Tomato Soup Saints...

We sat at the table eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches Megan had prepared for lunch. Conversation was random, enthusiastic and loud as it often is when you eat with three boys ages seven and under. Mason asked for seconds of the soup and enjoyed it down to the last drop. I watched as he put the shallow mug to his face, held it there for several minutes before he put it down. As he lowered the mug to the table, he grinned, a large red ring circling his happy mouth. “I licked it clean!” he announced. And so he had... love of tomato soup led him not to waste any of the remains in his mug.
I thought of Mason this morning in worship as we celebrated All Saints Sunday. Our worship table held pictures, books and other reminders of those who are saints to us. We told our saint stories about teachers, grandparents, therapists, friends, aunts, and others who were the face of God for us. A sermon preached by John Claypool (thanks to the wizardry of modern technology) helped me understand a new meaning for saints in my life.
His sermon focused on two bedrock attitudes and behavior for a Christian lifestyle, gratitude and generosity. John spoke of Jesus’ gratitude for what he had been given. There was no sense of entitlement nor complaining about the cards he had been dealt in the game of life, only a profound sense of thanksgiving for the gift of life. And because he had been given much, his sharing of all he had and all of who he was, flowed like a healing river over all he met and loved. There was a recognition of the gift that life is and an equal desire to share the whole of it with others.
So I began remembering many of the saints I have loved in my life, none of whom were perfect. But, many of them shared these two important characteristics of a transformed Christian, dare I say saved by grace? Like Mason and the tomato soup, they drank deeply from the well of living water and loved the life they had been given even with its limitations. They lived with joy and thanksgiving even when life was difficult and the cup only half full. Whatever life brought to them, they licked up the last drops and were grateful for what had been and what was yet to come. In their sacramental approach to living, all they had and all they were, were gifts to be shared with open hearts and hands.
Mr. Reem, the best ever church custodian, who made care taking of the church building an art that cared for the ministers as well... Miss Panos, the daughter of Greek immigrants, who taught American history in my high school and ignited a love of freedom in our little redneck hearts... my grandma and Aunt Thelma who modeled constancy as members of the same church for all their adult lives... ministers I have known who spent their lives in small churches that never made it big in any way but in the ways of a loving Jesus... Mason’s school teachers who lay down their lives every day so that the children in their class can celebrate the gift of their lives... I am surrounded by saints and I give thanks for the gifts of their lives and the generosity of their spirits.
On this All Saints Sunday, I pray that we might be saints for one another, helping one another hold on to gratitude and generosity when life does not turn out as we hoped and planned. We are called to pass on the gifts we have been given, to share with thanksgiving as we live out our days on this earth knowing that our life was created in joyful relationship. Springing from One who was lonely in the Garden, we were created in God’s image and if we are true to our family heritage, we will pass on the gifts we have been given to those around us.
C.S. Lewis said “Nothing is ours until we share it”. So let me share, dear Lord, this week, the gifts from the saints I have known and loved. Let me be a saint and open my eyes and heart that I may see all the saints who surround me, that great cloud of witnesses, who are my kin people in the faith. Help me drain my life’s mug and let me lick it clean with enjoyment and enthusiasm and gratitude. Amen.