Something I’ve been waiting for all year finally happened this past week.  I was halfway home from a trip to San Francisco on Thursday when my car odometer rolled over to 200,000 miles.  I was in the middle of the carpool lane on Highway 101, so I didn’t have a chance to pull over and celebrate, but Denise did manage to pat the car on the dashboard and say a word of affirmation – “Good car.”  I couldn’t help but think of all those 200,000 miles and where they had taken us – all over the East Bay cities of Castro Valley and Hayward for the first ten years, and around Napa and the Napa Valley these last nine; up and down the state of California countless times, and through parts of at least 20 other states and several Canadian provinces; and always, in the end, back home again.

If my car could talk, it would probably say, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

It struck me that that was a particularly appropriate milestone to reach in this week that the Christian Church celebrates “All Saints Day.”  Because what is it, to be a saint, if not to be on a “long strange trip” that stretches from here to there and everywhere, and always, in the end, home at the last?  Marvin.  Anna Mae.  Albert.  Those are the names of some of the saints that I’m remembering today, people whose long journeys on earth came to a close this past year.  You’re probably remembering some saints of your own, people who have been dear to you; people who have been companions along the way.  I hope you do have some saints that you’re remembering today, with thankfulness and with joy, and maybe even still with some tears. 

Marvin.  He was a member of my congregation in Castro Valley; although in the eleven years that I served there, I doubt that he was in church on a Sunday morning much more than a couple dozen times, if that many.  Baptisms.  Confirmations.  Special occasions.  It wasn’t that he didn’t love God.  He just wasn’t all that crazy about church.  But his wife and his daughter and his three grandchildren were regulars, and so I got to know him better than I knew most other distant members, through them.  Early on he told me not to expect to see him in a pew very often, and so I wasn’t surprised when he wasn’t there in worship, and I tried not to act surprised when he was.  He was a big man who always made me think of the actor John Goodman when I saw him, a guy whose face got all crinkly when he smiled that big smile of his.  He loved trains, and collecting stamps, and he loved his family.  And as big a guy as Marvin was, God is even bigger; and this year God wrapped big old God-arms around him and brought Marvin home at the last. 

Saints alive!

I’m sure I must have met Anna Mae on the first Sunday of my internship year in Bigfork, Montana, because there were very few Sundays that she missed in those twelve months, and she had decided for herself that one of her ministries in that congregation was to be something of a mother figure for the interns who came there.  Her modest little house overlooked the Swan River, and a glorious, towering range of the Rocky Mountains practically cut through her back yard; and I enjoyed that magnificent view and a fine, home-cooked dinner at that house on more than one occasion the year I lived there.  She often said that when we all got to heaven, we had better hope that we didn’t get in line behind her, because she had a whole lot of questions that she was going to ask God, and if we were behind her, we would just have to wait, and it might take a while.  But in the meantime, she loved to paint water colors of the flowers that grew, and the river that flowed, and, as she called it, her “little piece of heaven” there in Bigfork; and many a person received many a hand-painted Birthday card or Anniversary card or just a “Thinking-of-you” card from Anna Mae, and if you did, it was like receiving a work of art.  And as big and mothering a heart as Anna Mae had, God’s mothering heart is even bigger; and this past year God hugged Anna Mae close and brought her home at the last, where all her questions could be answered.

Saints alive!

And then, today, I’m thinking of Albert.  Albert was a carpenter, a craftsman.  You could give Albert a pile of lumber and a box of tools, and I’m sure he could have built just about anything you might have wanted.  He blessed the church with his skillful labors; and I was blessed, too, with a beautifully constructed workbench and storage shelves and cabinets in my garage; and to me, a minor miracle – he rolled hinges and shimmed doorframes and shaved edges and when he was done, every sticky door in my house actually closed and latched.  But his greatest work, in my humble opinion, was elsewhere – he raised a daughter and let me marry her.  And as good a carpenter as Albert was, he knew an even finer one whose workshop was in Nazareth; as fine a father, there was One even finer; and this year God the Father brought Albert home to a heavenly mansion, where all the doors open and close without sticking (although if God is having any trouble with that, I’m sure that Albert could take care of it!)

Saints alive!

You’ve heard it said before – life is a journey.  It’s true.  We start out somewhere, and off we go.  Seventy, eighty, ninety years or more.  Sometimes less.  Two hundred thousand miles, give or take a few.  By the grace of God – here, there, and everywhere; and at the end of the journey, home at last.  It can be a long, strange trip, can’t it? - but as with any journey, it’s the people we travel with and the experiences along the way that give it meaning, and there’s joy in coming home. 

Let me tell you about the Bar-tailed Godwit.  The Bar-tailed Godwit is a bird that stands about a foot and a half tall, and spends the summer raising its family in northern Alaska.  It weighs about three quarters of a pound under normal circumstances, although when it gets ready to leave Alaska in the fall for a warmer climate, it might double its weight to a full pound and a half.  It needs that extra weight, those reserves of fat, because when it leaves Alaska, it’s heading for New Zealand.  And the amazing thing is, that many of the birds will fly from there to there non-stop – Alaska to New Zealand.  Researchers attached little tiny satellite transmitters to the birds, and discovered this.  One female bird made the trip in eight days – 7,242 miles in all over the open water of the Pacific Ocean.  Nine hundred miles a day, without stopping, without eating, without sleeping.  Thirty-seven and a half miles an hour, on the average, for almost two hundred hours straight through. 

I’m impressed!  And it makes me think of All Saints Day.  There’s something in the Godwit that resembles the faith of the saints.  To launch yourself out over the Pacific Ocean, and begin a journey of which you can’t possibly see the ending - of course, in a bird we call it instinct; in a person, we would call it faith.  Oh, not everyone would call it faith.  Some would call it foolishness, I suppose.  But somehow the birds know, deep down inside, that New Zealand is waiting for them at the end of the journey, in the same way that we know that God is waiting for us, calling us forward, day by day and mile by mile. 

To switch metaphors just for a moment, they say that the reason mountain-climbers rope themselves together is to keep the sane ones from turning around and going home.  I don’t know if Godwits migrate in flocks; some birds do, and perhaps they encourage one another to keep going when the way gets long and the destination seems far off.  We don’t rope Christians together – at least, not physically.  But we are yoked together, first of all with Christ, and then no less with one another.  We set out on a journey, thankful for the good company we’re privileged to keep; thankful for the joys and even for the challenges along the way; thankful for the promise of home that waits at journey’s end.

Today, I’m thankful for those saints of God who have shared my long, strange trip with me, both those who have completed their own journey now, and those who are still on the road.  You be thankful, too, for all those saints who have traveled with you, who have shared their life and faith and love.  And know that there are those who are thankful for you, for the encouragement and the companionship that you offer as we make our way together through this journey of life and faith.

I have a favorite prayer – a favorite written prayer.  I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say this, as a pastor, but I might even find this prayer more meaningful, personally, than even the Lord’s Prayer (OK, maybe I should say just as meaningful in its own way.)  I discovered it our former hymnal many years ago, and still find reason to pray it and to embrace it.  It goes like this:

            “O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,

              by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good

              courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your

              love supporting us."

All Saints Day.  Of course, it’s not really so much about the saints of God, as it is about the God of the saints – the God who has promised to lead us and to love us, no matter what path our journey may take. 

Amen.