+ In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Over the last year, every few weeks, there’s a note on a bottle of water in the Sacristy. The water inside said bottle is blessed and it becomes our Holy Water. Usually there are always some fun and cute notes about the water waiting, longing, desiring, to be turned into Holy Water.
Yesterday, the note read: “Bless me Father! I’m filled with sin form the tap. I long for Holiness!” And while water may not have sin, though it may have mineral distillates, that last sentence really struck me: “I long for holiness!”
Do you long for holiness?
Do we?
Do we know what holiness even is?
Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, a day set apart to remember the many people who have come before us. We remember these particular – Saint Catherine, Saint Theresa, Saint Benedict, Saint So-and-So, because they were regular people who lived extraordinary lives of dedication to Jesus Christ.
The Saints are like a signpost which say, “By the grace of God, anyone can do it!”
The Saints are people who responded to the call of Christ on their lives, and in their lives, we see Christ.
And the marvel of the Communion of Saints, that Great Cloud of Witnesses, is that it transcends nearly every single boundary we can possibly place between us and other people.
The communion of Saints is made up of people of every nation, and race and gender; it’s made up of single people and married people; it’s made up of people from wealthy families and people from poor; it’s made up of prisoners, martyrs, caretakers, and more.
The Communion of Saints reflects the vast joy and diversity of the Kingdom of God. It is, as the opening verse of the Revelation reads, “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne of the lamb.”
The Saints remind us, much like the note on the water which longed for holiness, that:
YOU are called to Holiness.
WE are called to Holiness.
As I was preparing for the sermon this week, I found it a bit odd that on the Feast of All Saints, our Gospel reading was the Beatitudes. I didn’t immediately get a sense of why these readings were chosen in our lectionary.
But then… when thinking of the Saints, and the blessings pronounced by Christ, it made me consider that perhaps the Saints are more than just those we remember, or who lived lives of particular dedication to Christ. The term Saint, after all, referred to all believers for the first several centuries.
In the Beatitudes, Christ describes who, in God’s kingdom, are those who are blessed – that is, those who are a people made holy by God.
Accordingly, the communion of saints is made up of people who:
Are poor in spirit.
Are mourning.
Are meek.
Long for righteousness.
Are merciful.
Are pure in heart.
Are peacemakers.
Are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
Are people who are criticized for standing up for the Gospel.
These are the people blessed, made holy, set apart by God.
And it’s rather unremarkable.
It’s a rather low bar.
It’s a very different categorical set of descriptors than what we tend to think of in our culture of ambitious celebrity and self-aggrandizement, where the “holy people” of America are the rich, the beautiful, the powerful, the strong, those who dominate and control.
The saints of Christ are a people whose power is not of this world – but rather, is given by God.
They are a people who status is not of this world, but given by God.
They are a people who look and feel like regular people in a regular world.
They are a people who look and feel like you, like me, like us.
Because we are called into the holiness of Christ, too.
We are, all of us, Saints in the making. We all have moments where we:
Are poor in spirit.
Are mourning.
Are meek.
Long for righteousness.
Are merciful.
Are pure in heart.
Are peacemakers.
Are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
Are people who are criticized for standing up for the Gospel.
And none of us are this all the time, and none of us are perfect, but this sure looks to me like the community of people I see right here at St. Andrew’s.
The Feast of All Saints really does remember those who come before us, who lived particularly dedicated lives to Christ.
The Feast of All Saints is also an invitation into the holiness each of us are called into by life in Christ.
This is the mundane and hard and loving and joyful work of this church.
This is the mundane and hard and loving and joyful work of Christ’s Church.
When we do this, we act more like Jesus in this world.
We feed and care and fight for justice.
We love and are loved by one another.
We mourn and we grieve with one another.
We seek mercy and try our best to be merciful.
We try to bring peace, and receive peace offered by one another.
On this Feast of All Saints, remember:
People from every tribe and language and nation and place have been called into holiness, and responded.
We have loved ones who have been called into holiness, and responded – just look at all the people remember on the Ofrenda!
Remember that you are called to holiness.
Remember that we are called to holiness.
This is the great invitation of the Feast of All Saints.
And may the Saints in Heaven pray for us to the Lord our God, that we may send out the light and love of God in Jesus Christ throughout the world – starting right here at St Andrew’s.
Amen.