November 6, 2022 – All Saints Sunday: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
Well, today is our Annual Meeting, which will take place in the Parish Hall after this service. By the way…if you won last night’s Powerball lottery, I would like to see you beforehand – and then adjust our financial projections accordingly.
Actually, I love that we changed our Annual Meeting to this Sunday a few years ago, because – not only is the weather usually better than in late January, but this is when we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, when we remember those who have gone before us – the saints of the church. And, it is the offerings of their life and labor by some of those very saints that we are able to lean on now to help us in these difficult post-pandemic years.
Now, even as we remember them, these saints of long ago, it is doubtful that any of us would say they were perfect people. We loved them, and they us, but perfection isn’t really possible for humans. So, it’s a good thing that God doesn’t expect that of us. As I remind us every year, All Saints isn’t about perfect people who have died, it is about recognizing that God asks ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
As Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “The saints are the sinners who keep on going.”
“The saints are the sinners who keep on going.”
Now I am quite sure that it has not gone unnoticed by anyone that we have an election in two days, and like it has been in the recent elections of our nation, we have been inundated with messages of fear, hate, lies, and derision. I think in many ways everyone can understand the words of the prophet Daniel this morning, when he says “…my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me.” Sounds like he was watching the TV news lately.
We are a deeply troubled and divided nation – with beasts of our own making rising up all around us. Not mythical creatures of the sea, as Daniel portends, but very real, very dangerous beasts: the beasts of hate, anger, and violence. Even just this past week, New Jersey clergy were alerted by Homeland Security and the FBI to a credible threat against our Jewish sisters and brothers. Thankfully that threat was abated by the quick action of law enforcement, but we all know that our world has become far too violent and dangerous to think that all is well.
This is a time when we can long for the Matthew version of the beatitudes, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’ But that is not what we hear today in our gospel.
See, the Jesus of Luke had a different, even if similar, message. Jesus was speaking about those who are poor, hungry, and oppressed. Jesus also doesn’t talk about those who are blessed as some other “they,” as in Matthew, but to those right there “blessed are YOU who are poor…You who are hungry.” The need is present there in front of him and his disciples.
There’s another difference too. In Luke’s version, Jesus “looks up at his disciples” did you notice that? This is NOT the Sermon on the Mount, but what is called the Sermon on the Plains – a very clear and purposeful distinction this author is making…Jesus was among the people, not looking down from a perch on the mountain. He “looks up” and tells his disciples “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
I sometimes think he should have added, “for nothing will annoy your enemies more.” To be clear, Jesus isn’t telling his disciples, or now us who are listening, that we should allow ourselves to be abused – not at all. He is saying that we should not allow that abuse to be continued by holding tightly to our anger and desire for revenge, because that only condemns us to that deep and dark place out of which hatred is born.
So what does this mean for us in this time of election anxiety, derision, and angst? It means that we, who follow Jesus, must be among the people, see the very real hunger and thirst in front of us, and respond with the love Christ commanded us to offer.
It means also that on November 9th, the day after the polls close, we will have work to do – the everyday work of being a saint of the church.
Yes…you are all saints of the church too. Being a saint isn’t about dying, but about living. You see, in our baptism we already died to the things that would hold us back and are reborn into a life that propels us to keep on going. We are sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever, and as part of the household of God, we become the living saints of the church. That is why this is one of the four Sundays especially identified for baptisms.
Now to be sure, sainthood does not result in perfection, pure godliness, or a life without difficulty. That is not what sainthood in the church is all about. It’s not about doing everything right or being perfect, but about being who God has created and called us to be – every single one of us. And all of us are called to be saints.
It doesn’t mean life will be easy. I remember somebody saying “Some days everything goes right. Some days everything goes wrong. Some days it’s “Good morning, God.” Other days it’s “Good God, it’s morning.”…. Of course, nearly all the days of our lives fall somewhere in between these two extremes – thankfully. A steady diet of either one or the other would succeed in making us either insufferably arrogant or incapacitatingly depressed.”[1]
What this sainthood we all are called to live into does mean is that we are not without meaning or purpose, if we will only be open to the Christ that bids us to listen. If we will, as the author of Ephesians speaks about, “set our hopes on Christ.” Then we will be able to authentically be the saints we were baptized to be.
And it also means that this life of a saint isn’t for solo artists. It is something we do together. In baptism, we make a commitment as a faith community to nurture the newly baptized in their faith as they grow. It is a model of interdependence grounded in love that is also a message we can bring out to the world.
Our own well-being is tied to the well-being of everyone around us. We cannot claim to love our neighbor, when we do nothing in the face of their pain, their hunger, their thirst. This earthly life we live is a temporary one in which we are able to do great things in even the smallest of ways. Our saintly existence is a day to day struggle to remember our real purpose – which isn’t to amass great wealth, but expand the experience of God’s love.
It isn’t to build up empires, but to tear down walls.
It isn’t to gain the light of star like fame, but to be a beacon of hope.
And when we feel we are lost, when we feel we have nothing to give, when we feel the weight of the world pulling us from our calling, when we feel darkness overshadowing our ability to be saints of light, when we forget who we are… we are welcomed here – to this place we call Christ Church – where we are nourished at this table, and strengthened by this community of faith – a community made possible by the saints who have gone before us. Christ’s body, broken for us, heals us now and always from the pain of a broken world – and we remember that darkness, death, and hate never has the last word in our lives, but light, life, and love do.
And our stewardship in this present time, will ensure that those who follow us, will also have that experience here. That is what All Saints celebrates, this continuity of sainthood – the living and the living – those here now, and those who are alive in the light of God, who we no longer see. It is when we remember the saints of the church from the earliest apostles to the ones today. When we remember the saints of this very church, those with names like Arnot, Brinkerhoff, Martinak, and so many more, who made it possible for new life now. They understood that the blessings of this place, which fed their life in Jesus Christ, was not something theirs alone, but should be shared for generations to come. They understood also something the entertainer Gracie Allen once said “Never put a period where God has placed a comma.”
The end of any person’s life is not a period, but a comma – for them, and for all of God’s creation. God is still speaking, the need for the saints here on earth to respond to Christ’s call has not ended, the Holy Spirit continues to bind us – the saints triumphant (who have gone before) and the saints militant on earth – into the communion of saints – now and always.
And so these stalwart faithful of our parish in days gone by offered of their life and labor to God in their tithes and estate plans. They didn’t do this because Jesus calls us to build beautiful buildings, but because Jesus calls us to build a life of love and service. And they knew that because of what happens here, we are able to live as Jesus calls us to live in the world – as a beatitude people. A people called to a life that is counter-cultural to the world in which greed, callousness, and revenge infect the hearts and minds of so many.
Here at Christ Church, because of the saints before, and the saints today, we are able to offer a Nursery School that is based on an ideal of ministry, not profit making. We are able to serve the poor and forgotten in our food and animal ministries. We are able to ensure that LGBTQ+ people know that they are beloved children of God just the way they are, just as God created them to be. We are able to call out injustice where we see it, and work toward a day when all people will know the fullness of God’s all abiding grace and love.
And perhaps most important today, we are able to be repairers of the breach. Deep in our Anglican DNA, we are able to live in the tension of disagreement, and be a bridge of peace and love in a world divided by hate and violence. That is why stewardship of this place matters – because here, where everyone is welcome – where we, this wonderfully diverse parish, are a living example of the Beloved Community – we are able to come to know the transformative power of God’s all inclusive love, and spread that knowledge throughout the world.
So, as we do every Sunday in Stewardship season, today you will be given a gift, blessed at the altar. Today it is a bookmark with the beatitudes on it. Let it be a reminder to you that we are called to be Beatitude People – the ones who respond to the need of the world as Christ has called us to do.
So, no matter what the outcome, November 8th is not a period in the ever flowing sentence of our lives in Christ, but a comma, and we are called to be a part of what comes next. Because God is still speaking, and calling us to live this life of sainthood in a world so much in need.
A world where people who claim to follow Jesus, who lived on earth as a Jew, whose earliest apostles were Jewish, these so-called Christians threaten the lives of our Jewish sisters and brothers.
A world where women and children are still sold into slavery.
A world where people are killed for the color of their skin, for who they love, or for the crime of being female.
A world in which leaders that traffic in fear and hate find a voice on the backs of the oppressed.
We the saints today, will continue to be “…the sinners who keep on going.”
The ones sowing love in the fields of hate.
Feeding those who hunger.
Comforting those who weep.
For we have set our hope on Christ, and by his great love, we will indeed keep on going – offering ourselves in life and labor to build the beloved community of God one act of unconditional love at a time.
Amen.
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[1] Multiple sources.
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
November 6, 2022
Year C – All Saints Sunday
1st Reading – Daniel 7:1-3,15-18
Psalm 149
2nd Reading – Ephesians 1:11-23
Gospel – Luke 6:20-31
