Sermon for All Saints Sunday

Sermon for All Saints Sunday

All of us here, without a doubt, have been shaped through the people we have encountered. Maybe it was a family member. Maybe it was a friend. Maybe, dare I say, it was a pastor. Regardless of who, we are all beholden in our faith journey to the people we have met, people through whom we have encountered God.

I lost two people this fall who meant a great deal to me. My Grandma Jensen and my cousin. They were people through whom I came to know God’s love in very real and very tangible ways.

I could say a great deal about both of them, but instead, I will share with you what they taught me about life and about God.

My Grandma was a multifaceted person. Artistic, hardworking, with an entrepreneurial spirit, she was also a woman deeply connected to the land through her farming background and deeply connected with God. She taught us to chase our dreams and to lean into the people we were created to be. But she also taught me something else, something I didn’t even realize until my aunt shared a story at Grandma’s funeral. My Grandma came from a farming family, and she rode horses from a very young age. One piece of advice that her father told her repeatedly was, “Never let go of the reins.” The horse was her lifeline. She needed to always hold on to the reins and to her horse.

This played out in real time for her when, through a flukey happenstance, she ended up falling from her horse into a body of water. But she remembered her dad’s words “Hold on to the reins”, and her horse was able to pull her to safety.

I didn’t realize it, but this was a mantra she lived by. The only difference was that what she held so firmly to wasn’t the reins of a horse, but to God. Her father at an early age, she survived numerous cancer scares, a bout of septicemia, and endured numerous heartaches, and yet, she remained one of the most loving people I have ever met. It never seemed to make her cynical. She trusted God as she trusted her horse as a young girl. God would see her through. God would bring her to the other side. Even in the end, I know that trust was there, a trust that enabled Grandma to know that as she faced her final days, she did so surrounded by the family she loved and a God who had always been there and whom, she knew, would bring her home. Never let go of the Reins. Never let go of God. And she never did.

My cousin Brad was four years my junior. He faced numerous challenges throughout his life, challenges that might have caused him to be unpleasant and withdrawn. But he wasn’t.  He was a joyful human being. He loved life. He loved movies, and meals out, and trips, and any fun experience that came his way. But above all, he loved people. I have never seen a man who knew so many people and who genuinely loved them all. And in return, they loved him, unequivocally. For his 40h birthday, there was a parade for him and over 400 people showed up. He was someone who brought people together and he taught people how to love. He taught people about community. Over seven hundred people showed up for his service, all sharing stories of this man who lived life to the fullest, who never complained, and who loved and was loved so effortlessly.

Between Grandma and Brad, I learned what it meant to love, to be proud of the gifts that God has given to me, to trust in God, and to live life to the fullest.

We all have people like that in our life and when they are gone, they leave such an awfully large hole. It is as if we won’t ever be complete again without them. And unlike popular opinion, which tells us that time heals all wounds, and we will find out feet again, we will never be whole again. I still miss my grandfathers and my paternal grandmother, and they have gone for years.  I miss so many of the parishioners I knew and loved over the years. Things won’t be the same and we need to acknowledge that. But we also need to acknowledge how important these individuals were to us. They shaped us and formed us. They were God’s presence in our midst and our memory of them still offers joy and gladness, even if those feelings are tinged by the shadings of sadness. We aren’t the same, but we thank God for having these individuals in our life. Without them, we would not have known so profoundly, or perhaps, at all what God’s love was all about.

All Saints Sunday may well be one of my favorite Sundays of the year, because it gives us a reason to honor and remember these wonderful people in our lives. It allows us to light a candle for each of them and to give thanks for their legacy. It gives us a chance to share memories and tell stories and give thanks.

So, lets take a few minutes to remember. Maybe there was someone in your life that brought you closer to God. Maybe they showed you what love meant. Maybe they gave you a home, or a place of safety. Maybe they taught you what it meant to be human and to honor the God-given person that you are. Whatever the case might be, take a few minutes to remember the person or people you would honor this day and give thanks to God for. Take a few minutes to sit with their memory and allow both the sadness of grief and the joy of all the memories wash over you.

Take a few minutes now to recollect, either with others or on your own, about those individuals in your life that have made such a difference.

For my part, I will always remember my grandma’s laugh, her caring ways and her ultimate trust in God. Never let Go of the Reins. I will remember my cousin, who was like a brother in many ways. I will remember the movies we went to, and the time he visited me at seminary. I will remember hearing that at youth group, after I left for Saskatoon, he prayed for me, asking God to help me at cemetery. He couldn’t remember the word seminary. But I felt that prayer and it meant so much to me. Help Matt at cemetery. I can hear his voice saying those words and the love behind them. I will never forget either of them. Brad taught me about community. Grandma taught me to trust in God. Both taught me about love. And I will be forever grateful that I knew them for as long as I did.

Amen