The Feast of All Saints, Year A

To All the Saints

Readings: Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12

To the saints who are in Port Hope and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

I am speaking to you as Paul spoke to those to whom he wrote. I suspect that many who hear themselves spoken about as saints cringe at the thought. We have a definite picture in our mind of what it means to be a saint, and it is not how we see ourselves. Most of us shudder at the thought of being saintly. It raises all our misconceptions of what it means to be a saint. Saints for whatever reason have a bad image. We imagine them wandering around amongst the clouds, playing on harps. Their heads are piously bent. They have sickeningly sweet smiles on their faces. Their hands are clasped in an attitude of prayer. Their haloes are in place just so. We want to scream at them, “Get a life!”

Or it may be that you simply cannot see yourself as a saint. For most of us it is a stretch. We look at ourselves and see our imperfections. Each one of us is in some way disfigured, imperfect and flawed. On Halloween our children live that out. They dress up as evil beings wearing grotesque masks and costumes. They parade through the streets. Today’s parade needs to be a very different one, a procession that recognizes the good that is in everyone. This feast of All Saints is a wonderful one for us to look behind the ugliness of the masks we wear, masks of sinfulness and brokenness, and experience the grace and love of God.

So what does it mean to be a saint? Who are these saints that we remember? Sometimes when we speak about the saints we mean one who stands as a giant of spirituality in a past age. Sometimes we mean someone who embodies for us what we think it is to be Christ-like. Sometimes we mean the figures we see depicted in stained-glass windows.

That is certainly not the portrait of the saints that is revealed to us in Scripture. The readings for All Saints Day offer a portrait of the saints of God in all their diversity. There are certainly the ones we recognize as saints of God, the suffering martyrs, the struggling saints, the priests and prophets, the servants and disciples of all ages. But there are also the ordinary people like you and like me, going about our daily routines but doing so with a sense of integrity and faithfulness to God’s promises.

It is there in John’s amazing vision from the Book of Revelation. What a thrill it must have been for the early Christians to understand that despite the trials and tribulations under which they lived they were not alone. They were part of a vast multitude of saints that no one could count. They were purified through their suffering. It was a time for them not of despair, but of great celebration.

It speaks to us in a similar way in this secular age in which it sometimes seems an embarrassment to be a Christian. There are times in personal Christian experience when one feels horribly alone, isolated and irrelevant. Does it thrill us to know that we are part of a great multitude of saints? We belong to a vast company whose bonds stretch beyond time and space into the ultimate reality of God’s presence.

In his letter John explains to us who we are, whose we are, and who and what we can become. If we do not feel much like saints, we can take heart in our becoming. A number of years ago a scientist broke down the value of a human being. It works out to about four dollars in today’s currency. It included oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, calcium, phosphorous, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium, iron and iodine. But I have to tell you! Our value is so much more. We are not simply bundles of molecules and atoms. We are the offspring of our creator. We are God’s children. That is not something we work at or wait for. It is the gift of God’s eternal love. We have discovered our identity and significance. We know who we are and to whom we belong and where we are going. We may not know the whole story of what we will become. We do know that we are children of God created in God’s own image. We do know that we are made in the image of Christ. And that makes us saints of God.

Yet I do not want to diminish that quest for holiness that is part of our human struggle. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus challenges us to be godly people. It is amongst the most remembered of Jesus’ words. We often sentimentalize what should provoke and disturb us. It is a picture of life totally contrary to everything that is human in our world. Impossible to attain! It is designed not to be something accomplished, but rather ßa goal of Christian living.

“Happy are the poor,” Jesus says. And the world replies, “You know what makes you happy. Look at the beautiful home you have. Look at how you live. Don’t you have everything you want?”

“Happy are the hungry,” Jesus says. And the world replies, “You need so much more to be happy. Go out and buy some more things. Then you’ll be really happy!”

Jesus says, “Happy are you who weak now, for you will laugh.” And the world says, “Enjoy what you have. Life is too short. Live it to the full.”

Jesus says, “Happy are you when people say nasty things about you, when they exclude you, when they put you down.” And the world replies, “Put them down before they put you down. That will surely make you happy.”

The Beatitudes do not lead to salvation, but by following them we will live a more authentic life that communicates God’s healing power to lives of the sick, lonely, oppressed, broken and unhappy people in our world and community. Living that way will not win us God’s favour. We already have that. We are graced by God. Living authentically will empower us and help us grow as members of God’s family.

The point of our celebration of all the saints is that God is much more generous than we could ever imagine. God is much more inclusive than we could ever think. In Jesus Christ, God is more accepting and welcoming than we could ever dare to dream.

To the church of God that is in Port Hope, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: grace and peace, this day and forever. Amen

All Saints, Year B

Living Saints

Readings: Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 24:1-6; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44

Every year on the first of November we celebrate the Feast of All Saints. In our worship, we consciously join ourselves to the saints in heaven. We put into practice our faith in the communion of saints.

Why do we honour all of the saints? In the early days of the Church, martyrs were remembered on the anniversary of their death. The first three centuries were times of persecution for Christians. The number of martyrs increased dramatically during that time. The number of free days in the calendar decreased rapidly. Finally in the fourth century, one day in the year was set aside to commemorate all the saints who couldn't be fit into the calendar. The important saints continued to have a day set aside for their remembrance. The lesser saints became part of the "communion of saints" that was remembered on All Saints Day.

There is another aspect to the celebration, for this day is a reminder to us that we are all called to be saints of God. All Saintstide is a reminder to us of our call to holiness. Ronald Knox, a Roman Catholic theologian, commented that "the Church in Heaven is all saints, but the Church on earth is all sorts". There are all sorts of us in the Church of God. All sorts of denominations. All sorts of theologies. All sorts of liturgies. All sorts of personalities. And we are all, all sorts of us, called to be the saints of God. We people of God are all sorts of saints.

That is probably the most difficult thing for any of us to accept. We do not like to think of ourselves as being holy. Somehow that is not cool. Besides, are we not supposed to be humble? It is probably okay once in a while on a Sunday to actually be seen praying. But to recognize our call to be a saint! That is asking too much. Why, we might have to change the way we live our lives. We might have to acknowledge that we are Christians. We might have to admit to our friends that we follow Christ. We might have to acknowledge our sense of community, our sense of belonging to the body of Christ. We might have to make a commitment. We might have to live up to the promises of our baptism.

That is the very reason it is so important to celebrate the lives of the saints of God. Thoughts about the saints arouse within us a longing to be with God and to share in their company. Awareness of the saints hopefully awakens within us the urge to live in the company of all the saints who have heard the call to absolute love and responded with enthusiastic faith. When we remember the saints in heaven, it enthuses us to practice the virtues that we see in their lives and to be filled with the life of Jesus just as they were. Recalling the saints reminds us of our ultimate destiny and our need for Christian living here on earth.

So today we remember all those Christians who have lived before us. We celebrate that we are surrounded by a community of believers, those from every age who have served Christ and who have lived the life of faith. We celebrate that we are on that same path of becoming.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible.” So how do we come to the place where it becomes irresistivle to us and we accept our call to holiness?  

It begins, I suspect, with discovering that even the greatest of saints was a real person. Learning about their lives should convince us that they were real people with real struggles. It should convince us of their humanity. What does it mean to be one of God's saints? Mother Teresa who died in 1996 was often referred to as a living saint. In 1982, during a visit to San Francisco to mark the 800th anniversary of the birth of St. Francis of Assisi, the diminutive nun was asked how it feels to be called "a living saint."

"Possibly, people see Jesus in me," she replied. "But we can see Jesus in each other. Holiness is meant for all people."

It doesn’t take a genius to know that she was a saintly person. Her work amongst the poorest of the poor shows a dedication to the gospel that is so rarely seen. But that puts sanctity, holiness, out of reach of most of us. Perhaps we need to begin with what it does not mean. It does not mean that we are perfect. Our Christian life is a journey towards holiness. We, like the saints of old, have come through ordeals – through grief, loss, unemployment, sickness, pain, suffering. Yet we struggle to keep the faith. We struggle against the indifference of the world. When we are in the midst of pain and suffering, it is easy to feel as if we are alone. But the wonder of it all is that we aren’t. We are part of that great community, the communion of the saints. Those who have given loyal service to God. Those who have faithfully witnessed to the Gospel truth.

We are called like those who witnessed the raising of Lazarus, to see the glory of God. It is a kind of seeing by which we are able to understand more clearly than ever before what the purpose of life is. It may be coming to an understanding of evil or sin. Such revelations transform us so that we are never again the same person.

Often, the transformation of our lives happens in strange and unexpected ways. The stone is rolled back. Like Lazarus, we step out of the cave into sunlight so bright that the world can barely be recognized for what we thought it was. We discover God's way of looking at life. Weeds and flowers become one and the same; our successes and failures, crying babies and crotchety old people, sumptuous banquets and dry bread, all become transformed by God’s grace.

Like Lazarus, we are brought to new life by the death and resurrection of Christ. Our membership in the communion of saints unbinds us to do God's work in the world. We help one another to remove the things that bind us and keep us from living God's life to the fullest. We accept our place in the communion of the saints of God. We fulfill in our lives the commitment to our baptismal promises.

Through baptism we become children of God, joint heirs with Christ. We are adopted into the family of God. Because we are joint heirs with Christ, we also share in the resurrection. In this way, the family of God extends beyond faithful Christians on earth, but also to the blessed in heaven. This is what makes the communion of the saints truly universal: it spans history, geography, nationality, race, and all other temporal barriers we might erect.

It is a humbling, yet awe inspiring thought to know that when we worship God in the Eucharist, we are joining our worship with every Christian in heaven and on earth from the beginning of time until the present day. May we know that no matter what happens we are Saints. And no one can take that away from us. May we live as the saints we are called to be. Amen.