November 6, 2005 (Saints By Faith: Good to the Last Drop)

The adventures in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe begin in a rambling old British manor house in an empty room with nothing but a wardrobe.

Looking inside, Lucy saw several coats hanging up—mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them. Soon she found a second row of coats and took two or three steps in. “This must be an enormous wardrobe!” thought Lucy.

Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet and she was rubbing her face, not against coats, but against tree limbs. A moment later she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air until she came to a lamppost.

(C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, page 5)

The world of Narnia, just on the other side of the wardrobe. I believe C. S. Lewis is suggesting that right alongside this world, this reality, is another—an eternal world, an eternal reality, a different dimension—to be found not in some far-distant heaven at some far-distant time, but just on the other side of the wardrobe, here and now.

I think he gets his imagery from St. John and the book of Revelation.

St. John was not writing about some far-distant fulfillment of prophecy and he certainly wasn’t thinking of you and me and the 21^st century. He was writing to encourage a struggling church, trying to hold their ground and persevere amid incredible conflict and persecution. To understand St. John’s imagery, I like to use a concept from the stagecraft, the use of a “skrim.” When you want two sets of action to take place at one time, divide the stage with a thin sheet of cheesecloth. When the lights come up in front of the skrim, all you can see is what’s happening downstage. But if the lights shift, you can see action on the other side. It’s been there all the time, you just couldn’t see it. The action goes on downstage, but in that moment you can see what’s going on upstage.

So John holds two actions side-by-side. Downstage is the gritty “here and now” of the first century world and the suffering of the first century church:

But upstage, the risen saints of God are already worshiping, already celebrating around the throne. Not far away, really just on the other side of the wardrobe, just upstage:

…a great multitude which no one could number, from every tribe and every nation, every people and every tongue, clothed in white robes and praising God… Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.

And once in a while their song drifts through to encourage the saints “downstage” to carry on, to “HAVE FAITH.” In a day when everything changes, some things never change.

Hold on.
Stand firm in your faith.
Live boldly.
Let all you do be done in love. (I Corinthians 16:13)

John says, “Your brothers and sisters who have suffered and died, those who have gone through great tribulation, are already gathered around the streams of living water where:

They hunger no more, nor thirst,
Where God himself wipes away every tear from their eye.”

The two worlds, two realities, side-by-side. Saints on this side, here and now; saints beyond and above.

Throughout the New Testament, the term “saints” does not primarily refer to the departed dead, the holy, the canonized, the elevated. It isn’t used exclusively for the holy, the revered, the pure. When St. Paul says “the saints,” he means all the believers, all the disciples, all who are called to follow Jesus Christ…what the great Peter Marshall referred to as the “Saints of the rank and file.”

Look at the greetings in St. Paul’s letters. He addresses his letter to the Roman Christians “to all God’s beloved in Rome who are called to be saints.” Can you imagine greeting the folks in the nation’s capital as saints? He greets the Colossians as “saints and faithful brothers and sisters.” He sends his Philippian letter to “all the saints in Jesus Christ who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.” Amazing…even bishops can be called saints. And to the Corinthians, this church torn by inner divisions, fighting with itself, divided over political and social issues, he still addressed them as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord.”

…the foolish ones and wise ones, the shy ones and overbearing ones, the broken ones and the whole ones, the despots and tosspots and crackpots of our lives who, one way or another, have helped us toward whatever little we may have, or ever hope to have, of some kind of seedy sainthood of our own.

The communion of the saints, the fellowship of God’s people, the believers and disciples of Jesus Christ, here and now. Peter Gomes, chaplain at Harvard and one of the great preachers of our day, admits that:

The word “saint” gives us trouble in our day, suggesting perfection and virtue. The saints of the Roman Catholic canon are people who have been attested to as holy, with miracles and mighty works. They are in stained glass and on marble pedestals.

But (he says) a saint in the early church was one who was involved in a holy struggle, who was not so much perfect as persevering. All who take the name of Jesus seriously and who associate themselves with his work are saints by calling, imperfect until made perfect in God; all saints, involved in the struggle for holiness.

I heard it just last week: “Oh, I’m no saint.” And if we mean holy, pure, miracle-worker, then of course, we aren’t. But if by “saint” you mean those who know that we are loved by God beyond measure and seek to live out of that love, if you mean those who have named the name of Christ and bear that identity into the world, if you mean those who have been called to do God’s work and who seek to follow Christ’s way, then we are speaking of you and me, saints here and now.

One of my current, contemporary, here-and-now saints is Jimmy Carter. He has a deep, profound faith, a simple, humble spirit, a powerful, dramatic witness to God’s call for justice and mercy, integrity and truth, peace and humanity. In the dedication of his book of poetry, Always a Reckoning, one of the dedications could have described his own life or the lives of many ordinary saints:

To the few who seek to share their faith through words and simple deeds, and sometimes bring a better life to those who rarely know love.

Of course, he is one of the well-known saints, but today we also celebrate the quiet saints, the unnamed and unknown who day by day share their faith through words and simple deeds:

And our task is the faithful participation in the work of the church through our prayers, presence, gifts and service—to carry out the work of the saints, the ministry of Christ.

I make no apology about lifting up the call of God to faithful stewardship and the biblical pattern of tithing: 10% returned to God as an act of faithfulness, the remaining 90% to be cared for as a trust from God. It is our most immediate and direct way of living out our “sainthood,” our participation in the Body of Christ, our fellowship with all the saints.

Gathered, maybe just on the other side of the wardrobe, side-by-side, parted only by the narrow stream of death.

In the 50’s when I was growing up in small-town Western Pennsylvania, Clarion was a town dominated by Protestants with just one Catholic Church. We Protestants were quite sure that we were right and they were probably wrong. (Thank God things have changed!) We never celebrated “All Saints Day,” assuming that it had something to do with “The Catholics,” the little plastic Jesuses they had on their dashboards and the fish they ate on Friday, but nothing to do with us. The great irony is that as religiously conservative as my family was, we never celebrated “All Saints,” but we made a big deal of Halloween—the day which originally had to do with evil spirits and ghosts and goblins!

I am glad that in my lifetime those old prejudices have broken down and that Methodists have reclaimed this day of remembrance, a day to celebrate the lives of those who have died in Christ, a day to give thanks for those who have passed on the faith, a day to remember that even as the work goes on and the battle rages “downstage” for the saints of the here-and-now, upstage God’s victorious saints are already celebrating, already worshiping, already sharing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

They are there, you know, just on the other side, not far away, really…the saints of God. They are the ones who lived their lives…“good to the last drop.” I am sure you were wondering when I was going to get around to the slogan of the day. Maxwell House was actually introduced in 1915, but it still reminds me of the 50’s and the blue can on my mother’s kitchen counter.

These saints, the ones we remember today, are those who have finished their course, kept the faith, good to the last drop. And their word to us is a word of encouragement, a song to inspire, to carry out the work they have left behind.

This year we lost one of the saints of Michigan Methodism, but more important, a personal saint for Judy and me: Ray Lamb. Ray’s last appointment was Royal Oak First, and he and his wife Ollie settled in this congregation after he retired. Ollie is still a member here and now lives at Chelsea Retirement Home. But before all that, Ray was Judy’s pastor when she was growing up in Lapeer, Michigan. He was a good friend of G. Ernest Thomas whom Judy remembers hearing preach at Lapeer, and Ray’s memorial service took place on the very weekend Judy and I were considering the call to come to Birmingham. It’s amazing how lives connect across the years. Ray told Judy to go to Asbury College and marry a minister. Lo and behold, she did, and I will be eternally grateful!

Ray’s passionate faith, his exuberant laughter, his powerful preaching, his commitment to racial inclusivity and the role of women in ministry in a day when that was not the norm, empowered the church and shaped the ministry of a generation of pastors in this Conference. Of all Ray’s many gifts, one he lacked was the gift of song. He sang with great gusto but little exactness! But listen…can you hear it? St. John says the white-robed saints are gathered around, singing and praising and worshiping God, and even Ray, who could never carry a note, is joined in the song.

When the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song.
And hearts are brave again and arms are strong.
Alleluia.

Listen…just on the other side. Their song is for us. It is a call to “Have Faith,” to carry on the work they left behind:

Oh, may thy soldiers, faithful true and bold,
Fight as thy saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia.