SOME THINGS DON'T CHANGE

From an All Saints’ Day sermon of Dr. David P. Scaer:

All Saints’ Day is not about change; it is about how things stay the same. It’s not about one congregation or even the Lutheran Church, but about a church that exists everywhere and at all times. This church is eternal. It has its origins in the mind of God and is firmly established in the heavens. This church does not reminisce about the good times of the past and does not hope for better times. Its future glory is already its possession. The kingdom of God is present in this church right now. This kingdom belongs as much to the present as it does to the past or future. Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.” Right now. What the church hopes for is already present in the preaching of Christ’s cross and His Sacraments. The Gospel tells us that the kingdom of the heavens is coming, and in the Sacraments that kingdom comes. The kingdom of the heavens, which Jesus said belonged to the poor in spirit, is nothing else than Christ’s taking on flesh by the Virgin Mary, His death for our salvation, His rising from the tomb, and His glorious ascent into heaven. This kingdom has no political boundaries and flies no national flags. She gives her allegiance to no earthly ruler. She speaks countless languages, but says and confesses only one thing. The boundaries of this one, holy, catholic, Christian, and apostolic church are established by Holy Baptism. She feeds on the Holy Communion. This church is everywhere in the world: “It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, holy Father, almighty, everlasting God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” One church building comes down and another is built. One church has twenty members and another has thousands. But there is only one church. No time or place is superior to another. “It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, Holy Father.”

In this church there are no delinquents, no membership drives. Its membership is complete. All of them hear the Word of God and believe; all are baptized; and all receive the communion of Christ’s body and blood. This church has no concern for leaky gutters and snow removal. There are no financial problems, since all her members are saints. All perform good works. All are like Christ in giving themselves for others. This church reached its final perfection before the world began. You may have been brought into the church by your parents, or by a neighbor, or because your daughter or son went to the parochial school, but these were only the masks through which God was working. God did not choose you one by one, but God chose Christ and by choosing Christ, He chose the church into which you were placed by baptism. You are God’s church. You are Christ’s body. You are the Holy Spirit’s temple. Quite bluntly, you are the work of the Holy Trinity who lives within you. You are not an afterthought. You belong to God’s one eternal decision. He selected you in Christ and He gave you Christ’s holiness. When you confess, “I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic church,” you are first of all saying that Christ is holy and that the church to which you belong by baptism is holy. You are not holy in yourself, but only because you are part of the church.

…All Christians are equally justified by God through faith on account of Christ, but it is also true that God ahs accomplished more through some than others.

God shows equality in salvation, but not in how He works. God is no equal-opportunity employer. We are only kidding ourselves if any of us think we are a St. Peter or Paul or Luther. In some denominations the buildings are named in honor of the people who gave the money. We name our churches after Peter and Paul, James and Stephen, men who proved they were saints by the way they lived and died. I may stumble through this or that sermon on one Sunday or another, but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John by the Holy Spirit gave us the Gospels, which are read in all the churches of God everywhere throughout the world, Sunday after Sunday, year after year, one century upon another. And after they wrote their Gospels, they sealed their books with their blood. We are like dry creeks. Those saints are still roaring rivers rushing to the ocean. The first apostles carried the Gospel throughout the ancient world. Then came the missionary apostles who went further. They left homes; they preached the Gospel and then paid for what they preached with their lives. Three years ago, I asked a Mexican student what he thought about Christopher Columbus. Columbus bashing was the in-thing in 1992. This young man’s answer took me aback. He said, if Columbus had not come, the Spanish missionaries would not have come and he would not have been a Christian. All of us are descended from pagans, from unbelievers and enemies of the Gospel. If St. Patrick had not gone to Ireland, if those Irish monks had not gone to Scotland and England, if St. Olaf had not gone to Norway, if St. Boniface had not gone to barbarous Germans who threatened to kill him, if Sts. Cyril and Methodius had not gone to the Slovak nations, if those Spanish priests had not gone to Latin America, if the Russian prince Vladimir hadn’t adopted Christianity, we would not be Christians. We are only Christians because of the Holy Spirit, but that Spirit worked through men and women who sacrificed themselves to God. Of these people Jesus said, “For great is [their] reward in heaven.” We make no claims for ourselves or for our faith, but are as dependent on the church as the paralytic was on those who carried him on the stretcher to Jesus to be healed.

Now let’s speak about ordinary Christians like us. We are all together packaged in one large bundle. We do not belong on November 1, All Saints’ Day. That’s for really important people. We belong on the next day, November 2, All Souls’ Day, with all those Christians who struggle with sin, doubt, and unbelief. We will not be remembered very long, but are content that we are remembered by God. Our hope is that our names are written in heaven. We are that church which is redeemed by Christ. We are at peace with God and with one another. We are that church which exists in, with, and under Jesus Christ. We are on earth, but we have already been taken into heaven with Jesus Christ to God’s right hand. We who are alive have already died with Christ. Those who have died are alive in Christ. Death is no boundary for us, but confirms and rewards faith. In this church, Jesus is the foundation and around His altar are His holy Mother, the Old Testament priests, prophets, kings and patriarchs, all the apostles, the evangelists, and the martyrs. Most of us will be in the back rows of heaven. We could end this sermon by having Mr. Hollman play “When the Saints Go Marching In” on the organ, but we want to avoid being contemporary. I am satisfied with one line of the song: “I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.” Another David said it better: “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord.”

David P. Scaer, In Christ: The Collected Works of David P. Scaer, Volume I: Sermons, ed. Peter C. Bender, Susan E. Gehlbach, Lawrence R. Rast, Ralph G. Tausz, (Concordia Catechetical Academy: Sussex, WI, 2004), p. 375-377,  All Saints’ Sunday, November 5, 1995, Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana.