Sermon For
All Saints:
Historically,
All Saints was a “catch all” provision to ensure that no Heroes of The Faith
have been missed, or forgotten in the church calendar. As the church grew, and
grew, and grew in the first few hundred years after Christ this became more,
and more of an issue, as the year became crowded to over flowing with days for
Saints and Martyrs . Even today, as
Christian persecution continues to rage across the world, especially in Iraq
and Syria at this time, the number of those deserving of honour, the number of
those from whom we have so much to learn, is growing day by day. As we heard
from Jesus in this morning’s Gospel reading –
10 “Blessed are those
who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
11 “Blessed are you
when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against
you falsely[b] on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great
in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before
you.
About 400
years after Christ, around 1600 years ago, when the calendar was already
jam-packed, Pope Gelasius the 1st
wrote of those “whose names are rightly reverenced among us, but whose actions
are known only to God." There are dozens and dozens of Saints who now fit
this category. Whose actions, and lives are lost, but whose images adorn our
churches, in stained glass, painted relief, and folk tales. But what about those whose names have been
forgotten among us? What about those, who do not have mythic legends, stained
glass windows, confraternities, and days in their honour?
Fortunately for us - being a saint is about none of these things.
Fortunately for us - being a saint is about none of these things.
Sainthood is
about sharing in the life and activity of God. You can forget chiseled marble,
polished brass, and plaster cast saints. Sainthood is about living in the
strength, and power of God. In the
Incarnation, He (God) joined with our human life, so that we might join with
his divine life – and that is what it means to be a saint, to participate in
the life of God.
Participation
in the life of God does not mean that we are expected to be perfect. We are not
all expected to fulfill some great self-denying feat, such as those saints of
old who took it upon themselves to flee to the wilderness, or those who suffer
at the hands of militants in the world today. But we are to have perfection as
our aim, our ambition, our end. Because we are animated, and brought to life by
God who is perfection, as we seek after him. The great self-denying feat to which we are
called is to take up *our* cross – not St Peter’s, Not St Paul’s, Not St
David or St George, St Teresa, or St Catherine – God is calling each one of you
to participate in his life, to seek after him, and his kingdom.
Jesus says
in verse six of the gospel passage: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they will be filled.” What is righteousness? A good
place to start is Right Relationship – firstly with God, and then with our
neighbours – so as we seek right relationship with God and Man, God gives to us
his righteousness, his spirit, his Life. It is by God’s spirit that we can
shine, as lights in t the world – because it is God’s spirit shines through us.
Christ
begins to lay out for us what this new life might look like, what “sainthood”
might look like, in the Gospel reading we heard today. Jesus gives us a pattern
for life that reflects the new life that God has given us.
Blessed are
the poor – theirs is the kingdom.
This simple
set of verses has transformed the lives of countless millions, throughout the
ages. All of whom have been swept up in the redeeming power of God’s action in
the world. And it continues to do so now! Reading these verses we encounter, in
plain and mundane letters on a commonplace page, the God who calls to us in the
spirit, who longs for us to participate in his rebuilding of the cosmos.
Respond, I
pray, to the God who came from very high, and lived among us. Not so that we
could become famous, or preserved in statue form, or glass windows. But who
came to change everything. Follow him, I pray, as he leads us. He will change
our lives, as we follow him, through the waters of baptism, through our shared
life, as we gather around his table.
Amen
Amen
