Sermon Tone Analysis

In the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit on men.

Yesterday.

I started my morning as I usually do by checking my calendar.

Now I'm pretty bad at reaching out to people on their birthdays but I'm trying to get better.

I have started adding birthdays to contact information in my phone so that I'll get a notification the day before day of the birthday and then I can reach out to people on their special day.

As you are all probably well aware.

I'm still pretty awful at it but I'm trying to improve yesterday.

My phone alerted me to a birthday.

It was Chuck Yeager's birthday.

He would have been 72.

Every death that we've had at this church.

Since I've arrived has been hard for me, but some more than others.

I took Chuck's particularly hard, he was kind.

Loving.

Never asked for any anyting.

As generous as he could be.

He was an excellent example of what it means to be a saint.

So I was thinking about him.

And I've been thinking about a lot about my dad to, none of you really got a chance to know him at all.

He did move down here shortly after we did, but he was in rehab or the hospital the whole time until he eventually passed away.

My dad.

No big surprise.

My Dad loved the Miami Dolphins.

We had season tickets for as long as I could remember.

I mean, that was the only reason I got out of church was because the Dolphins are playing a game and we had to get, we had to get down to the stadium.

My relationship with my dad was never.

Great.

But even if I had upset him as I often did, and even if he was angry with me, which he often was, especially later in life.

I always knew.

That I could get him to talk to me if I just started talking about the Dolphins.

The reason I've been thinking about him.

is because the Dolphins are doing well and for most of my life, even after I left home, if there was some news about the fins, especially something positive

He'd be the first person I called.

and then five years ago, that stopped

It was gone.

And I couldn't call him anymore.

I don't understand.

How people can go through life.

Thinking that this.

momentary, vaporous, existence is all that there is

how people can go through life thinking that the people who are of infinite value to us, right?

How do you put a value on?

Your father, your mother, your spouse, your kids?

Can be here one day.

And gone the next and then.

That's it.

Don't know how people live like that.

Truthfully.

Most people don't actually believe that they don't actually live like that.

Modern contemporary philosophers, talk about the haunting of our age.

With modernism.

We thought we had close the roof.

that we could make sense of the world in purely, eminent terms purely in terms of What we could see touch handle Define.

we thought we had cut off Transcendence, but now

Define the space is haunted.

That voices.

Call out to us from the dark.

That we can feel a presence here that we can't quite explain by our modern science.

There's lots of ways to account for this.

One way and Christian theology.

It's a refer to the communion of saints.

That's what we celebrate today on All Saints Day.

Those who have died.

Are not gone.

We've had many that have passed away in the five years since I've been here.

The college for this day.

Begins almighty God.

you have knit together your elect,

In 21 communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your son.

I love that language.

We have been knit together.

Separate strands made into one.

Both we who are alive today.

And those who have preceded us, we have been knit together into one in the body of Christ.

We Are One in Christ with all those who have gone before us.

My dad is not gone.

Chuck is not gone the others.

We have lost this year and in previous years are not gone, we are still in it together with them in the body of Christ.

We are still one with them.

They are not far from us.

They are very near.

But All Saints Day is about more than merely being united with those who have gone before us, sometimes and this might be the understatement of the Year, sometimes, Paul's language can be a little difficult to one raffles.

But I want us to look at what he says in our reading from Ephesians this morning.

Starting in verse 18.

He says he wants them to have that.

They're the eyes of your hearts, the eyes of their hearts, enlightened.

That you may know.

What is the hope to, which he has called you?

What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the Saints?

And what is the immeasurable greatness?

Of his power towards those who believe.

When he speaks in verse 18 of the hope to, which he has called you the riches of his glorious inheritance in the Saints.

And the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us to believe he is not talking about three different thing.

Power saying the same thing three different ways, Our Hope The Riches of his of his inheritance, the greatness of his power.

They are all the same thing and Paula says that they are, are they are ours or they will be hours according to The working of his great might not, not just his General greatness, not just his General great power but far more specifically, his great might that he worked in Christ.

When he raised him from the dead.

And seated him at the right hand.

At his right hand in the Heavenly places, far above all Rule and authority and power and dominion.

And above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head.

Over all things to the church, he gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body.