Sermon for All Saints' Sunday

Sermon delivered Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, Tenn.
All Saints’ Sunday, Year B (Wis. 3:1-9, Ps. 24, Rev. 21:1-6a, Jn. 11:32-44)

Today is All Saints’ Sunday, the day we commemorate the lives of all the saints who have gone before us, whose lives have been a testament to the power of the Gospel and an example of godly life and faith. All Saints’ Day is one of the seven principle feast days of the church, along with Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension Day, the Day of Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday. These seven days are the most important days in the church year, highlighting what is central to Christian faith and the life of the church.

All Saints’ Day and Trinity Sunday are the only two on the list that do not commemorate a specific event in the life of Jesus, but they also highlight central aspects of Christian faith and tradition. All Saints’ Day celebrates the “communion of saints” that is a central part of our Creed. Without the saints, there would be no church, and though the saints of the church were not Christ himself, their lives bore and continue to bear witness to Christ in the centuries after his earthly existence.

So who are these “saints” that we commemorate today? In popular understanding, a “saint” is someone who is much more “holy” than us regular folk, someone who never makes mistakes, who never or doubts or questions, who is perfect in matters of faith. “Let’s face it, I’m no saint,” people will say as they describe their shortcomings, the implication being that if they were a saint, they would not have these flaws.

This high standard for what it means to be a saint likely is influenced by the Roman Catholic tradition, in which there is a lengthy process for officially canonizing someone as a saint. In this process, the individual’s life is evaluated by church authorities for evidence of his or her holiness of life and correctness of belief, and he or she must be the cause of at least two miracles after his or her death. These criteria certainly lend themselves to an understanding of “saints” as a super-human ideal of perfection. In a sermon on the occasion of the canonization of Elisabeth Ann Seton in 1975, Pope Paul VI said as much: “Being a Saint means being perfect,” he said, “with a perfection that attains the highest level that a human being can reach. A Saint is a human creature fully conformed to the will of God.”

But this understanding of a saint is not the only understanding in Christian history and theology. The creation of a feast day for “all saints” came out of a desire to honor and commemorate all the martyrs in the first few centuries of the church’s existence. A willingness to die for one’s faith instantly earned one the designation of “saint,” regardless of how “perfect” or not he or she was and whether or not he or she had been the vehicle of any miracles. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul often opens his letters to the various churches across the Mediterranean region with the words, “to all the saints” at Corinth, or at Philippi, or at Rome, and in this context he is presumably speaking to all faithful Christians in those places, not just the really holy ones. Despite its focus on those exceptional saints that are canonized by the church, the Roman Catholic tradition also acknowledges this broader definition of a saint as well.

In the Episcopal Church, our understanding of what a “saint” is tends toward this broader use of the term. The Episcopal Dictionary of the Church defines the word “saint” first as simply “a holy person, a faithful Christian, one who shares life in Christ.” It goes on to add that “the term may also indicate one who has formally been canonized or recognized as a saint by church authority.” Although we in the Episcopal Church do honor certain Christians in our liturgical calendar who stand out as particularly praiseworthy examples of Christ-like living, we acknowledge that all of us who share life in Christ through our baptism are part of the “communion of saints” that we refer to each week in the Nicene Creed. And thus, All Saints’ Day becomes a day to remember not just those grand heroes of the faith like the Virgin Mary and Saint Peter and the Apostle Paul, but also the everyday faith heroes of our lives, those who have made Christ known to us by their dedicated lives of faith, prayer, and service.

Most likely, we can all name one or two of these saints. Unless we came to Christian faith solely through an intellectual pursuit, by reading about the faith and deciding to accept it for ourselves, we were likely influenced by other Christians, by friends and family members who already knew the love of God in Christ and shared it with us before we knew or accepted it for ourselves. Maybe it was our parent or uncle or grandmother who took us to church, or the Sunday School teachers who taught us that “Yes, Jesus loves us.” Maybe it was an inspiring mentor who showed us how to live out the faith we felt in our hearts but did not know how to put into action in our lives. Or maybe it was a friend who introduced us to Christianity as an adult, or a stranger who said just the right words to us at just the right moment in our lives to open our hearts to faith in Christ. Whether we came to faith at an early age or later in life, in a gradual process of being raised in the church or through a lighting-from-the-sky conversion experience – or somewhere in between – our paths to faith most likely were influenced by those saints who may never have a “saint’s day” in the Christian liturgical calendar, but who are no less saints than those who do.

On All Saints’ Sunday, we remember God’s promise that death is not the final word, that those saints who have already departed this life continue on in their love and service of God. The beautiful passages we heard from the Wisdom of Solomon and the Revelation to John remind us that “the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God,” and that God will bring about a new creation in which “death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” In the midst of our grief over the departure of those beloved saints who showed us the way of faith, we remember that God’s grace and love are stronger than death. Our Gospel passage from John tells the story of Jesus mourning the death of his friend Lazarus, and then raising him to life again, foreshadowing Jesus’s own eventual Resurrection, through which death was defeated not just for one man, but for all creation. Death, for the Christian, is not the end of the story. In fact, in some ways, for us it is the beginning.

We begin our lives as Christians through the sacrament of baptism, in which we are united with Christ in his death on the cross. Though we usually think of baptism only in the positive terms of new life and rebirth, in baptism we are also initiated into the sufferings of Christ, and into the suffering that may come through following Christ. In baptism, we are indeed “born again,” but the new life into which we are born is the life of Christ, a life in which Good Friday is inseparable from Easter, and in which Easter comes through Good Friday. It is through union with Christ in his death that we attain to union with him in his life. As the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). This is the promise of baptism, and the hope of the Christian life. This is the promise to which the lives of the saints bear witness, the promise that, again in the words of the Apostle Paul, “nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

And on this day that we are particularly aware of that “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) to the faith who have gone before us, we celebrate the addition of new members of the communion of saints. All Saints’ Sunday is one of four days in the church’s calendar when we initiate new members into the church through the sacrament of baptism. Today, we will renew our own baptismal covenant, and at the 11:00 service, we will welcome Alexandra Sidney Farmer and Andrew Christopher McClure into the church of God through baptism. They will be united with Christ in his death and in the hope of his Resurrection. Their parents and godparents will promise to raise them in the life of the church, that one day they might come to choose the God in Christ who has already chosen them. And we will promise to do all in our power to support them in their life in Christ. Because, as they say, “it takes a village.” Or perhaps – it takes a communion of saints.

Today we see the full circle of that communion of saints. As we give thanks for the witness of mature, fruitful Christian lives, we look expectantly and joyfully to these new disciples who are just beginning to grow in the knowledge and love of Christ. And we pray that we who pledge to support them in their life in Christ would one day be the “saints” that Alexandra and Andrew will remember whose lives bore witness to the power of the Resurrection and who led them to a mature faith in Christ.

Sermon - All Saints' Day

Delivered (from memory - no notes!) at "Worship @ the Welcome Table," Holy Trinity Parish (Decatur, Ga)'s alternative, Saturday night worship service.

We saw him every Sunday.

His spot was by the trashcan on the corner of Church and Brattle Streets in Harvard Square, right across the street from the Crate and Barrel. From there, he sold copies of "Spare Change News," a street newspaper on issues of poverty, produced by volunteers, and sold by homeless and formerly homeless vendors on the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. From beneath his wool cap, his dark face would light up when he saw us, and we all came to expect the familiar greeting:

"Hello, family!" he would say to us as we approached him, a United Church of Christ minister, an Episcopal deacon, a Methodist seminary student, and me, just a random student of religion in graduate school who was absolutely sure that she was NOT interested in ordained ministry! (pause here for laughter ;o)

We would return Butch's greeting, "Hi Butch! How're you doing today?"

"Doin' alright, doin' alright," was always the response. His large grin was unfailing as he picked out which sandwich he'd like from the assortment we brought every week, and gladly took the clean socks that we offered, and always insisted that we all hold hands while he led us in prayer on that street corner, as busy shoppers brushed past us.

Butch was one of our many parishioners in The Outdoor Church of Cambridge, an ecumenical Christian community that takes the church to those who either cannot or will not reach it on their own.

Every Sunday for over a year while I was in grad school, I worshiped with The Outdoor Church in Cambridge Common, a large public park right outside of Harvard Square. We held an outdoor Eucharist, a liturgy that began every week with the same passage of Scripture that we just heard sung in the video:

Jesus said, "Come to me, all you that are weary
and carrying heavy burdens
And I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;
For I am gentle and humble in heart;
and you will find rest for your souls;
for my yoke is easy, and my burden light."

After the Eucharist, we'd share a simple meal together, usually comprised of sandwiches, fruit, and - of course - cookies. Then we'd load up all the extra food we had into coolers, and we'd set off into Harvard Square, with sandwiches and juice and cookies, and communion. Instead of setting up a soup kitchen and waiting for the hungry to come to us, we went to them.

I began volunteering with The Outdoor Church after about a year and a half of trying to ignore this inner constant nagging that told me that Jesus would probably be much more likely to be found hanging out with Boston's homeless population than going to class with a bunch of academic intellectuals, the likes of which I was surrounding myself with in graduate school. The Jesus I met in the Gospels seemed to be more concerned with feeding the poor and reaching out to the disenfranchised than almost anything else.

The Gospel lesson for today illustrates what some theologians have called Jesus's "preferential option for the poor." In it, Jesus turns conventional wisdom on its head, and calls "blessed" precisely the opposite of the things we usually speak of as blessings. Think about it. Most people use the term "blessed" when they are describing something good that's happened to them. "I'm so blessed to have my good health," or "I'm so blessed that my children are safe." "I'm so blessed that things are going so well for me right now at work." "I'm so blessed to have this house and this money."

But Jesus doesn't say that. Jesus says, "Blessed are you when things are really NOT GOING WELL. Blessed are you when you are HUNGRY. Blessed are you when you are POOR. Blessed are you when you are MOURNING."

It's not a coincidence that we read this scripture on All Saints' Day, the day we remember all those saints of the church who have gone before us. For a saint is not, contrary to popular culture belief, a person who is perfect or lives a holy life in such a way that they never have any trouble. But a saint is one who recognizes the holiness in imperfection.

The Church hasn't always done a very good job of reminding us of this -- if you think about the icons that we have that represent the saints (pictured at right) in these sort of statue-like figures, holding out their hands in blessing, with halos, who look very much removed from who we are as living, breathing human beings that make mistakes.

But the Episcopal Dictionary of the Church defines as saint as "a holy person, a faithful Christian, one who shares life in Christ." Notice it didn't say "perfect" anywhere in there. Faithful, yes. Perfect? No.

So what does it mean to be a saint? To be holy, faithful? To be one who shares life in Christ? What does it mean to share life in Christ?

If our scriptures for today are any indication, perhaps to be a saint is to recognize the blessedness in the things that the world often devalues, avoids, or shuns.

This All Saints' Day, as I remember the saints who have gone before us, I am particularly remembering Butch. I left the Outdoor Church in 2006 when I graduated and moved away from Boston, but I've kept in touch with the ministers - Jed, the UCC minister and Pat, the Episcopal deacon. And in February of this year, I received an email from Jed with some sad news.

"Pat and I have some bad news," he wrote. "Butch died sometime two weeks ago, apparently of a heart attack. Last summer he told us he needed to be hospitalized for a few standard tests, and then disappeared."

Jed and Pat tried to visit Butch in the hospital, but to no avail. They had no contact information, they couldn't find him, the hospitals were unhelpful. They finally learned of his death from Frenchy, one of our other parishioners in The Outdoor Church who was sort of the unofficial "mother" of the Harvard Square homeless community, keeping tabs on everyone and informing us of what everyone was up to if we hadn't seen them in a while.

When I heard about Butch's death, I wished more than anything that I could have gone to his memorial service. You see, for me, Butch was one of the saints. Butch's faith was an example to me. Butch taught me a lot about looking for the best in everything and everybody. About seeing the blessings in those things I might not be inclined to see as blessings. When I think about the great cloud of witnesses, the great communion of the saints, I picture Butch there, with his arms open wide in welcome, and calling out to everyone he meets, "Hello, family."

Who are you remembering today? Who in your life has shown you what it means to be a holy person, a faithful Christian, one who shares life in Christ? Who in your life has exemplified what it means to recognize the blessedness in the things the world so often devalues?

I invite you to hold those people in your minds and hearts, and please join with me in a prayer of thanksgiving.

Gracious and holy God, we give you thanks for the great cloud of witnesses and saints that have gone before us, of the examples that they have shown us of what it means to live a holy and faithful life in service to you. Grant that we may follow their example and one day enter with them into that great communion of the saints, which worships you for all time, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever, Amen.

(From left: Rebecca (Methodist seminary student), Jed (UCC minister), Pat (Episcopal deacon), and me.