Grace-St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Mercerville, New Jersey

Today’s celebration of St. Michael’s Mass is the first of a series of celebrations of saints and angels which will lead us through such familiar folk as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Luke, St James of Jerusalem, The Holy Guardian Angels, St. Raphael the Archangel, to All Saints, Thanksgiving, and finally the Festival of the Reign of Christ in Glory – aka Christ the King.

During this same time, fall arrives in glorious color. Trees and fall flowers blaze into glory. Grass greens, the sky clears, life moves into high gear and the harvest spills out of farm and market, and onto our tables. Heaven spreads out a festival of great bounty. It seems a fitting time to celebrate Mary’s great gift to our parish family.

Yet there is also some oddness about this morning. Had I, or anyone, suggested four years ago that the most likely person to leave almost $400.000 to GraSP in her will was Mary Burgess, I might have gotten a different version of Nathanael’s question, “Can anything good come out of that crabby old lady?”

It would have been hard for anyone who attended during those years to avoid knowing when, and that, Mary was profoundly annoyed with this Church, with me, with Jack, with the music, the liturgy and with God. Mary’s eccentricities were many, and not easy to miss. She said what she was thinking whenever and wherever she happened to think it.

She had very high standards, and expected herself and everybody else around her to stick to them.

Mary missed the Protestant morning-prayer church of her childhood, and she had no known compunctions about saying so. “Boom boom Burgess” (a students’ nickname for her) was perfectly willing to point out our sins to clergy and laity alike. And yet, who was here every single Sunday, and every Wednesday night as well, until I arranged for her car to fail permanently? Mary Burgess. (And should you consider that I took a “chicken’s” approach, I plead guilty. It’s no fun to explain to a proud and independent soul that she is no longer safe behind the wheel) Who was willing to sit and talk with parish newcomers about her travels? And with noisy children about their schoolwork? Mary Burgess. What was Mary doing when she got the first glimpse the onset of Alzheimer’s? When she had difficulty remembering some names while teaching English to an after school group of kids at Christo Rey. Clearly she was stubborn and demanding, but Just as clearly, Mary’s life was God-centric and faithful, even when God was driving her crazy.

Indeed, first requirement for anyone who applied to care for her in the last years of her life, was that they be willing to attend Church with Mary every Sunday morning - period. This gave GraSP at least three long-term worshipers (one Jewish) – and several friends for life.

I think Mary’s story tells us something important about the glory of heaven and the inhabitants of the city of God. God’s likeness is contained not only in Beauty, Kindness, Goodness, Or knowledge – I also is contained in sheer, stubborn faithfulness to a God you are having trouble comprehending, and from whom you feel alienated … Sainthood may well be made up as much of determined faithfulness as it is of goodness, innocence and charm. When in doubt, as the old hymn advocates, “Stand Steady,” and continue to worship and serve.

Perhaps fall’s festival’s of heaven, painted as it is in our Northern hemisphere’s natural beauty, points to a similar conclusion. What, after all, is that beautiful red stuff glowing around the golden ragweed, and climbing up multi-colored trees? That’s poison Ivy, the most lovely of red vines – A cause of endless itching and misery - and a main source of plentiful food for birds.

God glory’s in much that we humans don’t quite understand. God’s love encompasses parts of creation and ways of living that we humans just don’t like. God’s sees value in things we call useless, and virtues in people who violate our ideas of what particular humans should do or be. Mary was single when all women were supposed to marry. She loved intellectual argument and competition when she was expected to excel at housekeeping & cooking (She didn’t, her food gift was confined to pork roll at the picnic.) She was bossy, noisy and outspoken - when femininity demanded quiet speaking, compliance and tactfulness.

What all agreed, was that although Mary was no saint, she was a fine teacher; and in that vocation she found a home. Her last act of Christian service was to work with children at Christ Rey on their math and English comprehension. For these reasons, as you will hear at Coffee hour, a substantial part of her gift will become our yearly gifts to people who work with educating women and children, no matter their language or nationality. Another part of her gift is enabling us to continue to fix some seriously- in-need-of-repair infrastructure so that our ministry in this place is enhanced, And still yet another part will provide a monthly pledge for years to come, making it possible during the inevitable shifts in membership, for us to worry a little less about the weekly budget and more about the mission of the Church.

I believe that freedom to minister in Jesus’ name is the main thing we celebrate this Sunday. By God’s grace and Mary’s stubborn faithfulness and generosity, we have been given the money to substantially help other people and churches - in Mercerville/Hamilton, yes - but also throughout the world. Mary has left us a legacy of giving. We have received the privilege of focusing our attention as a congregation on those in need, AND given the wherewithal for our actually DOING something about those needs

Now, knowing Mary, I pretty sure she would have preferred that our treasurers take a monthly trip to Atlantic City with her legacy to earn “interest” on the money she left us. She never had much use for things like the Diocesan Investment Trust. (She preferred L. L. Bean shoeboxes under her bed) Mary, I’m sorry but on that one you loose!

Still, if it is “better to give than to receive,” then Mary Burgess, like Milton Craft before her, and Lester Robbins and Emma Henderson is enabling us to become “more better,” more generous, and more faithful Christians. Now – to paraphrase Golde’s line to Teveye - “If that’s not sainthood – What is?”

Jesus has promised that: In the City of God, in a way of living beyond our present understanding, Mary Burgess, still clearly herself, stands with “all the company of heaven joining us as we sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and Earth are filled with your glory.” For Mary has climbed down out of Nathanael’s tree and up Jacob’s ladder. She has joined the whole company of Saints, on earth and in heaven in a confession familiar to us all as we go about our myriad daily lives, “Surely, the Lord was in THAT place . . . and I did not realize it.” God, who was indeed here, stuck even more faithfully to Mary than Mary did to this parish, and together they have given us a great and lasting gift for mission and ministry.

Let’s go out from here rejoicing in the glory of the fall landscape, in the goodness of our God who makes of us what we cannot make of ourselves, and in the gifts of those before us -- those who have enabled us to come to this house of worship, and be welcomed into the presence of the angels, the archangels and all the company of heaven. And let us give thanks this morning around God’s table, as we celebrate together the life and ministry of this parish, and of one of the most prickly - and generous - of its saints.