Pentecost Proper 26, Year C, All Saints' Sunday
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
Interesting readings today! What about that one from Daniel?! I think the key part of the passage is the last sentence: "But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever forever and ever." When we get further into the readings I think that will become clear!" It will become clear because of the context for today: All Saints' Day.
When I say: "All Saints' Day" who do you think of? Most people will throw out names like "Peter", or "Paul", or "Augustine". A few will even mention obscure saints, like St. Dymphna (the patron saint of those with nervous disorders!).
When I think of "Saints" I think of three people: I think of St. Francis, and Martin Luther King Jr. and my grandmother.
I think of St. Francis as the epitome of one way of talking about saints - namely that "saints" are special Christians. "Saints" stand out from the rest of us mere mortals because of their devotion to God, their unselfishness, their bravery, their single-mindedness.
Francis comes to mind, I suppose, because he reached that place where he was literally willing to sacrifice everything for God, to set Self aside.
He was also a person of complete moral integrity - a just and righteous man.
The vision we have of Francis - of living faithfully, with integrity - is one that we can easily admire, but shudder to emulate! Few today have the strength of character and the desire to serve God in the way that Francis did.
In a sense, therefore, to think of this sort of sainthood is to think in "stained glass" terms - to see people who are one (or more) steps removed from what most of us consider the 'real world', the world of the ordinary and the every day - which, of course, means we're all less likely to adopt their way of living.
The second person I mentioned was Martin Luther King Jr. We don't call him "Saint Martin" but he fits into that category of "saint" doesn't he!? Someone who, because of his faith, was willing to stand up for others, to stand up for justice, to stand up for equality.
Unlike Francis he didn't give up everything (which I think means he didn't abandon the everyday world for an aesthetic, an austere existence. But he was someone willing to risk his life for what he believed in, and "what he believed in" was God and God's justice.
And it cost him his life - that's another characteristic of sainthood, isn't it? A willingness to risk everything with the very real possibility that death is the likely consequence.
The third person I mentioned was my grandmother.
My grandmother wasn't perfect! In fact there were (rare) occasions when she looked anything but the vision of purity and perfection we often assign to saints.
What made her - and makes her - a "saint" is that she was baptized.
Yup, that's right. The only qualification for being called into sainthood - at least as St. Paul describes it - is to be baptized. But we also need to be careful in how we read that qualification.
Paul always opened his letters pretty much the same way, with lots of greetings. Frequently he would refer to the individual members of the communities to which he was writing as "those called to be (h)agios" quite literally "those called to be holy" - a word we now translate as "saints."
We're all called to be saints, but being called to that identity and actually entering into it are two different things - Paul was reminding his fellow-Christians that holiness - sainthood - was a vision they should strive for, not an identity they already owned. If asked, I believe that St. Paul would say that those who had entered into sainthood were marked by two further characteristics beyond baptism itself:
- an earnest and genuine desire to serve the world in Christ's name, and
- an actual attempt to do so.
Not to succeed, but just to try. The rest, Paul said, is up to God.
And so my grandmother sneaks in to sainthood! And so do many - if not all - of the rest of us, who have been baptized, who have a genuine desire to serve the world in God's name, and who are actively seeking to do the same.
For, as Paul says quite explicitly in today's Epistle: we have been given an inheritance.. If we "set our hope on Christ, we inherit the promise of grace and peace from God,
Which leads us to the renewal of our Baptismal Covenant. If we take our baptisms seriously, then here is the opportunity to take the second step in our journey of faith:
When asked: "Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? The response is: I will, with God's help.
And when asked: "Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?, the response is: "I will, with God's help."
When asked: "Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?" then the answer is "I will, with God's help."
When asked: "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Then the answer is: "I will, with God's help."
And finally, when asked, "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?" the answer is "I will, with God's help."
May it be so for all of us. Amen.
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