In every time and place, the Church of Jesus Christ has been inhabited by saints. Through faithful living, these saints have left their mark on the world, their community, and on all of us. This Sunday is All Saints Sunday, a day in which we remember all the saints who have come before us, and we lift up by name the saints of this congregation who have died in the past year.
By “saint” we do not mean individuals who were perfect, but people who were complex, human, and ultimately redeemed by Christ. Writer Cole Arthur Riley acknowledges this tension beautifully with this prayer, “[God] guide us into the kind of remembrance that leads to healing and a clarity of self. Keep watch over we who endure the complexity of losing the imperfect – those who both loved us and have hurt us. Keep us from that cheap form of remembrance that reduces those we’ve loved into faultless, polished, uncomplicated creatures. Let us recall them within their sacred humanity…Amen.”
This year we will be reading the names of 35 saints. Each of these individuals helped shape our communal life together. Their deaths leave a hole in our body. We miss them. And we celebrate that we had the opportunity to journey alongside them for a time. May we remember them well.
Each individual’s name will be read aloud during the celebration of the sacrament of Communion in Sunday’s service. As you hear the names I encourage you to recall all the saints who have been part of our holy communion. Imagine those who have sat in the pews, walked through the front doors, opened a hymnal to sing and worship almighty God with you. Our Sanctuary is filled with almost a century of saints we have had the privilege of following faithfully.
This year we remember:
- Theodore Friend III
- Marion Brandon
- Daniel Buchanan
- Richard Chew
- Jane Shaw
- Jack Maxwell
- David Reed
- Pamela Leicht
- Brian Walsh
- Wendelyn Bailey
- Gwen Biswas
- Claire Balentine
- Elizabeth Wilson
- Florence Ginn
- Alan Willoughby
- Peter Munger
- Cathrine Sanders
- Elizabeth Somers
- Carol Pyle
- Elizabeth Bennett
- Anita Bentley
- Ann Wood
- Hayley Craig
- J. Kennedy Barclay
- Jane McCombs
- Gwen Clendenning
- William Bates Jr.
- Suzanne Beach
- Eugenia Slaymaker
- Richard Schneider
- Margaret Rogers
- Linda Oberly
- Robert Herman
- Helen Collings
- Ruth Watermulder
