For all the saints...

a cutting from an All Saints Sermon...

“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 the pure in heart, for they will see God.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.  Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs 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.” 

These words also are for the living, because we are not only commemorating the saints of heaven, but we celebrate, honor and name the saints here on earth. The meek, those who feel actual hunger pangs for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart...these are the saints on earth. We do not often claim and name our sainthood, that sounds awfully haughty and self-righteous, doesn't it? We are holy, because our God is holy and because of the power of the Holy Spirit and because of the love and grace of Christ on the cross, we are made holy—we are made saints of God.

Yet, while we remain on earth we are not just saints – we are sinners and we are saints all the same glorious time. Most often we trudge with the weight of sin around our legs, we work to forget and let go of the sins of our lives and our poor attitudes – yes, our sinfulness can certainly be the more predominant state of our existence. But today, we gather with the whole church – the church on earth and the church in heaven and say WE HAVE BEEN MADE HOLY by the Holy Spirit. WE HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN by the cross of Christ, and, so, WE ARE SAINTS OF GOD! This is not for our own promotion or glory, our declaration is a declaration on the who God is. We believe in a God who so desires to be in relationship with us that God has chosen us to be God's children, we believe in a God who so protects life that he sent us a Savior to lift the weight of our sin so that we could live freely and love boldly. We believe in a God who is holy and who is love, and so through Christ, we are made holy and we are made for love too.

Today, when we remember the saints, we do not only remember those who have died, but we remember and honor and claim the sainthood of the living. Because God has made it so.

Fredrich Buechner is one of the saints of our time, a Presbyterian minister, celebrated theologian and incredible writer...I would like to share with you these words he give us for All Saints Day.

‘At the Altar Table the awkward pastor is doing something or other with the bread and with the wine. In the pews, the congregation sits more or less patiently waiting to get into the act. The church is quiet. Outside, a bird starts singing. It’s nothing special, only a handful of notes angling out in different directions. Then a pause. Then a trill or two. A chirp. It is just warming up for the business of the day, but it is enough.

The pastor and the usual scattering of senior citizens, parents, teenagers are not alone in whatever they think they’re doing. Maybe that is what the bird is there to remind them. In its own slapdash way the bird has a part in it too. Not to mention “Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven” if the prayer book is to be believed. Maybe we should believe it. Angels and Archangels. Cherubim and seraphim. They are all in the act together. It must look a little like the great jeu de son et lumière at Versailles when all the fountains are turned on at once and the night is ablaze with fireworks. It must sound a little like the last movement of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony or the Atlantic in a gale.  

And “all the company of heaven” means everybody we ever loved and lost, including the ones we didn’t know we loved until we lost them or didn’t love at all. It means people we never heard of. It means everybody who ever did – or at some unimaginable time in the future ever will – come together at something like this table in search of something like what is offered at it.

Whatever other reasons we have for coming to such a place, if we come also to give each other our love and to give God our love, then together with Gabriel and Michael, and the awkward pastor, and Sebastian pierced with arrows, and the old lady whose teeth don’t fit, and Teresa in her ecstasy, we are the communion of saints’. – Frederick Buechner

Jesus' words of blessing and promise are for the living, and around this table we come to remember life and death, saints on earth and saints in heaven...and more than anything we come to participate in this dying in Christ and rising again to new life. Saints and sinners now, saints then, forever, with God. Amen.