St. Charles Episcopal Church - Saint Charles, IL

The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost - All Saints Day - Year A - RCL

Sunday, November 6, 2011 - All Saints Sunday

Revelation 7:9-17 – Psalm 34:1-10, 22 – 1 John 3:1-3 – Matthew 5:1-12

Rev. William R. Nesbit, Jr.

To listen to the sermon as it was preached at the 7:30 am service, click here.
To listen to the sermon as it was preached at the 9:00 am service, click here.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Today is really the 21^st Sunday after Pentecost, just another Sunday on the long journey from the Feast of Pentecost to the first Sunday of Advent. But as often happens on long journeys, this is a waypoint, a special destination along the way. Last Tuesday was All Saints Day, a special day of celebration, and since there are generally not a lot of people in church on Tuesdays, we have the option of celebrating it on the Sunday following, and calling it All Saints Sunday. The idea of All Saints is to set aside a day to celebrate all of the lesser saints that don’t have a special day of their own. Now I suppose I really should back up a bit here and say what a saint actually is.

In the Bible, and in the early church, a saint was the term used for a believer, a follower of the way, a Christian. As time passed, saints began to be remembered for their faith after they died, and the term saint began to change into someone of exceptional faith. As the church became more of a bureaucracy, saints began to need to be approved, or official. Soon, a whole pantheon of saints had developed. With the reformation, protestant churches officially threw out the saints, but as often happens with prayers and activities, the comfort provided by the saints was not so easily discarded, and so the saints, over time, have sneaked back into the church.

In the Episcopal Church we have a somewhat vague relationship with the saints. Our official position is that saint is a term for believer, and so we are all saints, yet still we have an affinity for naming our churches after saints, some of them quite obscure, and some even fictional. Like a lot of things in the Episcopal Church, there are many viewpoints. I could go on a bit about our relationship with St. Charles, that is Charles I, at this point, but in the interest of time, ask me during the coffee hour.

We also have a tradition in the church of remembering saints, that is believers, who have had a particular impact in history. A new listing of commemorations was recently published called Holy Women, Holy Men, which greatly expanded the number of saints regularly remembered. For example, this week we are remembering an Archbishop on Monday, Willibrord; bishops on Thursday and Friday, Leo the Great, and Martin; and a priest on Saturday, Charles Simeon. But the saints we remember aren’t only clergy. This month we are remembering a Queen, Margaret of Scotland; a princess, Elizabeth of Hungary; a ruling couple, Kamehameha and Emma of Hawaii; and even a writer, C.S. Lewis. In the Episcopal Church we don’t treat them as special patrons to pray to, but as faithful people to hold as exemplars.

You know, I hope, my favorite definition of a saint. I try and use it every All Saints Day, and sometimes in between. It comes from a Swedish Bishop by the name of Soderblum. “A saint is one who makes it easier for others to believe in God.” I think it says it all. I am please to tell you that Bishop Soderblum made it into Holy Women, Holy Men, so it’s nice to see someone else agrees with me.

And so at last we come to our scriptures for today. The beatitudes are one of the more well read and beloved sections of the Gospel. In many ways they are a sermon unto themselves. I encourage you to spend some time with them this week and look for ways to incorporate them into your life. To that end I have a few observations.

This section from the very beginning of the sermon on the mount is the way that Jesus chooses to begin his great teaching that would become known as the way. It is unclear whether Jesus is teaching just his disciples at this point, or the whole crowd. By the end of this section, two and a half chapters later, Jesus appears to be teaching everyone, but it may be that these beatitudes were meant for the disciples alone. Even if that is the case, I don’t believe that the blessings described were only for the disciples. I believe that they are in fact the first outline of living the way.

I want to take a moment to remind you of something that it is far too easy to forget. The Christian way of life isn’t about saving yourself; your personal salvation. Salvation may be the reward, but it isn’t the goal. The Christian way of life, the life of faith, is about living your life in a way that reveals the kingdom of God, like Jesus did. That is why I like the term, the way, as opposed to Christian. It sounds more like a way of life than a title or state of being. We follow Jesus. We follow him in the way. Some days we follow closer than others, but I hope we are always following.

The beatitudes have a lot to teach us about the way. In the NRSV, the translation of the bible we used today, each beatitude begins “blessed are they.” Different translations begin the beatitudes differently. The New English bible uses “How blest are they.” The New Living Bible uses “God blesses those.” All three of these different translations help to give us the full meaning of the original Greek. The state of blessing that occurs is abundant and both current and continuing. This isn’t about doing something in this world and being repaid in the next. The beatitudes are talking about living your life now in a way that both reveals and invites God’s blessings.

Did you notice the difference between the first seven beatitudes and the last two? The first seven are about living the way, and the last two are about preparing for how the world will respond to you, what you can look forward to. It isn’t promising. Jesus is telling his followers that the world won’t get it and they will respond the way they always respond to things they don’t understand...with all sorts of negativity, with persecution and slander. Jesus tells them do not give in. Keep the faith. It is not your job to change them, it is your job to changeyourselves. You may have to live the beatitudes all the way to the cross, but you need not fear. It will all be well. Jesus has shown us that. And Jesus tells us that the beatitudes have their own blessings along the way as well.

This is the great ordeal, or tribulation that John speaks of in his Revelation, the struggle to live the way in a world that does not honor it or even understand it. At times it can seem an impossible way of life, something beyond humanity. You may think that it was only the divinity of Jesus that allowed him to persevere. But you would be wrong. That is why we have the saints, why we remember the holy women and holy men. Not because they are special, but because they are common. Common people, who by faith rose to the potential God saw in them. Common people who make it easier for us to believe that God can see that potential in us.

O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

yet all are one in thee, for all are thine. Alleluia, alleluia!

Amen.