November 6, 2011 – Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25, I Thessalonians 4:13-18, Matthew 25:1-13
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25, I Thessalonians 4:13-18, Matthew 25:1-13
Last Words [Sermon for All Saints Sunday]
21st Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 32] – November 6, 2011
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Today we hear Joshua’s last words to the people of Israel before he dies.
And it got me thinking about people’s last words.
The poet Byron simply said, “Goodnight.”
The comic Lou Costello said, “That was the best ice cream soda I ever tasted.”
Elvis said he hoped he hadn’t bored us while Bing Crosby said
“That was a really great game of golf, fellers.”
Oscar Wilde, of course, famously said, “Either that wallpaper goes or I do.”
(all at http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/famous-last-words/24-famous%20last%20words.htm)
Many people – no matter what their political leanings were – appreciated Jack Layton’s
last words to the people of Canada, in the form a letter written on August 20th.
Here we have a different order of last words, which you sense in these words addressed to
all Canadians:
Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
(at http://www.ndp.ca/letter-to-canadians-from-jack-layton)
What I personally appreciated about these words is that in the face of death,
in his last words he had his eye on a mission that was much bigger than himself.
He had his eye on Canada’s mission as a country to care for the common good of its people.
In death, he kept his eye on the mission. He stayed awake to future possibilities.
In death, the temptation is to think that it’s all about us.
But it’s not: it’s about the bigger mission with which we’ve been entrusted and created for.
Joshua has his eye on a mission, too, this morning: God’s mission to make this world right and
bless and heal and set free every person in it.
And in his last speech he’s concerned that the people commit themselves to
serving this God and to serving that mission.
The word “serve” appears 8 times in this speech and it’s clear that Joshua’s concern is that
the people continue to serve God and God’s mission to bless heal and love this world.
When I am gone, he is saying to the people, every morning when you get out of bed
you will need to continue to choose that day who and what mission you will serve,
because there are a lot of other options in this life.
Joshua realized even his death wasn’t about him: it was about God’s healing mission.
Paul writes to a community of people today who are in mourning.
They’re grieving those among themselves who have died before Christ’s return.
And they are distraught as they wonder what the fate of these people is.
Paul assures them that these saints, these baptized ones, rest safely in God’s care.
And that they will be raised to life when Christ comes to bring final healing and restoration to
this world.
You see the picture he paints, right?
Christ is coming down to earth, right?
And these dead saints are raised and come to meet him in his descent.
Jesus doesn’t then take them away from this world; on the contrary,
they continue to accompany Jesus down to earth presumably to continue to serve him as
he completes God’s mission to bring final healing and blessing to this world and
every person in it.
In Paul’s view, even the dead have a place in God’s mission.
For the baptized – the saints of God – are to have their eye on God’s mission;
the baptized saints of God always have their eye on God’s mission, even in death.
When my mother died of pancreatic cancer 18 years ago, she had a couple of things to say to me.
One of the last things she said was, “I love you.”
And the other thing was, “Take care of Sue and Peter.”
A blessing. And a commission. She had her eye on the mission of God, even in death.
My mother was blessed in her baptism, clothed with the light and love of Christ,
and thereby made a saint with a saint’s mission: to be a blessing in turn.
And this mission, she knew, was bigger even than she was, much, much bigger.
She didn’t perfectly attend to this mission,
although she was one of those people who really, really tried.
But none of the saints of God is perfect.
The people of Israel at the point in the story we’re at with them are actually really sucking at serving God’s mission to bless this world: in the 21 chapters of Joshua we’ve
skipped over this week, they’ve slaughtered just about all the other inhabitants
of the Promised Land in order to take possession of it.
I mean, weren’t they blessed by God as children of Abraham in order to be a blessing to
all the peoples of the earth (Genesis 1-3)? And not a curse?
But God remains faithful to them, God continues to love them and remain optimistic about
the possibility of them and that is great good news.
Or how about the supposedly wise bridesmaids in the Gospel this morning.
Sure, they stay alert, awake to the mission of the bridegroom and that is commendable:
they’ve got their eye on the mission, on the coming, of Jesus, right?
But even as they do that they fail in their mandate to share when they refuse to
share oil with the foolish bridesmaids.
I mean, isn’t Jesus, aren’t Christians, all about sharing even when, as in the feeding of 5000,
The amount to share doesn’t seem adequate? Doesn’t sharing multiply blessing?
But Jesus comes anyway and brings them on in to the banquet, which is great good news.
You know, sometimes we need to give thanks for the saints and their saintliness.
And sometimes we need to forgive the saints for not always being saintly.
Jesus does: from the cross he looks at those who have put him there, and I’m sure he thinks
about all those who loved him and yet have abandoned him and he says in his last words:
Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.
A blessing: the blessing of forgiveness.
And then, in John’s Gospel, he looks at his mother and at a disciple he loves and says,
Woman, behold your son. And you, disciple, behold your mother.
A commission: the creation of a new Christian community of caring based not on blood but
on the love of Jesus, right there at the foot of the cross,
a communion of saints that is commissioned to serve God’s mission to
bless heal and love this world and every person in it.
Jesus kept his eye on that mission, in his last words, even in the face of death.
So what would your last words be? Take a moment and write down for yourself some last words.
Beloved: by our baptisms we too are invited with Jesus and with all the saints to always and
always keep our eye on God’s mission, even in death.
Those we remember today were baptized and made saints for the sake of that mission.
They were not perfect those saints, but God loved them anyway and
God continues to love them in death and therefore so should we.
Their work is not done, according to Paul. They will rise to meet Christ and return with him to
participate in the promised fulfillment of life over death and love over hate.
And in the meantime they mysteriously surround us, this great cloud of witnesses to God’s love.
We are in mysterious communion with them for they, we believe, have died in Christ,
in Christ, where we too have a place, right now, for in our baptisms we have all been
incorporated into Christ and into his love for us and into his love for this world.
So let us hold fast to that.
Let us with all the saints keep our eye on the mission of God even in the face of death.
Let us keep our eye on that mission with Joshua and with Paul,
Let us keep our eye on that mission with the wise bridesmaids and with my mother.
Let us remember we have been blessed with love to be a blessing for love.
And may we, with our last words, and with all our words, keep our eye on God’s mission.
So with all the saints of every time and every place, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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