"Reverence for the Holy"
A Sermon of
The Rev. Dr. David A. Killian, Rector
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
All Saints Sunday
November 6, 2005
Text: Matthew 5:1-12
I
Please look around the church and see the beautiful flowers, the splendid vestments, the exquisite stained glass windows -- and then ask yourself: "Why are we doing all this? Why is the church decorated? Why is the choir singing so beautifully?" It is not simply because we love beauty. This is not the Museum of Fine Arts nor Symphony Hall. This is not an event to please our esthetic sensibilities. Rather, we do all of this to show our reverence for the holy. We do this to acknowledge that there is someone greater than us, someone before whom we stand in awe, someone we call the most holy God.
In our fast-paced and consumer-driven disposable society, we are in danger of losing our reverence for the holy -- so it is good for us to be here today: to re-set our compasses in the right direction, to take a few moments to be lifted from day-to-day worries and concerns to focus of what is truly important.
II
As a boy I was led to a reverence for the holy by my grandfather Roy, a hard-working farmer in northwestern Wisconsin. When I visited on summers, he often invited me to accompany him to daily Mass. We would leave early in the morning and drive five miles to the village to the church on the top of the hill which he and fellow immigrant farmers from Prussia and Poland had founded. When the church first was built families paid "pew rent" and were given their own pew. Although pew rent was abolished many years previous, grandfather always went to "his pew," on the right side, about a third of the way from the front. He would genuflect, then kneel, make the sign of the cross and pray in silence. He seemed to shut out the outside world and focus only on God. I watched and in imitation followed what he did. After church, he would ask, "Would you like to go to the drug store for an ice cream soda?" Perhaps this was my reward for accompanying him to church. It was our time together; being with grandfather made me feel very special. I wonder if those trips with grandfather were God's way to nudge me toward a vocation of ministry. My grandfather's reverence for the holy rubbed off on me.
III
In the past couple of weeks I have been reminded of Rosa Parks, who, like my grandfather, had a reverence for the holy, a reverence for God's image in every person. She died a couple of weeks ago at age 92. Nearly 50 years ago, on December 1, 1955, she was riding home on city bus from her job as a department store seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama. She refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested and convicted of violating segregation laws. In response, blacks in Montgomery boycotted the buses for nearly 13 months while mounting a successful Supreme Court challenge to the Jim Crow laws that enforced their second-class status on the public bus system.
There are many stories and myths around Rosa Parks. One legend had it that she was a cleaning woman with bad feet who was too tired to drag herself to the rear of the bus. Another had it she was a "plant" by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The truth, as she later explained, was that she was tired of being humiliated, of having to adapt to unjust rules, some codified as law and others passed on as tradition, that reinforced the position of blacks as something less that full human beings.
"I had no idea when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to the segregation laws in the South," Rosa Parks wrote in her autobiography. "People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that wasn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired that I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me being old then. I was 42. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in." Rosa Parks was showing reverence for the holy, showing reverence for the human person as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
When I hear today's Gospel passage, I see the teaching of Jesus through the lens of Rosa Parks. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" - Rosa Parks never held public office nor did she thrust herself into the spotlight. "Blessed are those who mourn" - for decades, Rosa and other blacks had endured segregation and mourned the assault on their dignity. "Blessed are the meek" - When the bus driver told her that he would have her arrested, she replied in a quiet voice, "You may do that." She spoke so quietly she could hardly be heard. She was not a pushy person. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness" - for over ten years Rosa Parks was active in efforts in to get blacks registered to vote. She was the secretary of the local NAACP. She had participated in training programs to combat injustice. "Blessed are the peacemakers" - Rosa was committed to non-violent, we might even say polite protest. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake" - in addition to the mental and emotional anguish of being arrested, jailed, and convicted, when the bus boycott began Rosa Parks was fired from her job as a seamstress by the department store where she worked. She was not able to get work in Montgomery and had to leave town. She did not set out to be a hero, but her action was the catalyst that mobilized the civil rights movement. Her reverence for the holy led here to say "enough". Her courageous stand ignited a movement that changed the country.
In a few moments we will celebrate the baptism of our newest saints, Dong, Caroline, and Ava. Parents and godparents will show their reverence for the holy by dedicating these children to the Creator and acknowledging them as God's holy ones. They will promise to be the role models to guide these children to grow into the full stature of Christ. We, the congregation, will promise to do all in our power to support the parents and godparents and these children in their life in Christ.
We will rekindle our reverence for the holy as we renew our baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, to proclaim the good news of Christ, to repent and return to the Lord, and continue in the apostle's teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.
Let us pray. O God, holy mystery of mercy and love, sometimes we are too busy and anxious to recognize you in our midst. Help us to a deep reverence of your presence in our world, in the beauty of the liturgy we celebrate today, in great people like Rosa Parks who have gone before us, and in these children baptized today who reflect your goodness to us. For all this we give thanks. Amen.