A blessed Feast of All Saints to you all. On this holy day on which we celebrate the Communion of All the Saints, it is good to be with the saints of St. Luke’s Parish. There are some feasts, such as Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost on which we remember particular events, but on All Saints, we are not recalling something that happened in a particular place or time, rather we celebrate something that happens in the fullness of time. All Saints is the celebration of the beloved community of God. The icon that we dedicated earlier this year of the Feast of Pentecost can also be interpreted as an icon of All Saints because it portrays the wonderful and blessed diversity of the Body of Christ.
On All Saints, we give
God thanks for the mystic sweet communion, that fellowship divine which
transcends space and time. This beloved community of faith culminates at the
end of time, when, as the plaque on the Pentecost icon reads, “every family,
language, people, and nation” are gathered around the throne of God. Whereas
many feasts of the Church remember something that happened, on All Saints we anticipate
that which shall be. And because the promises of God are always true, we can participate
in the fullness of this beloved community even here and now.
The Church’s word for
this concept is “eschatology,” which means the theology about final things. All
peoples being redeemed and gathered around the throne of God in harmony is the
trajectory of all things. And it is only with an eye toward eschatology does
All Saints, or the reading we heard from Luke, make any sense.
The passage is often called
the Beatitudes, which is the Latin translation of the word for “blessed.” The
word, at the most basic level, means something like “blissful” or “happy.” It
is generally used as a congratulatory word – meaning something like “Mazel tov”
or “Good for you.” Good for you on being poor, mazel tov on your hunger, congratulations
on your weeping, you are fortunate that so many hate you, exclude you, and
defame you. By the metrics of any society and common sense, these are confusing
and empty words. Being poor, hungry, sad, and persecuted are not things we pursue
or wish for. And yet, Jesus says that these states can best be described as “blessed.”
Too often, the Beatitudes
are understood as imperatives instead of declarations. We think that we’re
supposed to be poor in order to gain the Kingdom, or we’re supposed to get made
fun of so that we’ll have a heavenly reward later. But that’s just a really bad
game. If those are the rules, we might not like them, but we can do that by
always focusing on the negative and living a spartan lifestyle. Sadly, the
Beatitudes can be misread as rules for us to live by. And when misread that
way, they become not liberating, but oppressive.
Instead of being
prescriptive, these words of Jesus describe the eschatological dimension of the
Communion of Saints. In the fullness of time, it is true that those who are
poor know the blessing of not serving money, it is true that those who had
their fill did not have as much room for relying on God’s grace, it is true
that those who dared to love enough as to have a reason to weep have experienced
the fullness of life, it is true that those who lived a life made different by
Christ have known the peace that passes all human understanding. When it comes
to the things that matter most, the things that make for following Christ, the
Beatitudes describe this experience. At the center of our faith is the Cross,
so we shouldn’t be surprised by any of this.
It has been noted that we
often inoculate the world against faith with a mild form of Christianity so that
we will be immune to the real thing when we encounter it. This is what we find
in the heresy known as the Prosperity Gospel which has no frame of reference
for something like the Beatitudes. The result is much of what passes for Christianity
does not give us freedom in Christ, but rather freedom from Christ. By promising
that faith will give us power, and riches, and happiness, and popularity, some
are tricked into a perversion of the faith that prevents us from encountering
the blessings of following Jesus in the fullness of his call to discipleship.
The Beatitudes though attune us to that which is ultimately true and therefore
what true faith points towards.
The saints are those who show
us what real Christianity is all about – what it really looks like to love our
enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, to turn
towards those who strike us on the cheek, and steal our coats. We all know the importance
of heroes. The Civil Rights Movement has them in Elizabeth Duncan Koontz,
Martin Luther King, and Harriet Tubman. Our nation has heroes in George
Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Greece had Achilles and Odysseus. Fantasy has
Luke Skywalker, Black Panther, Harry Potter, and Queen Elsa. Heroes remind us
of the ideals, of what is possible, of what is laudable.
On All Saints, we are
reminded of these heroes of faith who have been vessels of the light of Christ
throughout the generations. To be clear, the saints are not perfect, not a one
of them. They are all equal with you and me in the eyes of God. They are all
sinners who are just in need of the mercy of God as any of us. What makes the
saints saintly is not that they were better human beings, or more disciplined,
or braver, or stronger, or more devout; rather what makes a saint is that the
light of Christ shined so intensely in their lives that it helps to guide us to
Christ. The saints are inspiring because they were so inspired by the Holy
Spirit. Following Jesus does not come naturally or easily, and so the saints
are teachers who help us to imagine what it might look like to forgive our
enemies, to work for the good of those who harm us, who dedicate themselves to
those who could never repay them.
The saints are those who
live by the manifesto of the Beatitudes. The saints give us glimpses into the eschatological
blessedness of the way of the Cross in which the saints followed. In trusting
the inheritance that we have received in Christ, the saints are those who were
able to do more than we can ask or imagine because they have been conduits of
the immeasurable greatness of the power of God’s love to make all things new.
For all the saints, we give thanks. For the beloved community of the Body of
Christ, we rejoice that are members. And for the grace to follow the saints
into the future that is already secure in Christ, we pray.
