Sunday after All Saints' Day

I read a story this week about a third-grade teacher who drew two circles on the board in her classroom. She labeled one of the circles "boys" and the other "girls." She drew the two circles so that they would overlap. Then she pointed to the area where the circles overlapped. "This area," she said, "is the area the two circles share. It contains all the things that boys and girls have in common. So tell me," she asked, "what should we put there?"

The students were quick to answer. "Boys and girls both smile," they said. "We all cry. We all fight. We all play. We all like ice cream." And so the list grew.

Then the teacher drew three circles on the board and labeled them "European," "African," and "Asian," making sure these three circles all overlapped as well. And she pointed to the area all three circles held in common and said, "This is the part these three circles share. It contains everything that European, African, and Asian children have in common. What should we put in there?" Once again, the children's responses were endless.

Finally, one third-grader looked at all the circles and said, "The part where the circles come together is too small. We need more room for all the things we have in common."

As we continue to find our way in the wake of the terrible events of the past two months, and as I was preparing this sermon for our celebration of the feast of All Saints, the idea occurred to me to suggest other overlapping circles, circles labeled "Christian," "Jew," "Muslim," "Hindu," and "Buddhist." And perhaps we might even include additional circles labeled "American," "Saudi," "Afghan," "Pakistani," and "Indian." And I wonder, in the area that would be held in common by all these intersecting circles, what would be our response to the teacher's question: "This is the part that all these circles have in common. What should we put there?"

Well, if we were to put that same question to Jesus, I think he would respond the same way the third-grader did: "The part where the circles come together is too small. We need more room for all the things we have in common."

Jesus gives us some clues about his response in this morning's Gospel reading, in his Sermon on the Mount, in the beatitudes: "We've got to get poverty of spirit in there, and grief, and humility and gentleness, and mercy, and purity of heart, and peacefulness, and suffering, and persecution for the sake of righteousness, and love and sacrifice and loyalty and friendship, and lots and lots of other things as well."

Because notice, in the beatitudes, that in this list that Jesus gives us of all the things that make one blessed, in his list of all the things that make one a saint, notice in this list that there is not one reference to the things that define the circles I suggested. No mention of race or gender, no mention of nationality or religion or church or creed or belief. Not even any mention of faith. Apparently, for Jesus, none of these categories is significant in defining a saint.

Instead, we find: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who are aware that they can claim no righteousness of their own; the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. Blessed are those who mourn; they will be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, the meek; they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they shall be satisfied. Blessed are those who show mercy, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are those whose hearts are pure; they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called God's children. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness; the kingdom of heaven in theirs." These are the saints, the blessed, Jesus says. Whoever does these things.

Whoever.

Whoever is aware of the great depth of his own spiritual need, of his utter dependence upon God.

Whoever is meek, the gentle, those who make no claims for themselves, but who offer themselves in trust to God.

Whoever hungers and thirsts to see right done, whoever is not bound by his own prosperity to a worldly status quo, whoever is so eager for justice that he is willing himself to suffer in order to see justice done; these can offer strength and hope to those who are wronged.

Whoever shows pity to others day after day, whoever shows concern for others in their own lives, the merciful of every land and language; these are the very people who will receive compassionate forgiveness for their own failings.

Whoever makes peace, whoever brings reconciliation to quarreling neighbors; these do the work of God himself.

For Jesus, these are the marks of the saint, and they are available to anyone, regardless of nationality, gender, race, rank, or even of religion or creed. There are hundreds of thousands of them, the saints -- millions, billions, from every nation and tribe, people and language, many of whom, most of whom, having left no mark on the world save that of gentleness, or peacemaker, or hunger and thirst for righteousness. They are the blessed, says Jesus.

When I consider this, I think of Mother Teresa. Before she died, someone once suggested that no one could ever take her place. But Mother Teresa quietly replied, "Anyone can take my place. It takes no special skills to do what the sisters and I do: empty bed pans, hold the hands of the dying, offer encouragement and comfort."

I heard an interview this week with a person I believe speaks profoundly to the problem of why we Americans are having difficulty winning the hearts and minds of those with whom we are having such troubles right now. The man was a Pakistani, I believe, but the language he spoke was our language, English, a language he had made an effort to learn, not his own native language. He suggested that we Americans are having difficulty winning the hearts and minds of the ordinary people of Arab lands, the little people on the streets of Islamabad and Kabul and Riyadh, because none of the people who speak for us -- neither President Bush nor Colin Powell nor Donald Rumsfeld -- speaks the languages of the streets of Pakistan and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. We speak only the language of our own circle, so we can speak to the governments, to the powerful and the rich of these lands, but we are not reaching the hearts and minds of ordinary people where they live.

Our ignorance of the languages of the streets and the shops of Afghanistan and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia means that we run the risk of relying on what J. William Fulbright called "the arrogance of power," an arrogance, and a weakness, as old as Pharaoh and Caesar. If we speak only the language of our own circle, we cannot speak effectively to the concerns of life where our circle intersects with others. If we want to win the hearts and minds of our brothers and sisters on the streets in those overlapping areas, we will need to carry our message in the languages they speak.

This, it seems to me, is the wisdom of Jesus -- that he speaks the language of life where all circles intersect. This is the genius of Jesus -- that he speaks the language of the human heart, not the language of particular circles, not the language of nation or tribe, not the language of race or religion or creed.

Jesus points us to the godly, not to the great. He points us to life lived as God created us to live it on the streets and in the shops and in our homes, in our poverty as well as in our wealth, in our weaknesses as well as in our strengths. He speaks the language of the poor and of the poor in spirit. He speaks to life that is available to us regardless of circumstance or station, regardless of nation or tribe, regardless of religion, race, or creed.

All of us can make peace. All of us, even the last and the least among us, regardless of land or creed, can love, show mercy, offer encouragement and comfort and hope. All of us, in other words, can live the life God created us to live.

In 1864, the slave baby born to Mary and Moses Carver on a plantation in Missouri was named George Washington.

Because of the Civil War and the 13th amendment, George Washington Carver grew up free, but as a child he was sick and, of course, poor. His parents wanted him to have an education, but no school nearby would accept black children. His mother gave him what she had, a spelling primer and a Bible, and she taught him both. Those two things, along with her love and encouragement, were her gifts to her son during his childhood.

His childhood lasted for ten years. At age ten, George Washington Carver left home to attend a grammar school, paying his own way doing odd jobs. He worked his way all the way through high school in Minneapolis, Kansas, and through Simpson College, and through an advanced degree at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts. He was then given a position at Iowa State, overseeing research in botany and bacteriology.

In 1898, Booker T. Washington heard about Carver and asked him to join the faculty at Tuskegee Institute. Carver accepted, and he remained at Tuskegee more than forty years. During that time he helped to revolutionize the agriculture of the South, finding uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, and pecans that no one had ever dreamed of before.

Asked, once, to testify before a congressional committee, Carver took the ten minutes he had been allowed, and then prepared to stop. But the committee was so fascinated by Carver that it put aside its other work and asked him to continue, and for another hour and forty-five minutes, Carver told them how you can get blue and purple pigments from Alabama red clay, how you could make fiber and rope from cornstalks, and how you could get gums, starch, and dextrin from cotton stalks.

Carver gained a world-wide reputation and received extravagant offers to do his research at other institutions, but he chose to stay at Tuskegee and to offer his services freely. A group of farmers sent him a check for his work in eradicating peanut plant disease, and Carver returned the check with his thanks. In 1940, he gave his life savings of $30,000 to establish a foundation at Tuskegee to continue research on soil fertility and to continue to find new uses for what most people saw only as disposable trash, but which he, with his vision, could see were useful resources.

When someone asked Carver the secret to his incredible insight into the usable power of the natural world, he said, "I have made it a rule to get up every morning at four. I go into the woods, and there I gather specimens and study the great lessons that Nature is eager to teach us. Alone in the woods each morning, I best hear and understand God's plan for me."

Some would say that such a quiet, strong following of the Spirit, such service to the world without needing or seeking recognition, such a singleminded overcoming of immense obstacles with gladness and singleness of heart, some would say that such characteristics lie at the heart of sainthood. I would say that, too.

But All Saints' Day asks us to open our eyes to another, to someone we might easily overlook. Where did George Washington Carver receive such qualities? He received them before the age of ten, from a poor woman everyone, except God, has forgotten and does not see.

All Saints' Day is God's way of opening our eyes to her. "Did you notice that?" God asks. "Notice what?" we ask. "That poor woman, and that spelling primer, and the Bible, and especially the love and encouragement and hope she poured into him when he was a boy?" "Oh, yea, those...."

"Blessed are the poor in spirit," says Jesus. "Blessed are the humble people who have little enough to offer in God's service and who have no temptation to boast of what they have or who they are, but who give themselves in trust to God. The kingdom of heaven belongs to them."

Do you know some people like Mary Carver? Remember them. They are the saints, the blessed.

Jesus tells us that in his kingdom the last shall be first, and the smallest shall be the greatest. Those who are weak shall be strong. Those who mourn shall receive comfort. Those who encourage shall be encouraged. Regardless of race or nation or tribe, regardless of circle or tongue or religion or creed.

Mary Carver reminds me of all the "little people" everywhere, all the last and the least, whose language Jesus spoke and whom he called friends, all of them found in the area where all our circles intersect, all those small, anonymous saints in whose faithful lives we can, if we look with the eyes of God, see the life of God himself. Remember, today, those you know, or knew, personally.

Today we remember Mary Carver, Saint Mary, and the millions of others like her, whose simple and holy language of love and mercy and peace and encouragement and hope provide blessing beyond measure. Like the gift of Jesus, who offered up "his entire living," not in an offering plate at the Temple, but on a Cross at Calvary.

This is the blessedness, the language and the life, into which we baptize four children of God today.

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.