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All Saints’ Sunday
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
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All Saints' Sunday
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Scripture citation(s): Wisdom 5:1-5, 14-16; Revelation 19:1, 4-10
A Sermon by
on
Wisdom 5:1-5, 14-16; Revelation 19:1, 4-10
✛
Checking our Sainthood
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In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In our Baptismal Covenant we profess in the ancient Baptismal Creed the words: “I believe in… the communion of saints, … the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 304), and today we make those words a tangible reality in the here and now by recognizing and celebrating our relationship, not only with those around us today, but also with all those who have gone before us in all times and places. One of the important functions of religion is building and maintaining a “Holy Community,” which is a concept that is severely threatened in our modern world. This has been done in the Judeo-Christian tradition by “remembering,” not nostalgic “looking back,” but by “making present” the greatness of God’s goodness and love in our lives today.
All Saints’ Day, or the following Sunday as is often the case in our busy schedule, is when the Church honors all Holy Ones, known and unknown. Our English word “saint” literally means “holy.”
Baptized into Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, saints stand as a sign to the world of the love and power of God. However, if we’re honest, the lives of saints are not particularly appealing and, in fact, can make us want to run the other way and cure us of any desire to model our lives on theirs.
Let’s take 3rd century St. Margaret of Antioch, who is remembered as an example of early conversion to Christianity and of overcoming Satan’s stronghold over our souls. This is worthy enough, but you should also know that she took a vow of celibacy, and when she refused the hand of the local Roman governor, he locked her up in prison.
And this is where things got interesting. In between torture sessions, Satan himself appeared to Margaret in the guise of a dragon and then ate her. Luckily for Margaret, Satan didn’t chew, he just swallowed her whole. Even in the belly of Satan, she remained faithful, and the story goes that she happened to be wearing a small cross around her neck, which began to irritate the Satan-dragon’s stomach. She then used the cross to cut him open from the inside and escape.
Or how about St. Denis? St. Denis was a Bishop of Paris during the 3rd century – and a good one at that! His preaching was so successful at converting people to the Christian faith that the local pagans arrested him and had him beheaded.
But to their surprise, Denis picked up his recently separated head and walked away from the execution site preaching the Gospel. Needless to say, the whole beheading thing did eventually catch up to him, and after about 6 miles he finally collapsed and died.
And then there’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a hero of the church. Bonhoeffer was a German pacifist and theologian, who, after studying for a time here in New York City at Union Theological Seminary, went back to Germany as a resistance fighter against Hitler and the Nazis. After an attempt on Hitler’s life failed, documents were discovered linking Bonhoeffer to the conspiracy. Although the means were distasteful to him, Bonhoeffer was convinced that not seeking a way to remove Hitler would be the greater evil – great foresight indeed. He was subsequently imprisoned and on April 9, 1945, he was hanged at Flossenburg Prison.
In all of these extraordinary lives we are confronted with the idea – the truth if you will – that sainthood entails great courage, integrity and may be had at great cost to ourselves. Sainthood does not confer upon those who have gone before us, a pristine life to be venerated and preciously adored. Jesus did not ask to be venerated, but he did ask to be replicated. Replicated by our efforts to put God first in our lives, replicated by ensuring that we care deeply for one another, without exception, in a way that builds up the body of Christ, and replicated in knowing that no matter our shortcomings, we still can claim our sainthood as the children of God and be lifted up on the Day of Judgment. Yes, sainthood is ours to claim in the here and now, and to claim it includes all the responsibilities and privilege that goes along with it.
The term “privilege” is and continues to be a significant term in our national dialogue, especially most recently in the area of race relations. Society, our society, grants privilege, or unearned benefits, to people because of certain aspects of their identity, which can include race, but it also can include class, gender, sexual orientation, language, geographical location, ability, and religion, to name a few – things that simply make you and me who we are. Unchecked, we, myself included, can go through the world without fully understanding or realizing how privilege based on these aspects of our identity play out in our lives and the lives of others. We may live in blissful ignorance, perhaps sometimes with a sense of entitlement, that who we are and what we have, we deserve – no questions asked. However, if we don’t check or acknowledge our privilege, we start moving about the world with blind spots that don’t allow us to see, much less even question, why others don’t share similar slices of the same pie as us.
“Privilege” may be an uncomfortable word, but what if we use the term “sainthood” instead – the idea that all of us who are baptized have this unearned benefit from God – this “unexpected salvation” as it is called in our lesson from the Book of Wisdom – available for all of us to claim on a daily basis. How might that change the way we see each other and the world around us? For one thing, I think we would be called to constantly check our “sainthood”, because we don’t get it right all the time, or even most of the time.
For example, if our default reaction to a panhandler on the subway is to disregard, discount or ignore that person in need, rather than offering a few coins, a compassionate smile to them as they move through the subway car, or even just a silent prayer for their wellbeing, then we might want to check our sainthood.
If we seek only to be comfortable in our lives and retreat into ourselves for fear of engaging in the messiness and uncomfortable aspects of our society – those areas that God also inhabits – then we might want to check our sainthood.
If we have difficulty in affirming the lives of the homeless, the disabled, LGBTQ persons, racial minorities or anyone else living on the margins of our society, then we might want to check our sainthood.
Why? Because deep down we are called to become something bigger than ourselves, to make things right with the world and our God – to become part of the communion or community of saints. And to be part of community means being in community in every sense of the word – fellow servants in proclaiming and living into the Good News of Jesus Christ that is our birthright through baptism. I have this image of the Community of Saints who have gone before us to be full of every good thing God has to offer, an existence of pure love.
And for us in the here and now? Well, Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, a community dedicated to those with cognitive disabilities, said “A community is only a community when most of the people in it are conscientiously trying to seek the fulfillment, peace and happiness of every member in it.”
That is the mission call for us as living saints, living in a community of saints.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
