RCL Year A (All Saints' Sunday) - November 2, 2008

The Rev’d Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year A (All Saints’ Sunday) – November 2, 2008

Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

Happy All Hallows’!

This is one of those special days toward the of the liturgical calendar where we pause for a minute and remember all the holy ones (All Hallows’)… the Saints that are part of our life as Christians… the saints that have gone on before us, the saints that are here today and the saints that will come after us… all part of that great communion or gathering of saints.

Most of you You know that the Episcopal Church celebrates a liturgical calendar with “saints” days on it. Those celebrations are contained in a book called Lesser Feasts and Fasts. They mark days that commemorate special folk that have been martyrs, strong witnesses to the faith, or great theologians.

Folks like Joseph of Arimathaea, the man in scripture who was a secret disciple and gave his new tomb for Jesus to be buried in… His life was filled with lore and stories about him bringing the Holy Grail (the cup of the last supper) back to England. His feast day on August 1st.

Or – folks like Richard Hooker… who was a priest in the church in 1600, and probably the greatest Anglican Theologian that ever lived. He gave us his masterpiece The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, in which he brings about the foundation of church being grounded in Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. His day is Tomorrow – November 3rd.

Or Justin, the Martyr at Rome in 167, who started a school in 150 to teach Christianity. He started to defend Christianity in the Hellenistic world that surrounded him and wrote what are called apologies (spiritual defenses) and got into public debates with the Greek philosophers. He was arrested with his companions because of these arguments, under the accusations of ignorance and his teaching of immortality… After being given a chance to renounce his faith – of which he didn’t – he was put to death. His day is June 1st.

But you know, as much as I love to learning about the great witnesses that have gone before us… I want you all to know most of the Saints’ that I know were not great witnesses to the faith, nor will they be martyrs, or great confessors, or not even great theologians. But they are Saints none the less… And that includes us. We are all saints…

There was once a wise priest who, was once asked, “How many people were at the early celebration of the Eucharist last Wednesday morning?” He replied, “There were three old ladies and the janitor… several thousand archangels, a large number of seraphim, along with several million of the triumphant saints of God.”

He had a grasp of what it meant to be celebrating communion with the great ‘cloud of witnesses’ or the communion of saints at every Eucharistic feast. It is actions like this that become the answer to our deep human urge to be part of something larger, to not just stand alone… It gives our simple individual lives meaning.
It has been said that “one drop of water, when left alone, evaporates very quickly. But one drop of water in the immense sea endures.”

We are connected to something larger… we are very much a part of that great communion of saints. We are as St. Paul said, “Children of God.” We hold that divine seed of Christ within us, because we have been created by the one true living God! We are Holy – All Hallow – We are blessed! We are Saints! That’s what we are! Because everyone who claims Christ as Lord and Savior, and has been baptized into Christ’s life, death, and resurrection has been purified and made holy, and made saints to dwell in the fellowship of the communion of saints. And this is our feast day!

This is our day to celebrate the everlasting life that we have as a result of our faith in Christ and our adoption as Children of God. That’s a lot to take in…

We have a special day on the calendar that is ours… I don’t know if any of us realized that... But not only do we have a special day, we share it with all the other great ones that don’t have another day specifically assigned on the liturgical calendar…

You can probably sit for a second and think of who those great ones are… You could name all the saints in your life… it could be your husband or wife, your sister, brother, cousin, child, nephew, grandparent… the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the peacemakers… anyone in whom you have been able to recognize that Christ within…
That Christ that is the light… the light of the world…

The Rev. Elizabeth Canham was our guest preacher last year on this great feast of All Saints’… she reminded us that a saint is like a stained glass window… it lets the light of Christ shine through. I like the metaphor that Samuel Coleridge uses that says… “a Christian is like a keyhole, though which other folk see God... All of the Christians in our lives are saints; it is just that some of them have day jobs and most of them will never have a feast day named for them.

The challenge this morning is for us to be that stained glass… to be that keyhole…
To be that person on the day job that lets the light of Christ shine through us… Allowing others to see that Christ within us because we live with that unquestionable faith in the God who created us, redeemed us, and is sustaining us…

It has been a long season of learning… learning how to live a life of discipleship… Learning of how to be the church and love one another, growing and learning about how to reach out to others and show others the kingdom of God… Learning how to build up God’s kingdom using our earthly treasures and talents. Letting the Christ that we believe in, whom we emulate… who is known by us, and who knows us – be known to the world.

And when it gets rough, that is when it is most important… That’s when we reach down deep, into our innermost selves, and trust that God in Christ within us will help us. It is our training to become saints…

Have you ever noticed the baptismal covenant promises, that we will say in a few minutes when we renew our baptismal vows, never says that we can do it all by ourselves… It never says that we have been shown, therefore we are on our own… It always says, with God’s help…

It is with God’s help that we are able to resist evil, and proclaim the Good News of God in Jesus Christ… It is with God’s help that we continue to learn about our faith in the apostles’ teaching, and continue to love “the other” our neighbor as our self. It is an ongoing process… with God’s help… so as assured as our sainthood may be, it is up to us to continually strive to become the best saints we can be – with God’s help…

Mother Teresa, a true saint in her own rite, did everything that she did with God’s help. She sheds some wisdom for us on “sainthood” when she says that we need to always keep in mind that a Christian community is not composed of those who are already saints… But of those who are striving to become saints. Therefore, she reminds us that we are to continue to love on another as Christ loved us, and become extremely patient with each other's human faults and failures.

As we stand in a few minutes and recite and renew our baptismal vows, we will once again get the chance to own these for ourselves, we get the chance to be refreshed, and transformed, as we seek to be formed in the image of Christ…

My prayer for us is that we all pay attention to the words as we own them once again… and seek to do the things that we promise to do together as followers of Christ… and then live a life worthy of the sainthood that we have all been given.