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Sunday 2 November 2014

A Sermon For All Saints Sunday - on the occasion of a baptism.

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.

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




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