Last week, we spoke of one of the four key pillars of the Church: fellowship, or love and care for our church family, mutual support. The Greek word koinonia, meaning sharing everything in common, captures our dream and joyful reality. We share life together. We share one another’s burdens, wounds, and joys.
Yesterday in worship we observed All Saints Day. On this glorious day, we affirm that our fellowship isn’t ultimately interrupted even by death. We believe in “the Communion of the Saints,” the notion that the departed have left our physical Church and have joined “the Church Triumphant.” They are in heaven with God – and as for me, I believe as do many that they are still with us, mystically present every time we gather for worship, and in our lives, struggles and delights. Soon we will sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” – and whom do we include in that “all”? “Sing, choirs of angels… Sin, all ye citizens of heaven above.”
Want to know what special about Church? And what’s unique? We can be sure, or at least cling to the hope that the saints gone on to glory aren’t gone, but still love us, just as we still love them. In many of my All Saints Day sermons, I have alluded to Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Dreams, which tells how the citizens of the town of Grace observed the Day of the Dead, lavishly decorating the cemetery, with much laughter and many flowers. “Some graves had shrines with niches peopled by saints; others had the initials of loved ones spelled out on the ground in white stones. The unifying principle was that the simplest thing was done with the greatest care. It was a comfort to see this attention lavished on the dead. In these families, you would never stop being loved.”
During our capital campaign Hope is Here, our consultant Allen Walworth told of a gathering of potential donors at a Texas church. One man said “I’ve never given much to the church. I’ve given to the symphony – my wife’s thing – and to my university.” But then, speaking to his church friends in the room he said “But when my wife was sick last year, the symphony didn’t visit. My university didn’t call. But every one of you came to visit her in the hospital. When she died, the symphony and the university didn’t call. But you all came to her funeral and have had me over for dinner. So I am sure now that the largest gift I will ever make will be to this Church.”
I share that commitment – and I love it that our Church provides a magnificent vehicle for you to make a gift to God’s Church that is everlasting as your life with God among the Communion of the Saints: our Wesley Foundation endowment, which funds major maintenance on our beautiful but aging facilities, and also major mission endeavors.
Lisa and I recently revised our estate documents. What will happen to whatever we have when we transition from this earthly church into that Church triumphant? Will I continue to be a viable supporter of God’s work on earth? A planned gift now will bear fruit years, and decades from now. God is honored – and I will enjoy some special heavenly joy because I’ve done this.
We worship in a sanctuary I didn’t pay a nickel for. Someday, I hope and pray someone will be blessed by the resources God has made me responsible for. In this Church, you never stop being loved, and you never stop sharing the love and extending the grace. We’ll even still be singing together after I’m gone!