On All Saints’ Sunday, November 6, I was sitting in a pew at a church in Minneapolis singing “For all the saints who from their labors rest” when I was overwhelmed with powerful memories of my father, who died in 1998. For the first 18 years of my life he and the rest of my family worshiped together Sunday after Sunday. But now he is a part of the family of God that is in heaven. Nobody called him a saint while he lived – or a great sinner either, for that matter – but he was on my mind that All Saints’ Sunday.
As I looked down the pew there were my wife, my daughter, and my sister beside me, while the boys in the family were elsewhere, one at Eidsvold in Halma and the other on business in Kansas City. And I felt again that powerful sense of family that I first experienced as the eldest of five children who filled an entire pew on Sunday morning. It is one of the great joys of my life to worship together with my family. Even though I know that as one of the ordained, my proper place is in the pulpit on Sunday morning, I still feel get a special feeling when I am in the pew with my family. Maybe because it is a rare event it is all the more special for me.
A frail elderly woman came to sit on the outside end of the pew in front of us. Right behind her came an usher with a cushion for the pew bench and another cushion for the pew back. She sat when the rest of us stood to sing, and the pastor came down to her pew to give her communion. I have no idea who this woman is, but I was touched by the extra care and consideration that was extended to her by the regulars in the congregation. They clearly know her well. Then I started to think that she, too, is a part of the family, the family of God, that is. She is precious in his sight, frail as she is.
A mother, daughter, and two grandchildren came to sit two pews ahead of us. The granddaughter was about 6 or 7 and settled in. You could tell she worshipped here often. But the grandson, who was maybe 2 years old, kept his mother and grandmother busy through most of the service. It started with the organ prelude when he stood in the pew, looked back at the balcony where the organ is, pointed, and said in his loudest voice “Papa! Papa!” I thought his father was in the choir, but my wife, who remembers people so much better than I, said “no, his grandfather is the organist.” The little boy repeated this several times and was as full of action as a two year old boy should be, until he fell asleep toward the end the service. I watched this rambunctious child and his family struggle to keep up with him, and I thought that he, too, is a part of the family, the family of God, that is, and belongs right here with all his uninhibited behavior as much I do. He is precious in God’s sight, young as he is.
In Mark 3:31 it says that Jesus was teaching in a crowded house when his mother and his brothers (or cousins, depending on your translation) were outside asking for him. Jesus replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And then he looked around at the people listening to him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” In this passage Jesus is not denigrating his relationship with his relatives nor is he abrogating the fourth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother…..” But he is pointing to the reality of a great family of God that is more important than any ties of blood, clan, race, or nationality.
This last Thanksgiving we heard in the media a great deal about how Thanksgiving is a time for family. We will hear it all again at Christmas. Gather in the clan! But Christmas, which centers on the Holy Family, is about looking beyond relatives and friends to all the children of God (John 1:12)
Earlier this fall there was a letter to the advice columnist in the newspaper from a woman complaining that her nieces were bringing their boyfriends to Thanksgiving dinner. They’re not family yet, she complained. Thanksgiving week the columnists printed several responses she received to that letter, and one of the best was this. A woman wrote that everyone is welcome at her Thanksgiving table. And then she said that one year she sent her husband out for more milk on Thanksgiving morning and he came back with a carton of milk and four young soldiers he met at the convenience store who were buying hot dogs because they were far from their relatives for the holiday. The woman said it was the best Thanksgiving dinner they ever had, even though she had to stretch the food a bit.
Isn’t that in the spirit of Christ and his family?
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