ain't it hard when you discover that

he wasn't really where it's at

“You used to laugh about, everyone who was hanging out. Now you don’t talk so loud, now you don’t seem so proud; about having to be scrounging for your next meal,” Bob Dylan sings defiantly on his brilliant “Like a Rolling Stone.”

But then he poses the question, “How does it feel?” How does it feel?

…It’s a rhetorical question, of course. 

As Dylan croons, “how does it feel,” you can’t help but have the sense that you know the person he is singing to: someone who had laughed at all the unfortunate ones, only to inevitably find themselves among those same down and outs of the world one day…

Dylan’s song has such power because it is a song that is sung to each of us. This song hasn’t stayed with us simply because we love seeing someone get their just-deserts (although we do love seeing that). No, the reason Bob Dylan’s adept “Like a Rolling Stone,” is so powerful is because we know deep down that we are the one’s he is singing to. 

Each of us have found ourselves knocked from a high and mighty pedestals of our own devising, each of us has found ourselves estranged, without a home…

As Dylan brings the song together, quipping, “how does it feel, to be without a home, a complete unknown, like a rolling stone;” we know the question is put to us at some level…

Honestly, that’s what today feels like. On this All Saints Day, the readings knock us down a peg or two. Instead of stories of the courageous saints on this day dedicated to the saints, we hear stories of a feast full of the misfits and freaks… 

Some of you may remember that while I was in seminary, I got engaged; and after four months or so, the engagement was called off. 

Well, I can remember when I was buying that engagement ring. I had found this little jeweler in the small town of New Oxford. As I was picking up the ring, the jeweler’s son and I got to talking. 

“What’s the ring for,” he had asked; and I told him it was for an engagement. “Oh,” the jeweler’s son said, “I’ve been married three times. I hope this works out for you…”

Well, as I left the store I was a little affronted. “I hope this works out” - Ha! 

Who did he think he was talking to?!? I wasn’t the son of someone wealthy, like him. I had to carve out my own life, I couldn’t go around blowing marriages. No, this engagement would work out; I would make sure of that.

That is, until I couldn’t…

I can remember that day, as I sat in the wreckage of the life I thought I would cobble together. I was sitting in the lawn of some retail store, because I had just gotten of the phone with my now ex-fiance. As I sat there, not being able to believe what happened, I remembered my arrogance, my pride that day in the jewelers; and the tears became bitter…

That’s the kind of comeuppance Dylan sings about in his brutal “Like a Rolling Stone.”

And as we sit here today, hearing this ill-suited reading from Revelation for All Saints, we can’t help but hear echoes of Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” It’s as if the folks who choose the readings wanted to say, ‘who do you think you are. We’re not going to indulge your little saint-charade today.” It’s a little humbling.

On this All Saints Day we expect some stories about the heroes of the faith; not this story of a feast full of starving losers, homeless outcasts and cry-babies. 

No, on All Saints we want to hear a story about the ‘Saints of God Victorious.’ In fact, we’d even like to take a little time to tell our own stories of bravery in the faith, on this day dedicated to the saints.

Yes, that would be a fine way to observe All Saints Day…

The problem, though, is that today’s readings don’t allow for that kind of melodrama. Today’s readings refuse to let us go around celebrating our own efforts to be saints; which is probably a good thing.

It’s probably a good thing, because if we did just sit around here, and pat ourselves on the back on this All Saints Day, our euphoria would last just until we left here, just until we went into the real world - full of its real ordeals. 

Whether we like it or not, the Bible is more honest about our own lives, than we are.

After all, take a moment to remember the saints in your own life, I mean really remember them. Sure there are moments of near perfection, but those saints also had their rough edges, didn’t they?

If we were to only memorialize those saints we recall today as some kind of idealized paragon of the faith, there would be whole sections of their life we’d have to erase away; the Bible refuses to play that kind of game, though.

That’s why, despite all our complaints, today’s readings are perfect for this All Saints Day. That’s why, despite our own pious protests, Bob Dylan’s savage “Like a Rolling Stone” is perfect special music for today.

*We are in church, so for an hour, let us, at least, try to be honest about things. 

Despite all our pretenses; we’re no saints… 

Perhaps that is what’s hardest about today, about All Saints, to hear that God has determined that you and I should be saints. 

After all, while we might imagine our lives as some kind of testament to God’s goodness; none of us would have to think hard to conjure up moments that are a testament to nothing other than humanity’s depravity, either…

Today’s reading from Revelation, with the promise of God coming with water for our parched throats and food for our empty stomachs; describes a God who isn’t after those ideal saints from the fairy-tales, but rather real, flesh and blood, broken people like ourselves. Revelation’s description of God coming to shepherd those who are lost, becoming their home even; describes a God who comes not for the saints who have conquered this life by their faith, but for folks like us whose wanderings have left us lost and homeless.

In other words, today’s reading from Revelation describes not the kind of saints we expect to hear about on All Saints Day…

Thank God.

…That day, after the phone call ended, after she told me she’d mail me the engagement ring back, I sat in the grass and remember how arrogant and naive I had been that day in the jewelers. Even worse than my own humiliation, though, was that fact that there was no one there to wipe away my bitter tears…

And it is precisely to folks like that, that Revelation describes God inviting into the Great Banquet, the feast for the saints.

Today’s reading from Revelation is about the unexpected promise that God never chooses the saints we’d anticipate; thank God. Today’s reading from Revelation is about the unexpected promise that what makes a saint, thank God, is God.

What Revelation promises is that, the feast of God for the Saints of God, is not just for the saints who have come through their great ordeal unscathed. Rather, Revelation describes God’s feast including the saints who have been been laid low by their ordeals. In Revelation, the feast of the saints is full of folks who may have come through the ordeal yes, but only barely. 

Revelation is honest about our ordeals; the way they ruin our appetite, destroy our sense of belonging and even steal our loved ones who would at least be there wipe away our tears…

Today’s readings for All Saints is not what we’d expect; it’s what we need.

As we gather to remember the saints; today’s reading from Revelation reminds us that we don’t need stories about the champions of the faith, so much as we need God. What we need even more than tales of the saints, is the promise that God not only clothes those celebrities, but that God also clothes folks like us in white, too.

That’s the unexpected Good News in today’s reading from Revelation. The scene of the Great Feast promises that God is able to make saints out of those of us who have broken our trophies, those of us who are hungry and thirsty, those of us who can’t find our way home anymore…

Those stories about the perfect saints out there are all well and good, but when we find ourselves without a home or anyone to wipe away our tears; those fables aren’t much comfort…

So on this day of the saints, have a true Word of comfort, a Word that can make a saint out of those we remember today; a saint out of us, even. 

When you don’t have anything, not even anyone to wipe away your tears - God will have you. In fact, when you can’t put food on the table, Jesus will be your sustenance. When you’ve lost your sense of belonging, Jesus will come to shepherd you. When you’re without a home, even; Jesus will be your shelter.

When the great ordeal comes, and it will - you will be ready. Not because you’re one of the spiritual elite, but because God is bigger. Yes, your ordeal may be the end of you; but it is in graveyards where God does God’s best work. 

Amen