Salvation belongs to our God

A sermon for All Saints Sunday, November 5, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!

Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints. That word saint, it means “holy” – people made holy by God. It does not mean somebody who is so pious that they never miss a chance to pray. It does not mean somebody doing amazingly good things every day of their life. Those things may be meritorious in their own right, but it doesn’t make someone a saint. Saints are people held in God’s hand, manifesting God’s love, praising God in the way they live their lives. As I look out at you this morning, that’s who I see: God’s holy people. God’s saints.

But it is not just those who are here. Here’s what our lesson says:

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hand.

Revelation 7:9

More than anyone could count—from every nation, all tribes, and peoples, and languages. The company of the saints is much broader and deeper than any of us can imagine. But it’s not just a vague handwave at everything—it’s not just that every conceivable person is a saint no matter what. Here’s how those in the multitude are described in our lesson:

These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Revelation 7:14

At Trinity Church, we know what it is like to go through an ordeal. When COVID struck and we had to stop meeting in person, I became very aware of the saints reaching out to check on whether people were okay—I would get calls telling me when someone wasn’t, when they needed prayers or assistance. The first Sunday—nine years ago—when I first came here, was the day after Father Allen Newman died. The loss of this gentle priest who had spent several years caring for this congregation was an ordeal. There was another saint, who I never met, Keith Warren, who was so generous with his time and energy for this congregation and all of the Bronx. The Sunday after his funeral, I walked Sheila Hinds home. She was very distraught at losing Keith who had always been kind and supportive to her when she felt she had no one to turn to. As we talked, she recited the entirety of Psalm 121 from memory: “I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help?” It is an ordeal to lose people we love, especially when we remember their holiness and kindness. But our lesson from Revelation is getting at something more.

Those white robed multitudes are witnesses to the truth—the truth of God’s compassion, healing, and deliverance of the poor and the oppressed. And the powers of the world, the powers of oppression and servants of Mammon don’t want that; it exposes and challenges them. Thus, the ordeal that God’s saints experience. While sometimes it’s the whole nine yards of classic martyrdom, other times it’s gaslighting and disrespect, doling out blame rather than help. But the saints, then and now, rejoice in the opportunity to serve and worship God. We reach out as best we can to people of every language and nation, we rejoice with children and baptize them into the healing power of Christ, we love one another and believe in the healing power and protection of God.

When I look at the great saints—people like Francis of Assisi or Desmond Tutu—I see joy. No matter how serious the problems they were embroiled in, how fiercely attacked, they rejoiced in the goodness of God and the beauty of God’s people. I met Desmond Tutu a few times, and he clearly rejoiced in being in the company of the saints—especially those who are not renowned, not noticed—just the regular people of God we all meet each day. God’s holy people are made holy by being blessed by God’s mercy and by dwelling with others who have been likewise blessed. Rejoice in God’s love, one another with all the Saints.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Amen.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Amen.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Amen.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Amen.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Amen.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Amen.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Amen.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Amen.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Amen.

Matthew 5:3-12

Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; let us exalt his Name together.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me out of all my terror.

Look upon him and be radiant, and let not your faces be ashamed.

I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me and saved me from all my troubles.

The angel of the Lord encompasses those who fear him, and he will deliver them.

Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they who trust in him!

Fear the Lord, you that are his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

Psalm 34:3-9

Remembering the Saints

A sermon for All Saints Sunday, November 6, 2022

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

With the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.

Today we celebrate the feast of All Saints, the great feast of the Church in which we celebrate what God has done among God’s people. The word saint refers to a holy person of God. The popular view is that only a few really extraordinary people are saints and the rest of us are, well … not. But Christ has made us all holy, not just a few superheroes. We are all the saints of God. Some people have inspiring stories, and are clear examples of how Christians might live. So, we have Saint Francis who loved the poor by being poor himself, or Saint Oscar Romero who cared for the oppressed by facing up to oppressors, or Saint Thomas Aquinas who helped the church think in new ways and adapt to new circumstances both by being the smartest and most careful thinker that there ever was, and by being a devoted and faithful follower of Jesus, writing beautiful hymns and prayers of thanksgiving. There is a lot of benefit in reflecting on the lives of such people, and seeing what a Christian life can look like for a prominent person.

But there are far more saints who are not prominent, who don’t get the Vatican stamp of approval, or get the title “saint” attached to their name. I know many. I’m looking at some of them right now. But I’ll tell you about one you don’t know and will never meet.

When I was out in California a few years ago working as the interim priest in a congregation, there was a woman who had no memory. I’ll refer to her as Jane, though that’s not her name. When I met her, she was in the memory unit of a nursing home. I went there because members of the church knew that she had been an important part of the congregation at one time, but they had lost track of her, because her family no longer had anything to do with the church. Someone in the church encouraged me to find out about her, so I asked her family who encouraged me to visit her.

What I understood about Jane’s life story was this. She was the office manager of a construction company, a single mother, raising two sons. By 1980, the business wasn’t doing well, but Jane somehow took it over and turned it around. By the time she retired and turned it over to her sons, it was one of the most successful paving, curb and gutter companies in Northern California and her family was very prosperous.

In the late 1980s, the Episcopal congregation in that small town had grown enough that they wanted to have their own church building. Jane was on the fundraising committee. And what church members told me, many years later, is that Jane told the church, “The only way we can ever get to our goal to get this building built is to dedicate ten percent of everything we raise to outreach!” And that’s what they did. When I was with them as their interim, they had a lovely, if modest, little campus with a church building, a parish hall building, a house that was converted to offices and classroom space, and a community garden. They loved their building, but their identity was in their outreach to the families who lived in their neighborhood, who were mostly working class, lower income people, often recent immigrants to the region.

When I met her, Jane lived in a darkened room and she literally had no memory. She barely responded to her name. But she could talk and understand spoken language. So, I told her that the congregation remembered her and was praying for her. I said I had been told that she was active in the church when their building was being built. And some of what I was saying seemed to register. And, as I visited Jane over the months that I was there, we would pray together—she would join in the words of the Lord’s Prayer as I said them. Though she couldn’t do it on her own, her faith helped her pray with me. I would talk with her about what was happening in the parish and the various people. Sometimes I asked her to pray for them. When I mentioned certain people, she would respond by saying something very specific about them. “She’s a brick!” she said about someone, who clearly was just that. “She took me to operas all over Europe with her!” I was struck by how, even though Jane had no active, present memory, when she made the association because I brought up a name, what she had to say about these people was filled with gratitude and Christian affection. Living mostly now, completely within herself, she was still praying. And she was still living a life of Christian love in extremely difficult circumstances.

The last time I saw Jane, not long before I left California, I asked her to pray for the vestry which had some difficult decisions to make at their meeting the next day. Jane had been on the vestry and was a very experienced and tough businesswoman. She looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t take any wooden nickels!” I still laugh with joy and gratefulness for Jane’s witness when I think of her.

We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. The communion of saints is a network of people of every time and place. We rely on one another and all the saints of every time, to maintain us in difficulty and in plenty. Their counsel may comfort us or call us to repentance. We give thanks to God for all the saints, famous and unknown, older and younger, close to us or far away. It’s in being humble enough to listen to those who are blessed: the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, the reviled and marginalized, and yes, even our own children and grandchildren, that we ourselves join in the Kingdom of God and the blessedness of his saints.

Listen once more to what the Apostle says in our reading from Ephesians:

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

Ephesians 1:15-19

For the Saints of God…

A sermon for the Feast of All Saints, November 1, 2020

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’

Today is the feast of All Saints. It is one of the primary feasts of the Christian year and it is the one where we focus on God’s holy people. (That word saint means “holy person.”) It’s clear in the letters of Paul, that the saints are ALL of God’s holy people, the entire church—each one of you. The church has always told the story of people who were examples of God’s holy people. In our lesson today from the book of Revelation, all those people in the white robes with palm branches in their hands represented Christians who suffered in persecutions by the Roman Empire—but vast numbers from every language, nation, and tribe. They were witnesses to Christ, and their lives carried the consequences of that witness, both suffering and participation in the glory and praise of God. The Greek word for witness is martyr. We take that word in our time to refer primarily to someone who gets killed for something, but that was NOT the focus in the earliest church. The focus was on witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ, on living in that love.

In later centuries the church put forward many examples of saints who were great examples of Christian living. In seeing these unambiguous examples, we can appreciate characteristics of Christian compassion, Christian generosity, Christian humility and so on. But sometimes this conveys the wrong impression—as if being one of God’s holy people was just for a few superheroes of the faith and not for all of us. If a witness to the faith suffers or dies in the process, that’s not because they are some kind of extraordinary person, it’s just that they are an ordinary Christian who had a really bad day.

Forty years ago today I was in my last year of seminary. I remember we had our next-door neighbors over, and we were discussing the upcoming election. This was of particular interest to them because they weren’t from the United States, so American politics were exotic and somewhat puzzling to them. In the course of the conversation, the husband mentioned that it happened to be his birthday. He said that having his birthday on All Saints was special because where he grew up in Africa they made a big deal of All Saints with brass bands playing. He said when he was six or seven years old he thought the bands were playing for him. I imagine he was not unlike our own children, like Bryce or Omar, soaking up the enjoyment of all the good things happening. It was my friend’s fortieth birthday. He had been a priest for a number of years by then, and he had been living in Germany, unable to return to his home country because of the racist regime that was in power at the time. We were clergy, or soon to be clergy in my case, and yes, we argued a lot about arcane theological things and worried about what professors and bishops might do if we disagreed with them. But we were, and are very ordinary people, with ordinary concerns. Our children played together. Their daughters Nyasha and Tinao were a bit older than my daughter Rachel, so they kind of treated her like a doll, I think.

After I graduated it was almost twenty years before I saw my friend again, though we did keep in touch. Sebastian and his late wife Ruth took their family to Zimbabwe, enthusiastic about rebuilding his home country into a just place for everyone to live. Ruth gave up her German citizenship to become a Zimbabwean. She worked as an educator while Sebastian taught at the university and became a leader in the church in Zimbabwe and worked internationally. He wrote a book about land reform and eventually was elected bishop of Manicaland in eastern Zimbabwe. Ruth and Sebastian worked diligently to improve the lives of the poor in their region, especially the plight of women and girls, with practical projects for economic independence and educational betterment. Even after Sebastian retired, the church called him back to be an acting bishop because there was a terrible struggle between government cronies and the Anglican Church. One Sunday, as Sebastian was preparing the cathedral altar for communion, he turned around, and riot police were standing across the altar rail. He said he told the riot police, simply: “I am in your hands.” And they walked away, without harming him or others.

Sebastian and Ruth lived a life of witness to the Gospel of Christ. And the consequence of that witness could have been a very bad day for Sebastian, that day in the cathedral. But I am not here to tell you about some superhero or someone deified in a stained-glass window. My friend, for all his intelligence and achievement, is a regular person. A husband and father who grieved deeply when his wife died just over three years ago. He is the first to admit how important Ruth was in making his life of witness possible and real; in keeping him from being discouraged and in sustaining his life of prayer.

There’s another witness to the truth in our congregation who also has a birthday today. Mrs. Enid Nurse was born in Brooklyn one hundred years ago today. She lived in the Bronx since she graduated from high school and has been a member of Trinity for a very long time. The reason she’s not here in church today is that she’s with her family in Philadelphia to celebrate the occasion. Enid worked as a secretary at a junior college, helping to make possible the education and training of young people for the betterment of their lives and the community. Here at Trinity she taught Sunday school for many years and was in our choir. Her gentleness and cheerfulness has been a blessing to us all. In fact, the last time we were able to have our choir here for in-person church, Enid came and sang with them—at the age of 99.

It is in the witness of the saints that the blessing of God is made clear. It is not in their perfection, or fame, or heroism, but that they live, like us, among us, as God’s beloved children, being generous with God’s love, witnessing to Christ’s love in this world.

This is a good day for the saints. We thank them for their witness to Christ’s love – for Mrs. Enid Nurse for her one hundred years, and for Bishop Sebastian Bakare for his eighty.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for there is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:1-12

Those Samaritans!

A sermon for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost, July 14, 2019

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

We always thank God … for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints.

“Love …for all the saints.” Paul is celebrating the love of God’s people in a congregation where things are going right. When he told the people of Colossae that he’s heard of their love for “the saints,” they knew that he meant ALL of God’s holy people—every one, not just the Christian heroes.  Here at Trinity we celebrate God’s love for all manner of saints who we find right here—and many who we don’t see. Some of them we love and rejoice in despite annoying and difficult things about them. The beloved, holy, people of God don’t all have smoothed-out edges or refined manners. Indeed, some of God’s saints can be downright disagreeable.

But God rejoices in God’s holy people, as it says in our lesson from Deuteronomy: “For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God.” God sanctifies people as holy, and we rejoice in the goodness of God’s holy people. That overrides our opinions, our annoyances, our frustrations, and our judgments—

because our call is to live in the love of God, love for all the saints.

The Gospel lesson today is famous, however most people don’t understand it well. In our country “Good Samaritan” has come to mean somebody who goes out of his way to help somebody, but that’s not this story at all. Let’s look at the story closely.  A lawyer comes up to Jesus and wants to work out the details of how he could earn eternal life. Jesus asked him to summarize the Jewish law. And Jesus affirmed him: “Do this and you will live.” But somehow, he needed to justify himself, to figure out for sure that he was special enough, how perhaps he could distinguish himself from those who weren’t going to inherit eternal life: “And who is my neighbor?”

Here’s where we moderns often stop understanding what’s really going on in this story.  Jesus spent the bulk of his time among fellow Jews.  And his questioner in this story is certainly Jewish. The essential point in this story is that in a Jewish context, the hero is not Jewish, but a Samaritan. Who were the Samaritans?  They still exist today as a

Samaritans on Mount Gerezim

very small group living in Israel. Their religion is a strict observance of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures in a version that varies only slightly from the Jewish scriptures.  In Jesus’ time they were a numerous group, probably a million or so, and they lived in villages in the part of Palestine that is still called Samaria by the Israelis. It is in the occupied West Bank, north of Jerusalem and Judea up to the south shore of the Sea of Galilee. So it is south of Galilee where Jesus grew up and first preached and his route from there to Jerusalem went through this area.

In Jesus’ time the population of the area was both Jewish and Samaritan, not so much mixed as living in separate villages that had little or nothing to do with one another. The story that was told, and many Jews believed, was that Samaritans were moved into the area after the Assyrians had conquered it and depopulated the lands of the so-called “ten lost tribes of Israel.” They regarded the Samaritans as foreigners or as of mixed heritage, and as idolaters—lazy, dirty and treacherous.  But the Samaritans then, and to this day, believe they are descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph. They worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and offer the prescribed sacrifices of the Pentateuch on Mount Gerezim. The Samaritans’ feelings regarding the Jews mirrored those of the Jews about the Samaritans. So these two groups hated each other—more than they hated other groups who weren’t related to them at all.

So a Jewish man on the Jewish road to Jewish Jericho is beaten up by robbers and left to die. Two leaders of his own community avoid him as he’s lying by the side of the road. The way the story reads, you might expect the next person to come along, the one who helps the man, to be an ordinary Jewish layperson.

Instead, Jesus puts a Samaritan on the road and when he does that …

The Samaritan is suddenly a human being and it contradicts all the stories that his audience had been telling themselves about these people… these SAMARITANS! Jesus told this story to answer the question: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus didn’t actually tell this guy who his neighbor was. He said, “Which of these three was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” Being a neighbor is how you behave—it’s not which group your belong to, or how you judge another person. This lawyer, who was not dim, who was well versed in the Torah, understood what Jesus was saying. He answered, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Mercy is characteristic of God. God shows love for God’s people by extending mercy to them. It is not that we have earned God’s favor, or are entitled by our goodness, or place in society to the good things that God has for us. God gives good to his people as a gift, as compassion for our weakness, our distress, our fear or anxiety. God makes us holy through mercy. And the saints, those saints who the Colossians loved, they are made holy because they give that mercy away to others, as this nameless man, descended probably from Ephraim or Manasseh, gave to his neighbor, descended from Judah, or perhaps Benjamin. Being a good neighbor requires stepping beyond our ordinary inclinations and expectations, it requires mercy, perhaps when we aren’t seeing so much mercy.

Our country today is a country where mercy is in short supply. Where people think they can be “Good Samaritans” without welcoming foreigners or seeing the humanity of those who are different than they are. It takes courage to stand up to that, to act as a neighbor rather than shielding our own. We discover and know God’s saints through living God’s mercy and generosity. God rejoices in his holy people.

Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long.

Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love,

for they are from everlasting.

Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions;

remember me according to your love

and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.

 

 

I saw the holy city coming down from the sky from God

A sermon for All Saints Sunday, November 4, 2018

Calvary Episcopal Church, Flemington, New Jersey

See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Today we are observing the Feast of All Saints. It’s one of the most important feasts on the Christian calendar.  Officially it happens on November 1, but since people don’t get that day off to come to church, we are celebrating it today.  Of course, Halloween is the Eve of All Saints, so the day before All Saints people prepare for the Feast by imaginatively envisioning all that is scary or evil or demonic, ridiculing those things—purging them through acts of ridicule or perhaps experiencing the terror of what evil could be. Mostly nowadays people just have fun, they don’t take the demonic seriously.

I’ve spoken before about the demonic forces that Jesus casts out—not the caricatures we play with on Halloween—but the ways in which human fears, selfishness and anger take on dangerous and independent forms because people avoid facing them and push them off onto others. People often project the danger and evil onto others, like, for instance immigrants or Jews, when the real demon comes from their own fearfulness and anger, which is then projected onto someone else or some generalized force.

Both Halloween and All Saints are exercises in holy imagination. In appreciating real things by imagining them in more vivid and concrete images. When we talk about saints, we usually think of famous people or great heroes—people with inspiring stories whose lives can be examples of how Christians can be. Many people think of St. Francis of Assisi, who lived a life of poverty to show Christians the freedom that comes in living for others. Many think of him as being all about loving animals. He did love animals, but much of what he did with animals was to teach people to rejoice in their simplicity and to emulate the birds and creatures in their free response to God’s love and beauty.  A couple of weeks ago, the Roman Catholic Church canonized St. Oscar Romero who was Archbishop of El Salvador. He lived his ministry as bishop in advocating for the well-being of the poor of his country who were oppressed by a ruthless and exploitative military regime. He was shot and killed at the end of his sermon at a eucharist in memory of a woman, the mother of a newspaper editor; a woman who had in her own ways reached out for the good of the poor,  and who had been killed a year before.

People like Francis and Oscar have big stories and dramatic lives that we think about. Sometimes these spark our imagination of how we can live, but often we develop caricatures of what saints are that are no more accurate or useful than our caricatures of demons on Halloween.

We might have heroes in our lives, but that is not what saints are. Saints are the Holy People of God. And when I say, the Holy People of God, I mean You. Being a saint is not about living a life of punctilious perfection or of winning the race of being the most generous, good and nice person who anybody ever saw. Being a saint is being truly yourself, truly the person that God created you to be. The most important characteristic of a saint is being someone who has received God’s mercy—that would be all of us. So if we are afraid, or angry, or selfish, we don’t have to deny that—we accept that we are these and other things that are much in need of God’s mercy and we offer them to God.  In God’s mercy, we are not crippled by our sins, nor do we project them into demons, but we know that we are loved and that we can love in return.

The reading from Revelation introduces the image of the heavenly city, the perfected Jerusalem descending from the sky.  It is the imagination of our future with God: “The home of God is among mortals…he will dwell with them and they will be his…”  Two years ago, I led a Bible study group on the entire book of Revelation. It’s quite a wild ride—from ecstatic throngs praising God in the courts of heaven to the horrors of war, famine and disease—reflecting a world as chaotic and dangerous as our own. Some of the images in the book of Revelation are far scarier than anyone could think up for Halloween. The image of the Heavenly Jerusalem emerges in that context of fearfulness and demonic oppression in the Roman Empire.

God knows the realities we experience, and also the fantasies and fears that arise as people respond to difficulty and uncertainty. The final truth is that the home of God is with us. And when I say final, I don’t mean, far away, after everything is done with, God will take care of us. What I mean is that the truth is, in the midst of confusion, fear, anger—the real truth is God’s presence, wiping away every tear, giving mercy to all his children, to all his Holy People, to all his Saints.

This is what is important about saints. The temptation is to be buffeted about and give in to all those things out there that confuse and frighten us, but we can renounce them. In a few minutes we will re-affirm our baptismal vows and renounce those things. The stories of saints allow us to imagine life when evil has been renounced. Our imagination of the heavenly city is one story, but there are thousands of stories, millions of them.

We have those saints among us—those who visit people who are lonely or ill; those who welcome strangers; those who faithfully adorn our worship spaces with little or no thanks; those who diligently work to improve our facilities and maintain our physical plant. In more than a year here at Calvary I have encountered many saints and their work. Works of mercy—of giving mercy and receiving mercy.  Take a moment to think of the past year… how has God dwelt among us? Who has done a small act of kindness or been generous in a way that you might not have noticed before? How has it been possible for you to be welcoming, generous, merciful?

I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked among God’s saints in this place and I anticipate that you will grow in your sainthood in the coming years.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

A Great Multitude

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A sermon for All Saints Sunday, November 5, 2017

Calvary Episcopal Church, Flemington, New Jersey

There was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Today we observe the feast of All Saints with the baptism of two new saints. In popular parlance, the term “saint” refers to some sort of religious superhero. But that’s not how the Scriptures describe the saints, and I think it is a mistake when the church looks at its saints that way. The word “saint” means holy—that’s its entire meaning both in Latin and Greek. A person is holy because they belong to God—and our reading from the book of Revelation shows a throng of saints, the holy people of God, more than anyone can count—all kinds of people, from all nations, tribes, peoples and languages—every sort and category of person: all holy and blessed and beloved of God.

The saints we remember are ordinary people, in whose lives some memorable things happened that illustrate the Christian life. Martyrs are ordinary Christians, who in the course of doing what Christians do, had a really bad day.

“They have come out of the great ordeal, they have washed their robes and made them white.” “A great multitude that no one could count…”

The image of the people of God—all of them holy, all of them saints. We here are among saints, people blessed and loved by God. We heard it from George last week—of being enfolded and nourished by the love of God in this place by the Body of Christ, which is to say: You.

This week I heard from a friend whose birthday happens to be on November 1, All Saints Day.  Thirty-seven years ago, I met him and his wife Ruth and their two eldest daughters when we were next-door neighbors during my last year of seminary. Sebastian wrote to say that Ruth died of cancer last month.

Ruth Bakare

Sebastian and Ruth spent their lives serving the church and people of Zimbabwe, courageously standing for justice and the poor. Ruth was president of the Mothers’ Union, and undertook projects for the education and wellness of girls and women in places where those things were hard to come by. Sebastian was Bishop of Manicaland and Acting Bishop of Harare, speaking for the church in a time of great conflict in his country. He told me that one time, while preparing the Eucharist at All Saints Cathedral in Harare, he went to the altar rail and said to riot police that had lined up there, “I am in your hands.” They walked away, and the congregation celebrated the Supper of the Lord.

We never know what will next occur in our Christian life, and in Sebastian and Ruth, I have known friends who calmly and confidently lived in God’s compassion, whatever came. Living a life of generosity and caring for others gave them joy, a joy Sebastian continues to share with his three beautiful daughters and grandchildren. We gather with them in Thanksgiving for God’s love embodied in Jesus Christ and known in the love of all God’s Saints.

There are stories like this in our own community. In our church and in our towns, the saints who have been among us and who continue still. The wonderful thing about this time of discernment at Calvary is that now is the time we can pause and listen to those stories.

This morning, Flynn and Grant are presented for baptism into this Body of Christ.  They are our youngest saints, incorporated into the witness of Christ. They are loved by God, more than any of us here love them—even more than their mothers and fathers love them—and I say that, having seen how precious these two children are to Sarah and Andre and to Kate and Frank. God loves each of us more than we can love ourselves. In a few minutes, we will join in committing to support Grant, Flynn, their parents and godparents in seeing that they are brought up in the Christian faith and life, in renouncing the forces of evil in this world, in affirming and holding the faith of the church, serving Christ in all persons and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

In other words, as a Christian community we are accountable to God and to one another for living and growing together. We are accountable to Grant and Flynn for being the community in which God’s love is concrete in our time and place. Flynn and Grant will likely live to see the end of the twenty-first century and the church will still be here, witnessing to the love of Christ, not because we are smart or efficient, but because God continues to love God’s people. There is no doubt that life will continue to be complex, that there will be doubts and discouragements. There is no saint that does not have doubts and discouragements—the wonderful thing about the saints is that they are real people, living in our real challenging and complex world.

With all the saints, we celebrate the God of Life—God who is the beginning and the end is not about death, but about life that is not stopped or defeated by those powers of evil and hurt that distract us. When we see and know and remember the saints, they affirm life and do not fear the powers that bring death. As my friend Sebastian said, “I am in your hands.”

We join with all the saints in the feast of life—if anyone is discouraged, or fearful, or confused, rejoice—that shows that you are a real person like the real saints. Rejoice that we have life to give, and we can live it for the new Christians in our midst—our love and accountability to Grant and Flynn is a gift from God, both the sign and the medium of our inclusion in the Resurrection of Christ.

For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the One who is seated on the Throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more, the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.