SERMON
ALL SAINTS DAY
“CELEBRATING THE SAINTS” – NOVEMBER 1, 2015
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our
hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer.
Amen.
Last evening was Hallowe’en and many children had great fun dressing up
in costumes and receiving Hallowe’en treats. Seeing that this year
Hallowe’en fell on a Saturday, I’m sure many adults also enjoyed the
evening attending various parties and gatherings.
Hallowe’en had its
beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The
festival was known as Samhain (pronounced sah-ween). The Celts
believed that at the time of Samhain, the ghosts of the dead were able to
mingle with the living. In response to this pagan festival that marked for
the Celts the beginning of winter, Christian authorities early in the eighth
century of the Common Era, established all saints day assigned to
November 1st. Pope Gregory at the beginning of the seventh century
issued an edict that indigenous customs and beliefs were not to be
obliterated; rather they were to be creatively incorporated into or allowed to
co-exist with Christian customs and beliefs.
So, church holy days were
purposely set to coincide with indigenous holy days.
All saints day was to honour every Christian saint –
A way to remember and honour the dead but in a very different way from
the earlier Celtic tradition.
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The hope of the early Christian leaders was that all saints day would, in
time, become more popular than Samhain, and eventually replace it all
together.
But, of course, that never happened.
And so, on October 31st many join in the fun and festivity of the preChristian tradition of Hallowe’en and on November first, many Christians
observe All Saints Day, which we are doing this year, seeing that if falls on
a Sunday.
There are two ways of thinking about All Saints’ Day.
One way is
vertically. No matter how sophisticated we may be, we tend to think of the
saints --- faithful Christians from the past – as ‘up there’, while we ordinary
folk are ‘down here. Up and down. We think vertically. Somehow, those
who have died are ‘up’,
We commonly say ‘up in heaven.’
And it makes sense if we believe Jesus
is risen. The one whom the world put down, God raised up. And so, in
keeping with Easter faith,
We say that those who have died, like Jesus, are raised up as well.
Interestingly however, the early Christian vision was much more horizontal.
The term was “up,” yes; but it was also pointing to the future.
They believed they were living in a drama, scene after scene, with God
writing the script in collaboration with human actors. And someday there
would be a last act –
A great, good, happy ending in which all the passing scenes of human
history would be gathered into a grand curtain-call celebration. Someday
God’s grand purpose would be fulfilled. Then, in a new heaven and a new
earth, God’s people would live together in love.
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Most of us have heard the Dixieland classic, “when the saints go marching
in.” In New Orleans, the song is often heard at funerals.
That makes
sense as the song sings of sweet mercy and cheerful reunions and a glad
world where every wrong is made right. No wonder the saints are on
parade! For God’s drama will end in a new world for all humanity, a world
quite beyond injustice, cruelty and terror. And the saints are there, risen
into the future of God.
But look for a moment at that parade of saints.
They are scarcely paragons of virtue. Instead they limp, their laughter is
raucous, and their white robes are decidedly frayed. They sure don’t look
like the stained-glass saints we see in churches?
Our understanding of the saints changed as another impact of the
protestant reformation, of which I spoke last Sunday.
In the late medieval
world, the cult of the saints had gotten out of hand.
It had turned into hero worship; people prayed to and through the spotless
virtue of the saints.
But in the bible, the word ‘saint’ refers to ordinary people in church. So,
yes, the saints include the businessman who falls asleep during sermon
time,
The enthusiastic baritone who sometimes sings off-key in the church choir,
and the young woman who is lost in fantasizing about her new love
interest, and the child noisy and fidgety, perhaps from too much sugar
found in those delicious Hallowe’en candies -- all these, all these in-church
people are the bible’s saints. Later in this service we will sing Vaughan
Williams’ soaring hymn, “for all the saints”. But when you sing be sure to
giggle just a little between verses to show you understand. Who are the
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saints? Good heavens, they’re us. They are all kinds of people like us –
no better and no worse.
So, if we are saints, what makes us saints?
We are saints, not so much because of our own efforts, rather we are
saints because of God’s continuing incarnate presence among us.
It is
God who came in the flesh, the word made flesh, who still dwells in the
midst of the people. That presence permeates the community of faith.
What makes God’s people holy is God’s presence, not our behaviour.
It is
God’s gracious presence in the midst of us that makes sainthood possible.
In our second scripture reading this morning, God declares, “look, I am
making all things new!”
God is at work in us and through us to ‘make all
things new’
There’s a wonderful expression you’ve probably heard which says, “Be
patient, God is not finished with me yet!” As people who live in a world
that often advertises perfection in a variety of ways, we may not realize that
saintliness is much less about perfection than it is about transformation.
We who are God’s saints on earth are called to allow the holy presence of
God to be a transforming influence in our life. Today on this festival of all
saints, God calls us to be the clay in the hands of the potter, to enable
God’s holy presence in our midst to shape our lives and our faith.
The followers of Jesus are invited to see the new life that Jesus represents.
The story of the raising of Lazarus reveals God’s invitation to us, God’s call
We are then to be God’s saints.
to us, to enter into new life in Christ.
Our lives are to bear witness to a hope rooted in the gospel that proclaims
God’s victory over the forces of evil and death. In an age of war, famine,
epidemics, and genocide, the church offers its persistent counter testimony
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to the voices of nihilism and woe. In the story of the raising of Lazarus,
God steadfastly refuses to allow death the final word.
Christ, who declares himself to be “the resurrection and the life” freely
enters into the suffering of the world that God loves, so as to offer hope and
healing, peace and justice, transformation and new life, to teach us and
encourage us to develop new and loving ways to be in relationship with one
another and with all creation.
All Saints ’ Day has also regularly featured commentary on life after death;
of resurrection life beyond the grave.
The bible doesn’t say much at all
about the final destination of the saints; those who led exemplary lives,
those who serve as an example to all of us how to live a good and holy life,
including those whose lives were so ‘holy’ that we give them the honorific
title ‘saint’ as in
St. Peter, St. Andrew and so on.
And, of course, there are those more
ordinary saints – like you and me – those who try hard to live the way of
Jesus in their daily lives and in their service to the church and the wider
world. What is their, and our, destination?
Well All Saints Day paints a
picture and it is a picture of a celebration.
That’s all we’re given – images, pictures of a party,
A festive gathering around a huge table bigger than time where the wine is
blood red and the cheers are glad.
Where are all the saints heading?
Where are we heading? All Saints’ Day provides imagery, imagery of a
great cosmic party with Jesus Christ as our host. Picture it with me for a
moment. Let your imagination grow wings.
Who do you see at the party?
Look there’s Sigmund Freud speaking amicably with Mother Teresa; see
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old Saint Francis trying to butter his bread with birds perched on his
shoulders, blunt Martin Luther banging his beer mug on the table while
Martin Luther King, Jr. Is spinning out his dream with fine free good
humour. What a crowd! Of course we can imaginatively add those we
love with all their foibles, but their sins transformed, enjoying the same
party. And today, we catch a glimpse of that ultimate party of the saints as
we partake of this sacrament of Holy Communion.
For every time we
celebrate communion, sharing the loaf and the cup, we are, in a way,
partying with the saints.
And God, God’s very self is with us,
As we gather around this table; the God in whom we trust and whose
salvation we know in Christ, who bids us eat and drink so we might have
strength to go out rejoicing to bear God’s healing and transforming love to a
hurting world. Thanks and praise be to God. Amen.
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Major Sources:
“All Saints’ Day,” by David G. Buttrick in Pulpit Digest, Volume LXXVII, Number 542, pp. 14-16.
Editor: David Albert Farmer. Logos Productions Inc. Inver Grove Heights, MN. 1996.
“Being Saints of God,” by The Right Reverend Keith Whitmore in Day1.org, http://day1.org/1549being_saints_of_god November 1, 2009.
“Theological Perspective,” by Victor McCracken in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, p. 236.
Editors: David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Westminster John Knox Press.
Louisville, Kentucky. 2009.
“Halloween – The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows,” by Jack Santino in
http:www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween.html 2009.
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