Tabernacles of Absence
A
Sermon on Ephesians 1:11-23
By Griff Martin
For
All Saints’ Day 2019
November
3, 2019
For
the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
Incarnate and Resurrected God, we
ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and
breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of your
presence here in this space and in these words, God; for if we are present to
you then nothing else will matter, but if we are not present to you then
nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the
Comforter. Amen.
To the church at Ephesus,
for this reason, because I have heard of your faith and your love, I continually
give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because you are doing the right
work, living in such a way that your love is a call to everyone who encounters
you.
To the church at First
Austin, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith and your love, I
continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because you are doing
the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to everyone who
encounters you.
---
A
year ago, the following names meant nothing to me: Gerritt Cole, Jose Altuve,
Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, Josh Reddick. And then last spring, Jude started
to really get into baseball. As he began playing baseball, he discovered the
Houston Astros and it was love at first sight. In these few short months since
that discovery, we have seen the Astros play both in Houston and Denver, we
stayed up way too late on school nights watching them play, we have books of
their stats and stories, we have their cards, and we have jerseys (no, let me
phrase that right: Jude has jerseys).
It’s
gotten to the point that when we put Jude to bed and come back downstairs, it will
often be some time before Abby or I finally ask, “are we still watching
baseball?” Last week, we were talking about this new development and we came to
this truth: it’s easy to fall in love with something when you watch someone you
love fall in love with that same thing.
It’s
why there are parents in this room who know way more than they should about the
Jonas Brothers or JoJo Siwa. It’s why you might not be a wine person until you
fall in love with someone who has a passion for wine. It’s why some couples
begin with one partner who thinks camping is staying at a hotel where the doors
face out, and the other loves state parks, and before you know it, they are
full-time campers. It’s why a friendship might suddenly make you a gardener, or
a teacher might make you a reader, or a grandmother’s needle point might make
you interested in needle pointing.
When
someone you love falls in love with something, there is a good chance you are
about to go down the same rabbit hole.
And
life is better for it.
In
fact, I am willing to bet that if you sit with anything you really love long
enough, you can trace it back to the person who helped you fall in love with
that thing.
To
the church at Ephesus, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith and
your love, I continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because you
are doing the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to
everyone who encounters you.
To
the church at First Austin, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith
and your love, I continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because
you are doing the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to
everyone who encounters you.
---
Each
year on All Saints’ Day, I find myself thinking about the Dancing Saints in
Saint Gregory’s church in San Francisco. This congregation worships in a space
that has been filled with artwork of their Saints. Their ceiling is painted
with Saints of the Faith. It includes everyone from King David to Isaiah, to
more recent leaders like Sojourner Truth and Patrick of Ireland and Thomas
Merton and Freddy Mercury and Aretha Franklin and Prince. The membership
created and continues to add to this mural of those who made them fall further
into love – love with God and love with one another.
It’s
a monument and celebration of what John O’Donohue brilliantly calls our saints,
“tabernacles of absence.”
This
year I have been thinking about some of those saints here at First Austin;
those that have never held leadership roles in official ways, those who I think
of us as quiet giants, those who don’t need a spotlight, they just need a
calling and a place to do their work, no matter who sees or who doesn’t see…
folks like the Gardners, the Goodmans, the Landes, the Englishs, Roy and Ruth
Mock, the Andersons, the Jenkins, Joyce Mitchell, Walter Matthews.
And
folks like Dorothy and Brownlee Hunter, who joined this community of faith as
newlyweds in the 1940s and raised both their girls, Mary Helen and Anne, here.
Brownlee was never a Deacon chair (a fact Mary Helen has now more than made up
for).
They
were, in Mary Helen’s words, “those who did what needed to be done. They rarely
missed a Sunday or a Wednesday night. They served where they were needed,
whether it was working with the landscaping, passing the plate, washing tablecloths
or mashing potatoes for the Wednesday night meal. No job was too small; they were happy to help
in any way. If they were still here, I feel sure that they would still be
active in this church. They always treated people fairly, regardless of differences
in race, religion, sexual diversity, economic means. They had friends who
fell into all categories. But again, we didn’t really talk about it, we
just treated each other as we would want to be treated. People were just
people. They realized that churches weren’t perfect. Like families, there were
some folks you liked better than others, some decisions that you liked better
than other decisions. We just showed up and pitched in, physically,
emotionally, spiritually, and financially.”
For
them, we say, thanks be to God.
The
Dancing Saints of First Austin… Who made us fall more in love with God, with
each other, with church, with the world, with art.
To
the church at Ephesus, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith and
your love, I continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because you
are doing the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to
everyone who encounters you.
To
the church at First Austin, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith
and your love, I continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because
you are doing the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to
everyone who encounters you.
---
This
year, we add a few new dancing Saints to our portrait. We add Patti Steakley,
who would certainly be dancing, and I think we would all see her dancing near a
Christmas tree. It was her favorite season, and during it, she made certain that
love came alive for kids who might not otherwise know it.
We
would add Golda Houston, and we would maybe have to buy some glitter paint just
for this one addition. She taught us all a truth we are still living into, that
it’s more than okay – in fact, it’s preferred – to stand out for being uniquely
you. You are perfect and there is no shame in being exactly who you are.
We
would then go back to the classic colors to add Neva Scott, a saint of prayer,
who for more than just a few of us in this community prayed daily and would
call us to let us know she was praying, and often it was at the exact time we
needed prayer, as if she and the Holy Spirit were one in the same, dancing
together.
To
the church at Ephesus, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith and
your love, I continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because you
are doing the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to
everyone who encounters you.
To
the church at First Austin, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith
and your love, I continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because
you are doing the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to
everyone who encounters you.
---
The
author of this letter, the letter to the Ephesians, goes out of their way to
offer gratitude for the stories they are hearing about this church… because as
this church falls more in love with the work of Christ, the world that is
watching is falling more in love with Christ also.
And
love adds to love adds to love, and that is how we bring about the Kingdom of
God.
I
think this is one of many reasons why church community is so important. There
are all sorts of reasons why institutional church might matter, things like
correct doctrine and tradition, for example. But if I am honest, those are
becoming less and less important in my life and the thing institutional church
has going for it, the thing that gives me life, is simply the church as the
community of love.
That
we exist together in love. That love is our unity. That in that love, we show
and teach one another new things to fall in love with, new ways to love God and
new ways to love our world.
If
the church is not a community of love, then we are nothing.
Recently
I have fallen in love with the new country music group, The Highwomen. It’s 4
of the most talented singer-songwriters alive today, and some of the best
music. The song you are about to hear has captured me. It’s the story of 4 unnamed
women and their callings and how their story is still alive. It’s about love
and how love leads you to catch a calling, a passion. It’s about Saints and
it’s everything this sermon is trying to say.
To
the church at Ephesus, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith and
your love, I continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because you
are doing the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to
everyone who encounters you.
To
the church at First Austin, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith
and your love, I continually give gratitude for the work you are doing. Because
you are doing the right work, living in such a way that your love is a call to
everyone who encounters you.
It’s
now our turn to go and, by simply living, help the world around us fall more in
love with God, with each other, with the church, with the world and with art.
To keep singing the song of the story untold, to finish the works of our saints
and to begin work others will finish. That is the work of Saints. May we do so.
Amen and Amen.
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