By Regional Minister Pamela Holt
Because November 1st fell on a Tuesday this year, many Disciples in Oklahoma celebrated All Saint’s Day on October 30th or November 6th. Thank you for remembering those saints in your midst who have walked this journey before you and alongside you.
The Regional Church also celebrates All Saint’s Day by remembering our clergy who have gone before us this last year. We keep a library of these faithful servants on our website. These saints said “yes!” to the call of God to serve vocationally. These saints planted seeds of faith formation over the years and found great joy in preaching, teaching, caring, and offering God’s forgiveness and grace around many tables. They also presided at funerals and officiated weddings, and baptized many. We remember and give thanks.
This past week, I had the privilege of preaching at Yale Avenue Christian Church in Tulsa. I took the opportunity to invite us to also be “saints” with a story from my journal. I do not know the original source.
I learned about a congregation who took their Halloween celebration and tied it to a celebration of All Saint’s Day in a little bit different way. The did this by inviting everyone to come to church on Sunday morning dressed as their favorite saint. St. Paul was there, as well as Saint Francis. Saint Nicholas made an appearance, and Saint John the Baptist showed up too, with his head on a platter!
Then there were those who did not follow the instructions at all. Or maybe, they just had a better understanding of what the word “saint” means. There were a couple of cowboys present, and many people came dressed in the costumes of nurses and doctors, constructions workers and policemen, firefighters and even a politician. One even dressed up as a minister.
At the end of the party awards were given out to those with the best costumes, and then everyone was given a glittery halo to wear. Made with Christmas tinsel, they were beautiful things that hovered over every person’s head just like the real thing might. And then everyone marched into the church sanctuary and took their place for a time of worship with their halos bobbing and swaying and sparkling in the light of candles. The minister wrote, “I was amazed at how funny and eerie and even beautiful this all looked. There were all kinds of people there, from all the different times and places on earth, and binding them all together, making them one, were those delicate, beautiful halos, linking each person with the others and everyone there with all God’s saints in all times and places.”
Saints are not just those in our past who we remember and to whom we are still connected by love. They are also all of us who are baptized, proclaiming Jesus as our Lord & Savior, who gather at the Lord’s Table every week where all are invited to eat the bread and drink from the cup of the new covenant, and who strive every day to love and serve as Jesus. I hope we can recognize our holiness amidst our humanness. It is a thin place to be. Thanks be to God.
You may view those we honor in Oklahoma on our Saints page.
