"For dragon-slayers, saints, and other odd folk: Mabrouk!" Sermon for All Saints Sunday in Jerusalem 2017

“For dragon-slayers, saints, and other odd folk: Mabrouk!”

Sermon for All Saints Sunday

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith

Matthew 5:1-12

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

This morning, we remember Bob, Karen, Ilja, Maggie, Megan, Gitta, Rimon, and

St Margaret of Antioch by Sara Muzira
www.saramuzira.com

Leslie, along with many other saints whose names and faces are gone from this earth, but who live on in our hearts.  Whether we knew them personally or not, together we give thanks for all these members of our family, the one Body of Christ. Through baptism we have become part of this family, the Communion of Saints of every time and place. In fact, we don’t have enough candles to honor the memory of our entire family! We don’t have a table large enough to hold all the light they have shared—but God does. God’s table is large enough for the whole family, past and present. 

Therefore, while we long for their presence with us here, today the church rejoices that our sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, beloved children and faithful friends who have died, are all sitting together at the banquet table with Jesus, enjoying a heavenly feast without end. Amen!

Very often, however, when we remember these family members who have died in the Lord, it can be tempting to not only to honor them as part of the communion of saints, but to make them into icons. It can be tempting to sanitize them, to remember them not as the real people we knew and loved, but as symbols of perfect faith and holiness.

Living in this context, surrounded by ancient icons and images of the faithful who lived and died right here in this city, it can be easy to assume that a saint must possess extraordinary bravery, extraordinary courage, or extraordinary holiness.

But, contrary to popular belief, not all saints are dragon-slayers!

The truth is, the saints we remember today were not perfect. But they were perfectly loved! 

They didn’t wear halos, but they did wear the sign of the cross!

In fact, a saint is simply one who has sought, in faith, to live life in response to God’s extraordinary love—a love we have come to know through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Being a saint does not make you perfect!

But it does make you different.

Or, as the American Catholic author Flannery O’Connor wrote: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.”

This is certainly true: Being a follower of Jesus does not make you perfect, but it does make you odd in the eyes of the world, and therefore it’s very appropriate that we hear a portion of the Sermon on the Mount on All Saints Sunday.

The disciples and Jesus had been followed by a large crowd everywhere they went, but for these important teachings Jesus pulled his most faithful aside. When they were gathered around him, he sat next to them, too. And then he began to teach them what the path of a Christian looks like.

And what he said was a little bit odd! He said:

“Mabrouk to the poor in spirit! The empire of Heaven belongs to them.

Mabrouk to those who grieve! They will be consoled.

Mabrouk to the gentle! They will inherit the earth.

Mabrouk to those who hunger and thirst for justice! They will have a feast.

Mabrouk to the merciful! They will receive mercy.

Mabrouk to those whose motives are pure! They will see God.

Mabrouk to those who work for peace! They will be called God’s children.

Mabrouk to those who have suffered persecution for the sake of justice!

The empire of Heaven belongs to them.

Mabrouk to you when they denounce you and persecute you and spread malicious gossip about you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad!  In heaven you’ll be more than rewarded.  Remember, that is how they persecuted the prophets who preceded you.”

(Matthew 5:1-12, based on the “Scholar’s Version”)

Can you imagine the faces of those the disciples as they heard this new teaching? Everything Jesus said goes against what the world counts as valuable. Everything Jesus says deserves congratulations is something we generally do our best to avoid: poverty, grief, meekness, hunger, thirst, persecution.

Furthermore, these are situations the disciples have likely already been experiencing. They had already suffered much for their newfound faith. They had already lost friends, and given up many comforts, and even suffered persecution when they chose to follow Jesus.

And Jesus looked right at them, in love, and said, “Mabrouk. Rejoice and be glad! This is the path of the prophets. This is our path together.

And it will make you different. It will make you odd! But it will also make you free.”

Dear fellow saints: God’s kingdom is a place of truth, love, compassion, justice, peace, freedom, and sharing. As believers, we are citizens of this kingdom. This is the truth as we know it! 

Living this truth certainly puts us at odds with the world.

Sometimes it makes us enemies. Sometimes it breaks our hearts!

But it also joins us with all the saints, all the other odd folk who believed, and followed, and lived in response to God’s great love for the world.

One of those odd folks we remember today, one of our sisters in faith, was named Margaret. Margaret was born to a pagan priest in Antioch (what we now know as Syria) in the 3^rd century after Jesus. Because her mother died shortly after childbirth, she was nursed and cared for by a Christian woman. When she was old enough to return to her father, Margaret told him she refused to pray to other gods, for she was now a Christian.

This angered her father the priest, who tried several times to marry her off to respectable pagan men in the community. Each time, Margaret refused, on the basis of her faith in God. The stories of her abuse and torture are many, each one worse than the last. Nevertheless, she persisted—Margaret never abandoned her faith in the crucified God.

Finally, the legend goes, Margaret was confronted by the devil himself, who had transformed himself into a huge dragon. The dragon swallowed Margaret whole.

But as soon as Margaret passed through the dragon’s mouth and throat and into his stomach, the dragon got a terrible stomachache! It so happened that Margaret was carrying a wooden cross in her hand when she was swallowed. And that cross, the symbol of her great faith, irritated the stomach of the dragon.

That cross poked and provoked and caused the devil such suffering, that he spat Margaret back out whole!

Actually, some paintings of Margaret show an even more triumphant scene, with her standing atop the dragon, his belly split wide open, the devil completely vanquished by the power of the cross she holds high in her hand.

Now, just to be clear once again: Not all saints are dragonslayers!

But by the power of the cross, we all have the capacity to irritate the devil.

We all have the ability to disrupt the system—from the inside—as witnesses to to the truth of God’s love for the world.

And in fact, this is what it means to live a life shaped by the Beatitudes!

When we show mercy while others show contempt;

When we hunger and thirst for righteousness and justice as the world lusts for power;

When we try and maintain a gentle heart in a world of violence—a heart soft enough to still be broken by the suffering of our neighbors;

When we tell the truth about ourselves, the truth about the world, and the truth about God, even when it seems the dragon might swallow us whole;

Then we frustrate the powers-that-be.

We upset the status quo.

We challenge unjust systems.

We become holy interrupters.

We give the devil a bellyache!

We become saints.

So on this All Saints Sunday we remember all the odd ones:

The truthtellers,

The peacemakers,

And the holy interrupters.

We remember those who irritated the powers that be,

Those who frustrated the work of the devil,

Those who loved us…and loved God…to the end.

For all these saints, today we say:

Mabrouk. Congratulations! Well done, good and faithful servants.

And thank you – thank you for living the truth, even when it made you odd.  We honor you today, and we recommit to following Jesus on the path you walked before us. We are strengthened by your witness, by your love for us, and by your faith in Jesus Christ, who against all odds has granted us life abundant, a life of purpose, and life with God, forever and ever. Amen.