And for all the ordinary saints
All Saints’ Day | Matthew 5:1-12
Good morning, Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
It is wonderful to see you. To know you. And to share in this beautiful place in all of creation with you.
I usually jump right into the gospel, but let’s do something else first. Let’s talk about saints, Halloween, play, our loved ones, and work. Because all of that is fundamental to this thing we’re doing right now.
Saints
What is a saint? The dictionary will try to make sense of several complex ideas at the same time in neutral-sounding language. Which won’t help us really at all.
Because we have an idea about the need to remember and honor extraordinary people. And we have rules and history and changing ideas of those rules given history that conspire to tell us who gets to be a saint. And then we have the official rota of saints.
Then, beyond all of that, we have denominational changes and differing measurements of who gets to be saints, different lists of who are saints, and even different views on how to approach the concept of sainthood.
We have all of that going on in the background of a tradition full of things going on in the background.
So, what is a saint? If I have to sum it up, then maybe this will do:
Someone the church decides was extraordinary and has something invaluable to teach us and everyone who comes after us.
All Saints’ Day
So, more than 1,200 years ago, the church officially made a festival day of honoring all of the saints. But such a concept dates back to the earliest days of the church.
Each saint is honored on a particular day, but on November 1st of every year, we honor them all. Of course, these days, we move the feast to the following Sunday. [Which is a whole other thing we’re not even going to get into.]
It serves as our opportunity to honor the whole host of saints. All the different expressions of devotion, faith, courage, and commitment they displayed. To see in the diversity a variety of expressions and inspirations for ourselves and for our lives.
Halloween
Then we started celebrating the eve of the festival, which was then called All Hallowe’s Day—the day of hallowing the saints. And that festive celebrating was on All Hallowe’s Eve, or Hallowe’en. And on that day, we didn’t celebrate the saints, but mocked the demons, ghosts, and specters of death—for they have no power over the faithful.
It was intended to be a joyous romp that serves to reveal our faith and hope in God and in the resurrection.
Play
This potent image: of playing in the midst of fear: is central to a life of faith. It is the source of incredible bravery and hope. But it is also the product of unbound and ever-abiding joy.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu bore that devilish and infectious smile of his everywhere. And it was the same smile he wore as dozens of South African soldiers pointed their guns at him as he preached in church.
Play isn’t the rejection of the solemn or the disordering of our beautiful liturgies in life. It is how the Spirit may be manifest in us! It is how we can abide in this life with intense joy!
Our loved ones
This spirit may be found in blessed ones who went before. In a father or mother. In the incredible witness of someone at church, a teacher, or coach. We know that love and courage in any number of people we have lived with.
And we also know other things. Lesser qualities. Failures or delights. Mistakes written in love or in foolishness or addiction. Pain and joy. Not just life lessons, but true humanity. In families, friends, neighbors, strangers. Even beloved actors or writers or musicians. People who touched our lives.
The church honors all of these people in another feast on the third day of this fall Triduum: All Souls’ Day. When we honor all people. Not just the extraordinary. This is the day we honor the ordinary. The living of life. And all of its junk!
The Work
We take all of these ideas—about life, joy, play, the extraordinary and the ordinary, saints, and regular people, and we see in that something we might call: the Work. This is the work of following Jesus. Of living in this world. Of being a decent human.
And we struggle with finding the right container for that.
- The right word to call this work,
- The right word to call the people who do this work,
- And even how to describe the nature of this work.
And because we don’t really want to come to church three days in a row during the middle of the week, we shove it all into the first Sunday in November and say: feel things today!
We really are being that messy. Theologically and culturally. This is our collective throwing paint at a canvas and calling it art. (Which totally is a whole conversation, isn’t it! Yes! That’s the point!)
What we’re doing
…is we’re taking this vision of extraordinary and democratizing it. We’re collecting all of the people who were extraordinary to each of us and local churches are naming them among the saints.
And we do this to speak to what is truly remarkable about us and what is remarkable about our work.
This is the theological conviction that drives our bishop to address us every time she is here: “Good morning, Saints!”
Of course, technically, saints have all died. So it fits strange, in that sense. But it demonstrates our collective search to name who we are in relationship to the Mission of God through Jesus’s Way of Love.
Are we disciples? That is a word many Christians want to claim. That we are among the student-followers of Jesus. Yes.
Are we apostles? Those doing the work of Jesus in the world? Yes.
So, might we also be Saints? Doing extraordinary work in our ordinary lives that reveal the grace of God? Yes.
Each of these tells us something different about our work. And each is invaluable.
And about that work…
We are invited by Jesus in the Beatitudes to see our work in great humility, generosity, and emotional connection. To be moved by the plights of others and long to change those circumstances.
The expression of that work explores pain and suffering, disillusionment and fear, anger and frustration. And yet, in experiencing all of those diverse emotions, it moves toward reconciliation and peace.
A kind of bravery in not choosing to go with the flow and yet also not destroy. An ability to see another option. That it isn’t just fight or flight.
To choose another path: love. To embody hope. And therefore, to make a way where there is no way. Peace when all we see is war.
That’s why the image of Archbishop Tutu [the most slam-dunk of all those worthy of canonizing as saints we’ve ever known] is so powerful and arresting. He laughs. In that moment, with dozens of weapons, pointed at his chest, ready to spray hundreds of rounds, he laughs and says “Don’t you know you’ve already lost? Come join us, here.”
That’s joy. Hope. Faith. That’s the fuel that drives the extraordinary. And it isn’t his to keep. It’s his to share. Even with the people who have come to enforce apartheid.
That joy is ours.
God has made it ordinary. Which is why it can feel so befuddling that our use of it seems extraordinary.
Are we not here in love? At the very least, to be loved? To feel loved? To be wrapped in the love of God?
And we gather on this Holy Day to remember all of these holy people—hoping our loved ones are counted in their numbers—isn’t that hope a demonstration of our love? And of our joy?
And isn’t the joy we hope to feel already there? To access when we desire it? Yes, it can be hard to see sometimes. When we want to be mad. Perhaps hungry and thirsting for righteousness. But I assure you it is there.
Because God gives it abundantly. To share abundantly. With assurance that it is our secret super power.
For play and for facing our most trying moments. In all the ordinary and extraordinary. To face them both with faith and hope.
Because under it all is joy. The joy of family and memory, of friends and dreams, of strangers and opportunities. Joy in the work. All of it. In our lives. Together. Joy in all good things.