When we all get to heaven

 

All Saints' Sunday

November 7, 2021

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Georgetown, DE

and live broadcast on Facebook Sirach 26:10 

Lectionary Year B 

 

“The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God,

And no torment will ever touch them. . . . .”

 

I have heard this piece of scripture from the Wisdom of Solomon read at many funerals. These words have brought comfort and solace to those who grieve the loss of their loved one: They are at peace.

 

But, what of the souls of the unrighteous? What happens to the sinners and scoundrels? Are people who lied to or betrayed us also going to find themselves in the hands of God after death? Are the words of the old hymn right?

 

When we all get to heaven / What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus / We'll sing and shout the victory.

 

I want to tell you a story I learned just last week, about what the courts had determined was an unrighteous man who is buried right here in St. Paul’s cemetery.

 

His name was Paul Edmund Savin, Jr. Not much is known about him. If an obituary was written about his life, it wasn’t preserved on the internet. I have a strong hunch that no one wrote one for him. We know that he was born on November 5, 1954 and died in April of 2001.  He was 47 years old.

 

I learned about him serendipitously when one of my heroes in the church just happened to stop by last Thursday. His name is Fr. Jim Lewis. You may remember him when he made headlines by taking on the chicken industry giants, Perdue and Tyson, and fought for improved, safe working conditions and better pay.

 

He also started a prison ministry – one in the prison and one for those who had served their time and were leaving prison. That ministry is still in existence today and has deep roots in this church. It’s called “The Way Home”. There are people sitting in this church this morning who will remember cooking and serving meals in the Parish Hall for the people who were the clients of The Way Home.

 

They were out of prison, many of them with no family to support them and only ‘friends’ who were too quick to entice them back into a way of life that would only lead them back into prison. This ministry, the one founded by Fr. Lewis, intended to help them find the way home, even if it was one they had to construct themselves – with help and support, of course of this important ministry.

 

All that is remembered about Paul Savin is that he was a client of The Way Home. He had been in prison – no one really remembers what got him there, or if this was his first or fifth time in prison. He was remembered as being homeless and, when he died suddenly – no one remembers why or how he died – there was no one to claim his body, much less make certain he had a proper burial.

 

Except, there was Fr. Lewis. And, there was this congregation of St. Paul’s. Fr. Lewis tells me that he had an office downstairs in the undercroft of the church (For those of you who are not Episcopalians or have just come to the Episcopal Church, ‘undercroft’ is a fancy word for ‘basement’.)

 

The Rev’d Michael Bye was the rector at the time and, I’m told, one had to be someone to be buried in St. Paul’s cemetery. My grandmother would call those people “big shots”.

Well, it would seem that Paul Savin was not a “big shot” but he had some people who believed that, despite whatever mistakes he had made, Paul Savin’s life meant something to God and a whole lot to Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was hovering ‘round to make sure that one of the beloved of God was treated with respect and decency.

 

One of the things I love about The Episcopal Church is that, whether you are a saint or a sinner, a prince or a pauper, you get the same service with the same soaring, poetic language, right out of the same prayer book: The Book of Common Prayer.

We’ve made it easy for you and put everything together in a Service Booklet, but some day I hope you pick up that red BCP and thumb through it. It’s got everything you need to know about what it means to be an Episcopalian. And, since more than 80% of what is in the BCP comes directly from scripture, you could learn a little about what it means to be a Christian, as well.

 

Paul Savin had a proper burial in this very church, with the same prayers that have been used for Kings and Queens, Presidents and members of Congress, Generals and PFCs. His soul was commended to God in the same way yours and mine will be after you and I die.

If you happened to watch the televised funeral of Colin Powell from the National Cathedral, you noted that our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry used the same BCP that is used for those who could never dream of achieving what Colin Powell was able to accomplish in his lifetime.

That’s the same BCP that was used for the funeral of Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man who was beaten near an inch of his life and left to die on a fence in a frozen field in Wyoming.

 

Nevertheless, Michael Bye, the priest and rector of St. Paul’s at the time, blessed Paul Savin’s body which was, no doubt, in a plain pine casket. No one really saw the casket because it was covered with the same beautiful white brocade pall as one of the dignitaries whose funeral was also held in this church.

 

Not only that, but Fr. Bye went one step further: he found the resources to purchase a cemetery plot for Paul Savin. If you take a walk in our cemetery, you’ll discover a headstone with his name on it – right there among all the other people whose souls have been commended to God.

When Fr. Lewis was out walking last Thursday, with long-time board member of The Way Home, Barbara Carter Del Mastro, and Dick Bennett, Fr. Lewis expressed surprise and delight that Fr. Bly had found the resources to have a gravestone to mark his grave – with his name and his time here on earth.

 

The name of Paul Edmund Savin, Jr., is engraved in stone. He may have been homeless, he may have been without family. But, there were some in the church who knew that he was someone. Paul Edmund Savin, Jr., was a child of God. He was one of what Jesus called the ‘anawim’ which is Hebrew for ‘beloved’. Paul Edmund Savin, Jr., was beloved of God.

 

When Jesus went to visit the grave of Lazarus, he asked the people to roll away the stone. Jesus asks us – the church – to roll away the stones that keep us apart, one from the other. Jesus asks us to see ourselves as one with each other and one with those who have gone on before us. Let no stone keep us apart – in life or in death.

 

After the prayers of the people, we will read the names of those who have gone on before us as two people will light a votive candle, representing the light of their lives and the Light Eternal where they now live. As each name is said, I will ask that you say, “Present” which confirms our belief that, as our Prayer Book says, “life is changed, not ended.” Our loved ones are here with us. Love never dies.

 

The spirit of Paul Edmund Savin, Jr., will take his place among all the other saints who will be remembered today. No matter what he did in life, the love of God surrounded him in death. The book of Wisdom tells us that it is the “souls of the righteous that are in the hands of God,” but Jesus tells us “(God) causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45)

 

I believe those words of Jesus, and I believe the words of St. Paul in his letter to the church in Rome: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation (and I will add, not even ourselves), will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

No one may remember much of his 47 years of life when he was on earth, but Paul Edmund Savin’s, Jr., presence in our cemetery reminds us of the unconditional love of God, which allows us tosing with confidence:

 

When we all get to heaven / What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus / We'll sing and shout the victory.

 

Let all God’s children, saint and sinner alike, say ‘Amen’.