Greetings, this All Saints Sunday to all you saints. I sense you squirm. You might remember a phrase from the old Pogo comic strip. "We have met the enemy, and he is us"? Well, from the perspective of the Church, "We have met the Saints - and they are us." If we are our own worst enemies, as we often are; then we are own best saints, as we often should be. You don't like thinking of yourself as a "saint"? Sounds somewhat stained glass and holier-than-thou? If you had been in church last Sunday (and there wasn't any) you would have heard a stirring sermon (and there wasn't one) on Martin Luther, and his assertion that we are all saints and sinners simultaneously. So I repeat, "Greetings, this All Saints Sunday to all you saints."

I love the way St. Paul will sometimes begin one of his letters by saying for instance, "To all the saints at Rome." And then he spends the rest of the letter bashing them over the head, telling them what miserable failures they are as Christians. Still, their failures to be all that they ought to be doesn't keep Paul from calling them "saints." A saint is any Christian, anybody whom God has called out to be blessed, baptized, different, distinctive. Saints are those ordinary people who have had their little lives caught, commandeered by Christ in rather extraordinary ways. And for that, Jesus calls them "blessed." A saint is one to whom God has given a guarantee. A saint is you; a saint is me.

Here is the guarantee of Jesus: "The one who believes in me will not die, but have everlasting life." Or this one: "I am the Resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live." Yes, Jesus has a guarantee. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." And at the end of the day - at the end of a life - there is for the saints, a welcome. That is the theme of this All Saints' Sunday: God has a guarantee - a welcome.

All Saints' Day is the second last of the great festivals of the Church Year, a year which will end two weeks from today on the Sunday of Christ the King. In a sense every sermon that is preached throughout the year, is pointed toward this day. Every time you sing a hymn or mouth a prayer, you are pointed to this day. Every time you eat the bread and drink the wine of the Eucharist, you are pointed to this day. This day - and God's guarantee. Life triumphs over death; life trumps death. To put it another way, today is the anti-Ash Wednesday. You know - when the pastor says, "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The message of All Saints' Day is the guarantee, "Remember you are a child of God, destined for eternal life."

We have fifty-two names on our All Saints' prayer list. But of course, these are not mere names. These are our parents and our children and our friends and acquaintances. These are they who have passed from this life into a life eternal. "They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat ... and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Fifty-two lives and fifty-two stories. Three years ago I talked with my mother-in-law, Lena Reinhardt, on her ninetieth birthday. She and her husband Howard were both residing at an Assisted Living facility. Dad could barely care for himself and I said to Lena, "Mom, I'm so glad that you are Dad's advocate." That didn't sound right so I continued, "I meant to say Mom, I'm so glad you are Dad's caretaker. Wait, that not what I rely mean." And Lena filled in the blank with the word I was looking for. She said, "Tim, what I am is Howard's lover." This from a ninety-year-old saint.

Marc Nilssen died the bravest death I ever witnessed. Stricken with Lou Gehrig's Disease at 42, he fought the good fight, never giving up hope, always looking toward the next day with confidence. He counted himself lucky. Lucky? Yes, lucky. In an open letter to friends and family, Marc wrote, "I owe everyone a heartfelt thank you. It's because of all of you that now I see God has blessed me. Through all of this, I'll be fine. Everything's gonna be OK."

Hans Rupprecht is another of the saints of my life. A brilliant, world-renowned scientist ... but you would never know it as you watched Hans on a Sunday morning helping Ruth prepare the altar for Communion. There was an Advent tradition in the Rupprecht household. Each evening during the four weeks prior to Christmas, a candles were lit; candles were lit to push back the darkness and to prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Light of the world. The scientist, the man of faith, was also a musician. And each candle lit night of Advent, Hans would play on the recorder the haunting notes of a longing world, "O Come Emmanuel."

Just three of the names on our All Saints' list. Like me, there are names among the fifty-two that tug at your heartstrings more than others. They are people that the Good Shepherd has guided to "the springs of the water of life." And equally as wonderful, "God will wipe every tear from their eyes," even as our own tears linger. Of course, each of these fifty-two have a story ... and for each of these fifty-two, God has a guarantee.

Today is the anti-Ash Wednesday. All Saints' Day is the great promise of our God that the grave is not a dead end. That the ashes of our mortality smudged upon our foreheads do not stick. The water of Baptism acts as Teflon ... and the death and resurrection of Jesus becomes our guarantee. "Beloved, we are God's children," and what parent would ever abandon a child?

The Christian faith throughout the year, and perhaps especially on this day, our faith points to a bowl of water and proclaims "this is life. Fresh, cleansing life. The dust of death smudged on Ash Wednesday is washed away by that fonted water." Our faith points to the grain and the grapes of the Eucharist and the words of Jesus, "I am the Bread of Life"! And for we who feed upon that bread and believe the words of that Savior - the very curse of death is reversed!

Here is how Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it, as he struggled mightily to fight the good fight against apartheid in South Africa. When things were most difficult, Tutu would never despair. Week after week he would preach to his people, "Don't give up. Never lose heart. I've read the Good Book right through to the end: we win"! Call it God's guarantee. How can we be so sure? Read once more through to the end of the book - we win! We have met the Savior - and he is him. The man of both cross and empty tomb. It's the truth, all you saints. It's the truth!

* I am grateful for the opening words by the gifted preacher, Bishop William Willimon