Bob Bell was not an important man in the way the world measures important. In fact, he was someone that even his friends could often forget about. But for some reason I've been thinking of Bob on this All Saints Sunday. When I was a kid, Bob Bell was a saint I didn't recognize. Not a particularly holy man. Not an defender of rights. Not a fighter for justice. Not a figure of deep theological wisdom. Most of the time, he was about the most pitiful person I could imagine.
I came to know him as another weird friend of my grandparents'. He was usually rumpled and dingy, and I am embarrassed to admit that my friends and I found it fun to laugh at him. He had contracted polio later in life when he left the military so he lumbered along in braces, all jerky. And he seemed to get sick a lot, and he was always borrowing money, and he was always sitting at my grandparents' kitchen table, drinking until he swayed, sometimes dropping his cigarette out of his mouth, and dozing off. He would tell us kids stories of having been shot down in the Korean War, falling into a rice field, and having his feet grow together in prison. We figured he was lying, fooling with us. I mean where in the world could something that awful really happen? Right?
His eyes were bad, so bad that he wore thick glasses. At night, he said he loved to look at bright lights through those glasses, because he said the lights would turn into shimmering kaleidoscopes. So he couldn't drive at night and often stayed on my grandparents' couch. He was pitiful.
But, somehow, when I look back on it, through his crazy behavior and stories, and through his stumbling care for us kids, Bob Bell showed me something about God. Essentially, for all his lowly behavior, Saint Bob Bell simply cared. He cared for people, no matter how they responded or reacted to him. And he seemed to care for us stupid little kids, no matter how much we laughed at him or ignored him or shied away from him for fear of catching his illnesses or just his bad luck.
But now I think his poverty is the reason I understand Luke's version of the Beatitudes. Folks often point out that there is a difference between the Beatitudes according to Luke and the Beatitudes according to Matthew. Most of us recite Matthew's version: "Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness."
Luke's version, the one we read today, is simply this: "Blessed are the poor." Period. Blessed are the hungry. Blessed are those who weep. Very visceral...not some spiritual shadow of what people experience on a day-to-day basis, but pain on the ground. Pain caused by rich that ignore those on whose back they got their wealth, the powerful that eat their fill while others go hungry, the racist and bigots that laugh at and ridicule those who are different.
It's always been thus. Over two thousand years since Jesus walked the earth, and it's still that way. We still need saints to guide us to where Jesus stands, among those the world loves to hate.
If you want to meet a saint, look to the poor. If you want to meet a saint look to the hungry. Y'all we have plenty of opportunity. Because it's not the holy and the wise who are saints. Not just those with shiny halos. Jesus, in this gospel, shows us just how many saints are among us, that we so often don't notice...or at least don't think of as saints.
Blessed are all these saints. Like Saint Bob Bell.
The saints I have known are among us now, packing bags with food for Thanksgiving meals from the Unadilla Valley Food Pantry in New Berlin or serving over 1,000 meals on Thanksgiving Day in Norwich. Saints asking the question every day, “What can I do to make a difference?” The saints I have known, whether poor or rich, weeping or laughing, hungry or full, have managed to point us to God, and if they don't do that, then they are not saints after all. They have looked to God, and the light was shining right through them. In the words of author Michael Malone, "The light just goes right through them to what they love so that we can see its beauty. They don't get in the way, because they're looking, too."
This is why the Church celebrates All Saints Day. We've known a lot more saints than just the famous ones. We have known the weird ones and the crazy ones. The proud ones and the humble ones. The capable ones and the inept ones. And at some point, each of them has provided a space for us to know God. We have known Saint Bob Bell, over and over again.
Listen again to the words of Jesus...not my words, the words of the God we claim to follow and worship:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets."
"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
"Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
"Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
"Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
"But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Listen to those words and look around you. Listen to those words that are as relevant today as they have ever been.
Amen.