Great sermon by a friend of Emmanuel!

Most of you will remember Geoff Garner, who, along with his family, was a member of Emmanuel for about four years until the Navy took him to Norfolk in 2006. Geoff is now in Iraq for a year tour. He serves as a lay leader at his chapel in Baghdad. On Sunday, he preached the following homily to celebrate All Saints' Day. For a first ever sermon, he did a tremendous job - not that we would expect anything less from Geoff, who tends to be something of a perfectionist.

Here is the sermon:

Daniel 7:17-18, Psalm 149:4-9, Ephesians 1:17-19

Luke 6: 27-29

I am used to writing arguments to deliver to judges and juries, but this is my first attempt at writing a homily. I set about preparing this by going over the readings for today again and again, looking for some common thread. I hoped that something brilliant would come to mind, some series of connections that would lead to an amazing conclusion that would leave you all greatly inspired. I am afraid that I have failed. All I succeeded in doing was spending a week wrestling with a great dilemma. So, all I can do today is share this dilemma with you.

The readings from Daniel and Ephesians were relatively easy to deal with. Daniel shows us that even the lowly attendant – a slave – is capable of giving a divine interpretation to Daniel’s dream. In this interpretation, the slave tells Daniel that kings are only of the earth and therefore ephemeral, but righteous men – or Saints – will inherit the eternal kingdom.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul echoes this by asking God to inspire the people with a great spirit of wisdom and revelation, in hopes that they will become saints and inherit the eternal kingdom. So far, so good.

But Psalm 149 and the gospel of Luke are not so easy. Now, I must admit, I have always had a bit of an issue with the Psalms in general. It seems to me they can be divided into 3 basic categories: psalms of praise, requests for divine intercession, and rallying cries to “open up a can of whoop-ass” on some tribe of enemies. While psalms of praise can be quite lovely (though not really my cup of tea), I have never found much use for the other two types. I never liked the idea of asking God to perform specific acts on my behalf, and I certainly don’t think that God takes sides in wars between his children. So, here I am in war-torn Baghdad, trying to deal with a Psalm that sings of victory, glory, two-edged swords, vengeance, punishment, chains, fetters, and judgment. Honestly, I think that 6 months ago it would have been easier for me to dismiss it as being “another one of those silly Psalms.” But now, I am sometimes tempted to see things a bit differently.

Five days a week I go to the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. We bring in detainees who are clad in pajamas and who are chained and shackled. I know the horrible crimes and atrocities some of them have committed. I admit to having felt righteous and just at the sight of them shuffling in their leg irons. I admit to having felt a powerful rush when someone who attacked our forces or who implanted an IED would get a long prison sentence. These are our enemies, right? And they have done horrible things, right? Isn’t it only just that judgment be passed upon them?

And there was the day 6 weeks or so ago when one of my men got hit by a mortar outside the courthouse. When I was helping to get him to the hospital, when I saw the hole through his arm, when I saw the pain on his face, and when I had his blood on me, I felt ready to pick up a two-edged sword and extract some vengeance. Perhaps Psalm 149 was singing to me then.

And then comes the gospel of Luke. And then comes Christ, setting aside the old law and revealing a new law. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. Offer your other cheek. Give your shirt to he who steals your coat. And to cap it off – the great commandment: Do to others as you would have them do to you. Now this is something to wrestle with! Yes, it is easy for us to envision Christ doing these things. But it just isn’t realistic for anyone to expect us – ordinary people – to be able to do those things, is it? And particularly not when we are at war? Wouldn’t it be clean and simple if we could use the gospel of Luke for times of peace – for when we are back home – and use Psalm 149 over here, when we’re at war? Or how about using the gospel and its Great Commandment for our comrades (MNFI) and Psalm 149 for our enemies (the insurgents)? Nice and tidy, but probably not what Christ would want us to do, is it?

Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to get into the whole discussion about what does it mean to literally be a Christian soldier. For those of us in uniform – and no doubt for many of you in civvies – that is an issue never far from the mind. And I’ll save my opinion on just-war theory for a conversation over lunch. What I want to do instead is talk for another minute about saints. The significance of All Saints Day in our church is that God is calling all of us to be saints. The slave who interpreted Daniel’s dream was called to be a saint. The early Christians in Ephesus were called to be saints. Each of us are called to be saints.

Someone famous – I forget who it was – said that saints are people through whom the light of God shines. I liked that, and I carried it around with me for years. I liked to think of the saints on stained glass windows who light up when the sun is behind them. I have known people like that, too. People who simply radiate the glory, joy, and love of God. But this analogy is too simple. It does not encompass the capacity for every one of God’s children to be a saint.

I want to suggest another model. Consider that everyone, everywhere is a piece of stained glass in the great windows of God’s cathedral. But without a source of light, those pieces of glass appear dark and dull. They sit there, darkly, awaiting the light that will let loose their capacity for incredible beauty. Perhaps the real saint is not the illuminated piece of glass, but the mirror reflecting the light of God onto the glass. Perhaps being a saint is not so much about being radiant in terms of one’s own splendor, but more about reflecting the love of Christ into the dark corners, lighting up the splendid windows that have never seen that light before.

Can we do that? Can we be saintly enough to reflect God’s love into places that have never known it? I’ll remember to ask myself that tomorrow when I see a potential saint shuffle into the courthouse, chained and fettered.