle and bustle of it, will bear fruit.

And God will be with us through it all.

As we look around here, we know—God is here.

God is with us.

That Spirit of our living, breathing God dwells with us. And God is being proclaimed in the message we carry within each of us.

When we welcome people radically, when we embrace those no one else will embrace, when we love those who have been hated, when we are hated for loving those who are hated, we know that all we are doing is bringing the Kingdom of God not only closer, but we are birthing it right here in our midst.

And we have nothing to fear, because, as Jesus says today, “I will give you words and wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.”

When we are hated because we do these radical, incredible things in Jesus’ name, we are, in fact, blessed.

We are blessed, here at St. Stephen’s. And that is what we are thankful for today.

Paul tells in in his   letter to the Thessalonians this morning: “do not be weary in doing what is right.”

Those words are our battle cry for our future here at St. Stephen’s. Those words are the motto for the new Church we represent.

Do not be weary in doing what is right.

Yes, I know. We are weary at times. We are tired at times. We have done much work. And there is much work still to do.

But we are doing the work God has given us to do. And we cannot be weary in that work, because we are sustained. We are held up. We are supported by that God who loves and supports us.

But we must keep on doing so with love and humility and grace.

St. Stephen’s is incredible place. We all know it. Others know it.

God knows it.

So, let us be thankful. Let us continue our work—our ministries. And as we do, as we revere God’s Holy Name, see what happens.

The Prophet Malachi is right.

For those of us who continue our work, who continue to revere God’s holy Name, on us that Sun of Righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.

Amen.

All Saints Sunday

November 3, 2019

Ephesians 1.11-23

+ This past Friday was a very important day in the Church. Capital C. The wider, universal Church.  And for all of us.

It was one of the really important feast days. November 1 was All Saints Day. It is the day in which we commemorate all the saints who now dwell with Christ in heaven. It is a beautiful feast.

On this Feast, we celebrate the saints—those who are both well-known saints and those saints who might only be known to a few. And when anyone from St. Stephen’s dies, or when anyone close to someone at St. Stephen’s dies, you will always receive an email with a request for prayer. And the request for prayer will usually begin with these words:

“The prayers of St. Stephen’s are requested for the repose of the soul of …so-and-so.”

Occasionally, someone will ask me about that prayer request.  Someone will ask,

Why do we pray for the dead?

Why do we pray for the repose of their souls?

After all, they’ve lived their lives in this world and wherever they’re going, they’re there long before a prayer request goes out.

The fact is, we DO pray for our dead. We always have—as Anglicans and as Episcopalians.  You will hear us as Episcopalians make their petition for prayer when someone dies that you won’t hear in the Lutheran Church, or the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church.

Praying in such a way for people who have passed has always been a part of our Anglican tradition, and will continue to be a part of our tradition. And I can tell you, I  like that idea of praying for those who have died.

But, I want to stress, that although we and Roman Catholics both pray for our dead,  we don’t pray for people have died for the same reasons Roman Catholics do. In other words, we don’t pray to free them from purgatory, as though our prayers could somehow change God’s mind.

Rather, we pray for our deceased loved ones in the same way we pray for our living loved ones. We pray for them to connect, through God, with them. We pray to remember them and to wish them peace.

Still, that might not be good enough answer for some (and that’s all right).

So…let’s hear what the Book of Common Prayer says about it. And, yes, the Book of Common Prayer does address this very issue directly. I am going to have you pick up your Prayer Books and look in the back, to the trusty old  Catechism. 

There, on page 862 you get the very important question:

Why do we pray for the dead?

The answer (and it’s very good answer): “We pray for them, because we still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God's presence those who have chosen to serve [God] will grow in [God’s] love, until they see [God] as [God] is.”

That is a great answer!

We pray that those who have chosen to serve God will grow in God’s love.  So, essentially, just because we die, it does not seem to mean that we stop growing in God’s love and presence.  I think that is wonderful and beautiful. And certainly worthy of our prayers.

But even more so than this definition, I think that, because we are uncertain of exactly what happens to us when we die, there is nothing wrong with praying for those who have crossed into that mystery we call “the nearer Presence of God.” After all, they are still our family and friends. They are still part of who we are.

This morning we are commemorating and remembering those people in our lives who have helped us, in various way, to know God. As you probably have guessed from the week-long commemoration we have made here at St. Stephen’s regarding the Feast of All Saints, I really do love this feast. With the death of many of my own loved ones in these last few years, this Feast has taken on particular significance for me.

What this feast shows me is what you have heard me preach in many funeral sermons again and again.

I truly, without a doubt, believe that what separates those of us who are alive here on earth, from those who are now in the “nearer presence of God” is truly a very thin one. And to commemorate them and to remember them is a good thing for all us.

I do want us to think long and hard about the saints we have known in our lives. And we have all known saints in our lives.

We have known those people who have shown us, by their example, by their goodness, that God works through us.  And I want us to at least realize that God still works through us even after we have departed from this mortal coil. Ministry in one form or the other, can continue, even following our deaths.  Hopefully, we can still, even after our deaths, do good and work toward furthering the Kingdom of God by the example we have left behind.

For me, the saints—those people who have gone before us—aren’t gone.  They haven’t just disappeared.  They haven’t just floated away and dissipated like clouds out of our midst. No, rather they are here with us, still.

They join with us, just as the angels do, when we celebrate the Eucharist.  For, especially in the Eucharist, we find that “veil” lifted for a moment. In this Eucharist that we celebrate together at this altar, we find the divisions that separate us are gone. We see how thin that veil truly is. We see that death truly does not have ultimate power over us. We see that the God of Life is ultimately victorious!

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have heard stories from one priest or layperson or the other who have said they have experienced, especially during the Eucharist, the presence, of the multitude of saints, gathered together to worship. And there have been moments during our own liturgies here, even fairly recently, when I have felt the presence of our departed members.

Every time we worship, we worship with those who are now worshiping in the Presence of Christ. And so, when we worship here, it does feel sometimes like people we loved and worshiped with are here with us still.

It is like all those we have known in this life are still with us, still here, in that one holy, thin moment when the veil between here and there is parted for a moment. And I am very grateful for that holy moment. I am grateful to know they are still with us in some holy and beautiful way.

That is the way Holy Communion should be. It’s not just us, gathered here at the altar.  It’s the Communion of all the saints.

In fact, before we sing that glorious hymn, “Holy, Holy Holy” during the Eucharistic rite, you hear me say, “with angels and saints and all the company of heaven we sing this hymn of praise.”

That isn’t just sweet, poetic language. It’s what we believe and hope in.

In these last few years, after losing so many people in my family and among close friends, I think I have felt their presence most keenly, at times, here at this altar when we are gathered together for the Eucharist then at any other time.

In fact, on the day my mother died, as I was at the altar, I felt her presence in a strange and unique way. It was at that moment, I found out later, that she was departing from this  world. And yet, she was there with me in a very powerful and very real way! And in those moments,  know in ways I never have before, how thin that veil is between us and “them.”

You can see why I love this feast.  It not only gives us consolation in this moment, separated as we are from our loved ones, but it also gives us hope.

We know, in moments like this, where we are headed.  We know what awaits us. No, we don’t know it in detail. We’re not saying there are streets paved in gold or puffy white clouds with chubby little baby angels floating around.  We don’t have a clear vision of that place.

But we do sense it. We do feel it.  We know it’s there, just beyond our vision, just out of reach and out of focus. And “they” are all there, waiting for us. They—all the angels, all the saints, all our departed loved ones.

So, this morning—and always—we should rejoice in this fellowship we have with them. We should rejoice as the saints we are and we should rejoice with the saints that have gone before us.

In our collect this morning, we prayed that “we may come to those ineffably joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you.”

Those ineffably joys await us.  They are there, just on the other side of that thin veil.  And if we are only patient, we too, as Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians this morning, will obtain that inheritance that they have gained. We too will live with them in that place of unimaginable and ineffable joy and light. And that is a reason to rejoice this morning.