Rev Bill

I have posted my sermon from yesterday on my sermon blog. Based on Matthew 23:1-12, it’s my All Saints Day sermon for this year and entitled “What Do They See”?

Here’s several snippets of it:

A young girl was visiting a church one Sunday and was impressed with the stained glass windows of the Saints that were along the walls of the church. The windows were particularly beautiful that day as the sun shone brightly through them — making their colors brilliant. She asked about who these people were in these beautiful windows — and was told these were some of the Saints of the church. That morning in Sunday School she was asked if she knew what a Saint was. Thinking back on the bright, colorful windows that had impressed her so — and the fact that she was told these were of the Saints — she replied:
“A Saint is someone who lets the light shine through.”

You may be familiar with the story of the Emperors New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson. The emperor thought that he was important — and ordered that a special suit of clothes be made for him that would match his importance. The tailor, however, saw through the emperor’s self-importance — and made it possible for everyone to see the emperor as he really was! He presented the “new clothes” to the emperor — but actually there were no clothes at all. The emperor was too proud to ask the tailor why there were no clothes — and he paraded around town thinking that he was so grand in his new clothes — not stopping to think that people were seeing that he actually had no clothes at all — and that what they were seeing him as he really was — naked — not as important as he thought he was — not as important as he wanted others to think he was.

During World War II the town of Coventry, England was leveled by German bombers. The centuries-old Cathedral was destroyed. Some years later, a new Cathedral was built around the ruins of the old. A remarkable statement is made in the hallway that leads to the courtyard where the ruins of the old Cathedral now lie. On one end of the hallway is a giant tapestry the size of a Tennis Court of Christ ruling the universe. On the other end of the hallway the entire wall is clear glass — with pictures of the Saints etched into the glass. On the other side of this glass wall is the courtyard with the ruins of the bombed Cathedral. The Tapestry of Christ shines through the Saints etched into the glass into the bombed-out ruins of the original Coventry Cathedral.

To find out what all these illustrations have in common — and what they have to do with All Saints Day — you can read the sermon here.

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