All Saints Sunday 2017

I wonder today, how would you describe a saint?

On this All Saints Sunday, we remember the lives of saints who have moved from the Church Militant, a way to describe the Christian labor of life on earth, where sin and evil persist. With great love, we celebrate that these beloved ones are now in the Church Triumphant, where they have entered an eternal presence and heavenly rest with God.

More regularly we name saints who are recognized by the church universal: Saints Peter and Paul, Matthias, Joseph and Mark; Philip and James; Barnabas, John, Mary and Matthew; Michael, Luke, Simon, Jude and Andrew; Bartholomew, Thomas and Stephen. This group includes Mary and Joseph, as well as apostles of Jesus, some of whom were martyred for their faith.

But in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, the word “saint” which translates as “the holy ones” never refers to people who have died; it always refers to living people.

So while it is good and right that we should remember those who have preceded us, we do so because they are witnesses to us.

Scripture is one record of the witnesses who came before us.

Revelation was written in the late first century during a time of Roman dominance when authorities were insistent that emperors be worshiped as gods, and early Christians were facing persecution.  Its author, a disciple named John, wrote to encourage the early Church with a vision of hopefulness for the future.

We are invited to read this book with a holy imagination, forgetting what popular movies or books have portrayed and setting aside any discomfort we have with the text. Instead we are invited to experience God’s Word with all our senses, like we do on the Day of Pentecost when we see the flames of the Holy Spirit dancing above the apostles’ heads and hear a chorus of voices praying in different tongues.

Here, the text says there is a great multitude of people. Whether that evokes images of New York’s Grand Central Station, Keeter Stadium during the American Legion World Series, or the stores on Black Friday, nothing about a multitude of people evokes solemnity or quiet. A multitude of people, even holy ones, would be chaotic and noisy, in a joyful and raucous way.

But no one is shushing anyone. Instead this crowd is crying out with loud shouts of praise and the angels and elders around them are singing. We cannot know if their singing is the four-part harmony of a skilled choir or the imperfect pitch of congregation song; we can imagine that while it was reverent, it was not reserved or even rehearsed.

Like the saints welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem before his arrest and crucifixion, these saints are robed in white and carrying palms. Perhaps their vestments were heavy coarse cloth, or woven from rich silk, or maybe there were both kinds, depending on where they traveled from in the world. Like our paraments today, the color white symbolizes light and joy in the celebration of our Lord, in the Resurrection and in the mystery of the Holy Spirit.

Visible, noisy and active, this great multitude shows up to worship God with confidence and with thanksgiving for the promises God makes to God’s people. 

Saints can be described as humble, hard-working and honorable; pious, prayerful and persevering; compassionate, caring and centered on God, but we must acknowledge that we are describing living and breathing human beings who, as often, are imperfect.

The Good News is that we are not saints because of how we have lived, but because God - who cares about our well-being and our very lives - has made us holy, sanctified us. And not just us, who can be counted here in these pews on a Sunday morning, but people from all nations and peoples and languages.

The text gives us a hope-filled image for the world God promises. As one writer said, it is “a candle’s flame shouting against what is otherwise the overwhelming darkness of midnight.”

Despite our limitations and our faults, we are made the keepers of this great light, given the freedom to respond to the world where we live and “to take responsibility for the world and actively resist evil and injustice.” Our worship prepares us to live boldly and continue to bear witness to God’s transforming grace, that works through us.

Let us pray…

Sheltering God,

We give you thanks that you deliver us from the great ordeal of sin and separation from You;

Renew us in springs of the water of life.

Free us from fear and make us faithful witnesses to your transforming grace.

Amen.