This week, we look at the readings for The Feast of All Saints (readings here), which is often carried over to the next Sunday, though there are also readings for the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost if you decide to go that route. As always, our “Deep Dive,” explores much more of these readings.
On this feast day, we remember those who have gone before. We recognize those who have run the race, the cloud of witnesses who cheer us on, those who are part of the Church Triumphant, which means that they are now with Christ in paradise. They, along with us, await the day when God will remake heaven and earth.
This day is a reminder that we do not walk the journey of faith alone. We are part of a family that spans distance and time. When we worship and we partake in this meal each Sunday, we do not do so as individual Christians, but as a part of a story.
When we are talking about “saints,” we are primarily speaking about all baptized believers, all those in Christ in the present, all those indwelt by the spirit, here and there, we are all the saints. The word “saint” simply means “sanctified” or “set apart.” This is something that God does. He works in us. In fact, we spend the rest of our lives in reference to our baptism, living in to who God says that we are in the waters.
Yes, different branches of the church commemorate specific people who are often called “saints” and I realize that’s confusing. This commemoration is simply a way of us identifying their example to follow. They are, in a sense, representative persons.
In baptism, we step into the number of the “saints.” We step into this inheritance, this new land. And we can live in it now. This involves renouncing all of our former identities with all of the strings attached to them; and taking up this cross, this new way of being.
We have been forgiven, set free from everything else that has defined us, and we are called to now live out our baptismal identity. We live by this new identity, this new reality, this new inheritance. And the beauty of this is that we don’t do it alone. We are part of a new family. We are in this together.
It is God who makes saints. And, above all today, God is at the center of All Saints Day. In our Old Testament reading, “the holy ones of the Most High” receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom only because they are the sons of the Most High (Daniel 7:1-3,15-18).
In our New Testament reading reading (Ephesians 1:11-23), Paul calls everyone in the congregation “saints,” regardless of their reputation or background. Sometimes we conflate the idea of a “saint” with a hero. Yes, some who we recognize as examples were quite “heroic” in some ways, and our story is full of such people. But the Communion of the Saints is also full of people who have no such merits to claim: deathbed conversions, those who never fully lived into their baptism. And yet, they are part of this family of God too. Why? Because it is God who makes saints. Our family is centered on grace. And even the work of the “heroes” are empowered by the work of God. This is the God who we trust and worship today.
In our gospel reading, Jesus paints a picture of a new kingdom, a new world, which is the inheritance of the people who have been rejected for so long (Luke 6:20-31). A message for us and for those in our congregations: to those who have felt yourself on the underside of life: beat up, rejected, feeling your failure more than your success. Hear today that we are part of a new kingdom! The world has been flipped upside down and you are blessed.
For those people and systems who have been too comfortable in this world, comfortable with rejecting others and manipulating the system for your own gain, Yikes! Be cautious. Something new is happening.
For the squanderers, the usurpers, those who have turned to counterfeits who feel that your life story has already played out, you are already labeled a failure, too this or too that, know that God has marked you by the Holy Spirit. You await an inheritance and can live in this inheritance now.
Today, together with all the saints, we remember the good news. “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”