2 November 08

All Saints

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

Because one of the first things a little boy notices about himself is that he is—well—little. I recall two of my heroes. One of the first ones was a man named Bob Noble. His name said it all. He was a noble gentleman. He was the salesman at the Pontiac dealer where we bought our brand mew 1956 Pontiac Star Chief way back in the fall of 1955. Bob was a great salesman. He sensed that I liked him, and he also sensed that my father might respond appreciatively to a salesman who liked his little boy. Being nice to the funny looking kid with his dad was going, , to result in a nice large commission, if he played his cards right. . So, every time we went there to continue shopping for the car, to work out the details and finalize the sale, Bob always remembered my name and told me more about the other cars on the lot and answered my questions about cubic inch displacement and twin exhaust manifolds. And for months afterward, I talked about going back to see Bob at the car dealer, and my father nodded, noncommittally, and smiled. He knew that this little case of hero worship was a purely temporary, transactional thing, and the glow would be off before the car got its first dent in the parking lot at Safeway.

The next hero was about five years later, when, as a geeky kid, I began to work in politics. In those days, voter registration was a much bigger event than it is now, and it had to be accomplished during the summer before each general election. Now, there was a guy named Pat Ferguson, who was a very big wheel—I thought—in the Democrat Party in California, and he worked for another guy named Jerry Waldie. Jerry, as everyone called him, was an assemblyman and was generally believed to be On The Way Up. Now, Pat lived down the street from me and someone told him that there was this kid in the ‘hood who was a real whiz at organizing things, and maybe this kid could get involved in registering voters. And, so, for the first time, an adult outside my family paid some attention to me and wanted me to do something. So, I did. And Pat and Jerry became my new heroes and I worked my fingers to the bone organizing kids to help register as many warm bodies as we could.

Now, as long as it was general election year, Pat and Jerry could not get enough of me. Hailing me on the street, taking me to meetings in Sacramento, even once having a lunch with the speaker of the assembly. Wow, I was the flavor of the week. Until the election was over. From the first Wednesday in November on for the next year and a half, I turned into nobody. Never hailed on the street, no more lunches, no more discreet introductions within the power structure of California. It was as if I vanished.

My fortunes waxed and waned according to the election season.

My father still smiled, for he knew that his son was learning something about hero worship. His son was also learning about the way people use others, manipulate others according to their needs and desires.

Growing up, I learned, could be defined as having fewer and fewer heroes. Growing up could be defined as becoming my own hero. Something to think about when you raise a small, reflective boy.

All Saints' Day is about heroes. But it is about heroes for adults. Not for impressionable youngsters. For those with mature faith.

In the history of our faith, people became aware of the saints early on in the story. When we rate the apostle's creed we added the line we believe in the communion of saints. When, in the medieval church, buildings began to be built, stained glass emerged as a major architectural art form. And in fact, the image of the glass window is a perfect way of thinking about saints. The saints are those whose lives are like glass, allowing the light of God to shine through them. The difference between the saints and us is that the light of God shines through them more clearly than it does for us.

The saints are not a perfect reflection of God, because the window still has color and distortion, which hide that which lies behind it, but a bit more clearer image than, would shine through us.

The Book of Common Prayer—the book of our liturgy—often tells us what we actually believe about saints. IN one of the prayers at the burial of the dead, the saints are described as those who encourage us by their examples, aid us by their prayers and strengthen us by their fellowship. (Prayer book, page 489,second prayer)

Encourage us by their example

Aids us by their prayers

Strengthen us by their fellowship.

Let me show you what I mean. The saints encourage us by their examples. They lived lives like we do and show us how it is to be done. In l888, four nuns of our Church, Episcopal Sisters of St. Mary, went into Memphis, Tennessee to care for the indigent dying of yellow fever. They gave their lives, dying horrible deaths to care for the suffering. Used their ordinary skills and their ordinary lives to show forth the holy, to show forth God.

They aid us by their prayers: The second reading pictures the saints around the throne of God, closer to God than we are, and constant in prayer undistracted by the world and its demands. Thus, the saints are a source of divine power for us. They channel the light of their love through prayer to each of us.

They strengthen us by their fellowship. The saints are ordinary folks like us. In their own saintlyl way, they say to each of us, “come on, you can do it.” ‘If I can do it, you can do it.” There is a homely familial nature to the communion of saints, like a dinner table in a healthy family, where each one strengthens the other.

The saints are our heroes. Not fair weather friends who brush us off when we are no longer useful, but loving figures who are so close to us that they encourage us by their example, aid us by their prayers and strengthen us by their fellowship,. Give us, we pray, grace so to follow them that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.