Help Wanted

A sermon for All Saints’ Sunday
November 3, 2024, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Readings: Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44

Help wanted. Heaven in need of Saints. You open up the classifieds and you come across this ad. You’ve been looking for work. Help wanted. Heaven in need of Saints. Job description: Praise God for eternity. Pray for those on earth. Compensation: None. You have to buy in some way. It might be through suffering, sickness, and pain. It might be through persecution and blood. But it’s gonna cost you. Benefits: Eternal life. Training required: Extensive on-the-job training with the Holy Spirit. Skills needed: Must be able to carry a cross. Help wanted. Heaven in need of Saints. 

Today is All Saints’ Sunday. In our tradition, we celebrate All Saints’ Sunday following All Saints’ Day, November 1, and All Souls’ Day, November 2. All Saints’ Sunday pushes these two days together. We remember those capital-S Saints. Mary, Peter, Paul, Luke, all the rest. We also remember, and pray for, those lowercase-s saints in our lives. Those whom we love but see no longer. Those who now rest in the arms of Jesus, going from strength to strength in a life of perfect service, growing in love, being sanctified day by day. And today is a day when we declare our intention to be a Saint, a capital-S Saint no less! What a thing! Are we serious? If we are, help is wanted. Heaven is in need of Saints. 

Do we respond to that ad? I bet we do. We call in, get an interview time. Heaven doesn’t send a car–you have to walk there. They want to make sure you’re serious. You go into the waiting room and check in. It’s a big room, hoping for large crowds of interested applicants, but there aren’t many there. Just a few. Most of them look pretty rough. Many are bloodied and bruised, some covered in rubble and way too skinny. These are they who are still in the fight, in lands of real persecution. They don’t have time for our silly war on Christmas. They’re being murdered, martyred, for Christ. 

You take a seat. And wait. And wait. Heaven’s not afraid to make you wait. For while Heaven is in real need of Saints, they want to make sure your heart is in it. Heaven does not have time for lackadaisical wanna-be saints. They need the real thing. But you’re serious, so you wait. 

Finally you are ushered into a room. There’s old St. Peter. Keys of the kingdom in his hand, Christ has placed him in charge of their Saints-in-Training program. “So you’re interested in being a Saint,” he says. “I am glad to hear it.” He hands you some materials. Instead of the customary HR paperwork, it’s a copy of the sermon on the mount. A few prayers. The title page says, How to Live like a Saint. 

As soon as you’ve sat down, St. Peter has you on your feet again. He says, “I’ve learned over the centuries that the best way to go about this is to show you what you’re getting into. I’ve lined up a few folks for you to meet. We’ll see if you really want this.” 

He takes you to room 1. There, seated at a table, is St. Mary. Our Christmas hymns say she was meek and mild, but that’s not the side you see. There’s lightning in her eyes. This is she who bore the very Word of God in her body, who cradled the crucified body of her son at the foot of the cross. She asks you, “Are you willing to bear Christ? To show Christ? To be the light of Christ in a world that doesn’t want the light?” 

Room 2. There sits St. Luke. He’s writing, of course. What else would you expect the author of Luke and Acts to be doing? He asks, “How does your life tell the story of the gospel? Or are you telling a different story?” 

Room 3. This is a big room. No one is seated at a table, and no one is paying attention to you. They’re all facing another direction, toward a distant throne. They’re worshiping. You glance about, and you see a couple of familiar faces. You see a face you’ve seen in stained glass in Memphis, at the cathedral church. Sister Constance, a nun who taught school, and then died taking care of yellow fever patients as all the doctors fled the city. She is next to a young man, a nurse, who died taking care of people diagnosed with Covid-19 early on. You look around more, and see a beloved face. The face of a grandparent, a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a child, a grandchild, a friend. Free from pain, they are praying. And you hear them mention your name. They are interceding on your behalf, asking for God to give you grace, day by day, in this mortal life. We so often worry about forgetting them; but they haven’t forgotten us. 

Then you’re back in that waiting room. St. Peter asks you, “what did you think? Do you think you’re up for this Saint-in-Training program? It’s going to require some suffering. You don’t become a Saint without picking up a cross.” Before you make up your mind, St. Peter says he wants to show you one more thing. Some current Saints-in-Training. Maybe if you see them, that will give you an idea what you might be in for. 

Saint-in-Training 1. Bill is a high school guidance counselor. Bill bears a cross. When his high school son died of a drug overdose, he was angry and despondent. He fell into the same cycle of addiction. He lost everything. But by God’s grace, he came out of it, he learned to forgive, he let go of anger, and he rededicated his life to education. He prays for all of her students, but he has a special list. A list of those who have difficult home lives, who might come into school hungry–or bruised. He prays, and then he puts those prayers in action. He drops groceries by houses; he spends extra time with those most disadvantaged students, showing them their options for the future and helping them get there. Sometimes he walks into hell. He makes that difficult call for a welfare check. He reports that student who has the beginnings of a drug problem, before it’s too late. Every time he sees his son’s face. 

Saint-in-Training 2. Cheri. Cheri is retired now. There’s a cross in her life. Her husband has died and she doesn’t have family; she is very lonely, and her arthritis leaves her in constant pain. But that doesn’t slow her down. You can find her at the church, organizing the food ministry, serving on altar guild, really doing whatever needs to be done. But her happy place, truly, is at the children’s hospital. She goes in and rocks babies, premature or sick babies. That’s it. She rocks them and prays for them. She really lives that John Wesley quote: she’s doing all the good she can, by all the means she can, in all the ways she can, in all the places she can, at all the times she can, to all the people she can, as long as she can. 

“So how about it,” St. Peter says. “Wanna be a Saint?” Help wanted. Heaven in need of Saints. Saints who know that being a Christian is more than Sunday morning; it’s about making all of our lives a reflection of God’s light and love, even when it’s dark in the world. Are you in?