Sunday after All Saints’ Day

By the Reverend Martha Frances+
The Sunday after All Saints'
4 November 2007

Text:  Luke 6: 20-31; Other Readings: Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1: 11-23

      Welcome, home, family!  It's wonderful to be back in our nave, our worship space, this morning, & to be celebrating several interwoven themes today.  Last Thursday was not just the day after Halloween but also the day from which All Hallow's Eve receives its significance—All Saints' Day—& we are exercising the option to celebrate this major Christian feast on the Sunday following.

      Some of you have worshipped down at Christ Church Cathedral & seen the huge wood carvings on the wall behind the altar there.  On the lower level are carved the 4 evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke & John—who gave us the life & teachings of Jesus in their Gospels.  Above them, as if standing on the evangelists' shoulders, are 4 bishops: St. Peter, the first bishop of Rome; St. Augustine of Canterbury, first English archbishop; Bp. Samuel Seabury, first American bishop; & Bp. Leonidas Polk, first missionary bishop to Texas (which was the American church's first mission field).  These men—all bishops were men in those days—blazed the trail of the Episcopal Church to Texas so in mid-20^th Century St. Michael's & Incarnation, & early this century Hope, could be founded.  In a way, my ministry & that of all the priests of this diocese stand on the shoulders of those bishops & evangelists.  But clergy represent only the ordained order of ministry. 

      In addition to saints who are recognized in the Church calendar & who have churches & hospitals named after them, we all have special people in our personal lives who have taught us how to live as faithful people & showed us by the way they lived their lives what a Godly life looks like.  Think how many more little statues we would have to have if each of your ancestors were included.

      As we move to the baptismal font in a few minutes to baptize a child in our midst, let's sense the communion of saints surrounding us to enfold Caleb & indeed all of us in what is often called the Church triumphant.  We'll name many of them at our altar this morning, joining our prayers for them with their prayers for & care for us which have continued beyond the grave into that everlasting life we so often sing about.

      How do we enter into the community of the Church?  Through baptism, of course.  We sang a moment ago "Wade in the water," but our baptismal font is too small for us to wade in, isn't it?  We're fortunate, however, that it is placed right in our midst in the middle of the nave, & as we enter & exit, we can touch our fingers into the holy water & bless ourselves, reminding ourselves of our own baptisms & the vows we made or were made for us.  As we prepare to baptize Caleb this morning, let's review baptism as initiation & ongoing renewal of our faith.  Through baptism, we join countless other Christians in receiving the blessing & anointing of God whose action is always effective even when we backslide or otherwise don't live up to our baptismal promises.  When we baptize little ones as we do today, parents & godparents & the rest of the gathered community promise to rear him as a Christian within a family of faith.  It really does take a village to raise a child to be a fully-functioning disciple growing in faith throughout his lifetime.  The blood family & the church family commit to providing the child—in this case Caleb—with the basics of the faith & turning to the larger community to support them in his upbringing.  When we baptize Caleb in a few minutes, we'll all have opportunity to voice our support of Caleb.

      Surrounding Caleb & the family, we will join in renewing our baptismal vows.  First, we state our profession of faith with the Apostles' Creed, the early personal Trinitarian creed.  Next, I will ask 5 questions & hope you listen to them as never before & take them to heart, responding truthfully when you say, "I will, with God's help."  What are those promises we all make over & over?

      First, we promise to study what we've learned from the apostles, most of which we find in the Bible; & to fellowship with other Christians (sort of like sticking with the winners), those who commit their lives to living as much like Jesus as they can.  We promise to break bread together—coming to this altar table week after week for nourishment from the body & blood of Christ in Holy Communion.  And we promise to pray, not only privately but also in the gathered worship service just as we are doing now.  The first baptismal vow comes from Acts 1 which describes how the first Christian communities grew & flourished.

      Next, we promise to hang in there in trying to resist evil.  The vow itself recognizes we all fail from time to time because it says when we fall into sin, not if we sin.  What happens then?  We repent, say we're sorry, & return to God.  That means we'll try not to sin any more, but when we do, we'll make amends & try to avoid that sin after that.

      The 3^rd promise is we'll proclaim by word & example the Gospel—the good news that we learn from Jesus about life in the kingdom of God.  We'll share the story of how Jesus is changing our lives, but we'll also act out of that transformation—letting the Holy Spirit into our hearts to guide us to behave differently.

      Now, we look beyond ourselves in the 4^th promise.  We try to see Christ in all people we meet & actually choose to serve Christ in that person.  Now I know some people have Christ pretty well hidden, but perhaps if we learn to love those difficult people we encounter, we can see them as neighbor just as the Samaritan saw the wounded man on the road to Jericho.  That's a tough job sometimes, & that's another reason we need each other to help us learn to love folks we usually think are unlovable.

      Finally, when we work together in community, we can work for justice & peace among all people, respecting the dignity of others even when they seem very different from us.  It takes a village—in fact, a whole bunch of villages—to work for justice & peace.  Together, we need to turn our energies on waging peace in the world, much more difficult than fighting wars.  One specific way we can choose to lend our voice to the public sector is to go vote this Tuesday, & vote intelligently.  How we mock the independence we Americans are so proud of when we don't even bother to be part of the democratic process!

      What would the world look like if we were all able to live out our own baptismal promises & support one another in doing the same?  Jesus gave us a vision in the section from the Sermon on the Plain I read this morning.  Because the Beatitudes are so familiar to us, we sometimes let them go in one ear & out the other, missing what they have to say to us about how to live our lives.  So today, I'm using the paraphrase by Eugene Peterson in The Message so we might hear these guidelines for good living with fresh ears.

      "You're blessed when you've lost it all.  God's kingdom is there for the finding."  We all have to mourn our losses.  We wouldn't be healthy if we ignored the empty place in the pit of our stomachs when we lose a job or a wallet or a spouse who divorces us or a loved one who dies.  The 2 things we need to remember are, as St. Paul tells us, NOTHING can separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus unless we shut God out, & that God WANTS to walk with us even through the valley of the shadow of death & come out with us even beyond that valley.  Since God gave his only Son that WE might have abundant life, can't we trust that God really knows how we feel & can be our companion through the grieving to the other side?  Some of us are experiencing this process as we go through the Growing Gracefully through Grief class we're having on Tuesday nights right now.

      "You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry.  Then you're ready for the Messianic meal."  You can all see I enjoy good eating, & anyone who has heard me more than 2 weeks in a row knows how much I depend on the body & blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  We're all invited to this altar for strength for our journey with nourishment which is Jesus Christ himself, & when we share this meal with our brothers & sisters in Christ, we are indeed blessed.

      "You're blessed when the tears flow freely.  Joy comes with the morning."  Tears are truly underrated gifts.  Tears are one of the outward manifestations of deep feelings, & as we get in touch with those emotions God gave us, a whole kaleidoscope of life opportunities open to us, partially because we are no longer blocked from feelings.  Tears require courage, do they not?  Getting through to the other side allows us to face untold difficulties, grateful that Christ stands with us in the gap.  An attitude of gratitude leads us to the joy which is available to us when we move beyond our tears.

      "Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me.  What it means is that the truth is too close when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don't like it, I do. . . & all heaven applauds.  And know that you are in good company; my preachers & witnesses have always been treated like this."  None of us likes it when others put us down because of our faith.  We're hurt when people don't like us or make fun of us, especially when we're witnessing to God's love for us & others also.  However, remember when we're being criticized, it's because we hit too close for comfort.  Remember we aren't called to be successful, only faithful.  And we're certainly in good company with the prophets, witnesses & saints whom we celebrate today. 

      As we celebrate both our famous & ordinary saints & as we initiate a new child into the faith family, it's important to explore once again God's call for us to be saintly.  Welcome, saints of Hope!  Welcome home!