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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): Matthew 5:1-12
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Matthew 5:1-12
✛
Sainthood or Else
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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Gospel for the feast of All Saints has always been Saint Matthew’s beginning narrative of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, or series of blessings pronounced by Jesus on certain types of people or actions.
Jesus’ teaching in the Beatitudes stands in the Wisdom tradition of the Old Testament. For example, in Psalm 1, we are told, “Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly or stood in the way of sinners, or sat in the seat of the scornful.” Or, in Psalm 112, “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord…”
Jesus’ Beatitudes, however, advance beyond the Wisdom of the Old Testament. Whereas the Old Testament Wisdom shows virtuous types of character and prudential attitudes and actions that will lead to well-being in this world, Jesus’ Beatitudes show types of people and behavior whose rewards will come to fruition in the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven, God’s reign, breaks in here and now, but it is not fully consummated in this world; rather, it is fulfilled only beyond death, in God’s final judgment, and in the world of everlasting life.
The saints are the people whose lives have the shape of the Beatitudes and who are destined to inherit their rewards. Let us go through some of the Beatitudes and show how this is.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven. The saints are poor in spirit, that is, they know their need of God. Therefore they do not look for fulfillment and happiness in the things of this world, but instead for the things that last and which are fully revealed in the coming of God’s kingdom.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The saints mourn over the fallen condition of the world, over the world’s very worldliness which causes it to perish and pass away. The saints are world-weary, but when the kingdom comes and God’s reign is vindicated for all to see, they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Since the saints know their need of God and mourn over the world’s sadness, they are meek. They do not grab and push and cut the line to get ahead of, climb over, or put others down. They may be in that sense “last” in this world. But they will be first in God’s kingdom, and they will inherit the new heaven and the new earth of that kingdom.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. The saints do hunger and thirst for virtue and justice. In this world, it is always a struggle, a battle; seemingly an endless war in what often appears to be a lost cause or an impossible loyalty. But it is not, and it will carry the day to the saints’ entire satisfaction in God’s judgment.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. The saints, who are merciful to the end, forgiving trespasses seventy times seven times, who are kind and compassionate and generous, shall reap in heaven what they have sown in this world. Their love shall cover a multitude of their own sins, and God’s mercy shall be theirs.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The saints, who have walked by faith in this life and who have worked with courage to remove the things that distract them from their pilgrimage, will have so purified and trained their hearts that they will be ready to see God and love and enjoy the sight of him forever when they at last lay down the burden of the flesh.
So it goes, for the saints who make peace and work for reconciliation; who suffer persecution on behalf of virtue and justice, or who are reviled for the name and sake of Christ; they have great reward in heaven.
Why does the Church have, as it were “capital S saints”? Our Lady Saint Mary, Saint Peter, Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Francis, Saint Augustine, and so on? The list goes into the hundreds and thousands. What is the reason for this Hall of Fame? The Church lifts up and commemorates these saints to encourage and inspire the faithful. These saints reveal the triumph of Christ and the grace of God in different kinds of people, different contexts, and different kinds of witness. This holy diversity shows us the examples we can follow, the fellowship we enjoy, and the friends we have in this world and the next.
On the other hand, the New Testament refers to entire churches as “the saints.” Saint Paul, for example, writes to “the saints” in Corinth and throughout all Achaia. This is remarkable, because if you know what that fractious and sometimes unseemly flock in Corinth was like, you recognize its striking similarity to the American Christian community, or to be more specific, the eastern seaboard of the Episcopal Church. [Of course, that description has nothing to do with us here at Saint Thomas Church!]
The New Testament predicates “sainthood” of all the baptized. We are all, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “called to be holy.” (I Cor 1:2) It is a lot to live up to, but consider the alternatives! Would we rather be called to be children of the devil, or, even less appealing, lukewarm and feckless, such as The Futile in Dante’s Upper Hell? The fact is, no bit of hell can stand to be in heaven. The issue is sainthood or else.
Since this is the case, let me finish by telling you how to be a saint, that is, to become what you already are in Holy Baptism. To be a saint, you must truly be yourself in Christ. You must be the person God made you to be, use the gifts God gave you, take full advantage of the time God has allotted you, and be fully alive to the people, places and events with which God’s providence presents you. You must also resist the temptations to be less than you are, becoming smaller by being selfish, taking those wrong choices which diminish or distort your God-given gifts and humanity. You must walk by the Spirit in Christ before the Father, living your life as the adventure of grace that it is meant to be, by being the “real you.”
When you fail to do this, as you will do at times, you must not settle or harden into failure, either. You must repent and return to the Lord. The coming of Jesus means that we are in the business of fresh starts. We specialize in forgiveness on all sides. Our end product is redemption. As much as anything, sainthood is an effort, a good intention, a life’s work in progress.
The great children’s hymn, “I sing a song of the saints of God,” serves to finish this sermon. “They lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still; the world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will. You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea, for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.” (Hymn 293, The Hymnal 1982)
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
