1 Thessalonians 1:1-4;11-12
1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.
11 To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we celebrate All Saints Day.
As Protestants, we don’t canonize Saints as people with a special level of holiness.
We believe that everyone trying to follow God, however imperfectly, is a Saint.
Those who have gone before us…
All of us gathered here…
Those who are yet to come…
We’re all Saints.
We are the ones whom the author of First Thessalonians prayed for.
Because Paul, Silvanus and Timothy didn’t write 1 Thessalonians, it’s another Pauline Fan Fiction letter, but it’s a good one.
But I bet that the real Paul, Silvanus and Timothy did pray for us and all the Saints to come.
Wild huh.
But it also makes sense.
I think back to all the people, living and dead, who have influenced me, and they all had flaws, and things they weren’t so good about, and yet, they made a difference in my life and my faith.
I also think about our forebearers in the Faith who contributed both wonderful and terrible things to Christianity.
Like, Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church. Luther wrote beautiful and important theology about the expansiveness of God’s Grace… and Luther was also deeply antisemetic.
Or our own founder, John Wesley, whose “Method,” was to actually practice neighbor-love towards the poor, the prisoner, the child laborers, the factory workers, instead of just talking about loving our neighbors…and Wesley was a terrible boyfriend and husband. He excommunicated his ex-fiance for marrying somebody else, and he and his wife separated shortly after their marriage because there was just no living with that man!
The Saints that came before us were deeply flawed and also deeply holy.
And so are we.
We are all in need of God’s grace, and we all have a calling to offer the world.
So I’m going to ask you to think about some of the Saints, famous or not, who have influenced you.
I’m going to give you a minute to think.
Now turn to a neighbor or 2 and share what you remember about the Saints who formed your faith?
I’m going to ask you to share something about what your neighbor said, so listen well!
Let’s bring up our online friends, so they can share too.
What do your neighbors remember about the Saints who formed their faith?
It’s interesting what we remember and what we hear, isn’t it!
As most of you know by now, we are in the process of trying to build affordable housing — we’ll be having a congregational vote on that next week, but more on that later…
I have loved asking our older members what it was like the last time this Church decided to tear down their building and build something that better met their ministry needs?
I ask them,
What do you remember about that time?
Spill the tea! Tell me about the drama!
Who said what?
Who did what?
Who do you remember about that time?
The story is that in the mid- 1950’s the congregation’s faith was growing so abundantly that they no longer fit in the old white church.
It was too small and didn’t have enough space for all their Sunday School classes. The old white Church just didn’t meet their needs anymore, and this is a small lot, so they had to tear something down to make room for anything new.
So they raised the money, they tore it down, and they built… this!
A big sanctuary, and lots of Sunday School rooms downstairs for all the kids – with those cool little slidy windows for delivering snacks.
And storage rooms and bathrooms, although why aren’t there any bathrooms on the same level as the Sanctuary?
And a full on bank-style vault to store old papers in… I mean, it’s really cool… but why a bank-style vault?
They dreamed it, they funded it and they built it!
It’s interesting to me that nobody seems to remember any drama!
I haven’t heard any stories of people who left the congregation because they wanted to keep the old white church.
Or stories about arguments over the carpet or the kitchen.
Or stories about paint color drama.
I was beginning to think that generation were truly the greatest generation!
I just kept hearing how so many of them donated their time to work on the building.
How they put in a time capsule under the plaque on the front of the building.
How much they loved one another and how their families were all friends.
The stories of who taught Sunday School and who served in the nursery.
And then I heard about the car.
Apparently a certain Saint owned an auto-body shop?
Please correct me if I’m wrong!
And this certain Saint may have decided to help the Congregation save on cement costs for the foundation by “contributing” a car frame to the foundation.
And then I started to hear about the people who did not feel welcome.
The people whose differences were just not considered acceptable by mid-twentieth-century standards.
And then as time went on, I heard about people who weren’t happy about what that one Pastor said that one time…
Or people who wanted things to stay the way they were in 1956, despite the fact that it’s not 1956 outside anymore.
The truth is that the Saints who built this building were not any more or less Saintly than those who came before them or we who come after them. They were simply faithful to their calling in their time.
They were willing to support their Pastor in meeting new people in the community, rather than only taking care of members.
They were willing to give up what was no longer working – a building that was too small and had the wrong spaces for the ministry they were being called to do.
They were faithful with what they had – their time, their expertise (or not so expertise! – have you seen the wiring down there!), their prayers, and their witness.
They were faithful in responding to all the changes and challenges of the post- WWII world they were living in.
Their faithfulness was their gift to God.
And now, about 50 years later, God is calling us to be faithful to respond to the changes and challenges of this post-pandemic world.
And honestly, I thank God for you, siblings in Christ.
I see your faith growing abundantly!
I see the love that every one of you has for one another expanding like a group hug to include people that the 1956 youth group never would have imagined would ever go to this church!
Not only do I boast about you, but our District Superintendent holds you up as an example of Congregational Development because of Haven Dinner and She is so delighted with our collaborative involvement in our small church coalition: East Portland In Connexion – known as EPIC!
Saints — I see you faithfully stepping up every week.
Working hard to hold this old building together just one more year until we can tear it down and build something that fits the ministry we are being called to do now!
Creating new groups like the Sewists, and adapting old groups like the group formerly known as United Methodist Women to respond to the real issues of our lives today.
I see you glorifying the name of Jesus by practicing what he taught us – to love our neighbors as ourselves, especially the neighbors who might be considered the Least of these.
I see you supporting your Pastor, me, in being out in the community in different ways than what worked in 1956, because you know that it’s 2025 outside the church, so it needs to be 2025 inside the church!
I believe that future generations will remember you as faithful.
