All Saints Day

In the Apostles’ Creed, we declare, “I believe in the Holy Spirit; The Holy Catholic Church; The Communion of Saints. Etc.  We say these words so often, without perhaps thinking about what they mean, and what they imply for our lives day by day. So what do we believe in, and who are the saints that are in communion?

We have, over the years, come to understand Saint to be a title of honour for those whose lives have exemplified the life of Christ, especially those who have died for their faith.  This was the original context in which the word Saint was used, and it probably is still what most people inside and outside the church understands it to mean. But it’s a wider understanding than that, it’s also about  being part of the body of believers, past, present and future, who confess the Christian faith.  “That great cloud of witnesses” as Paul calls it in His letter to the Hebrews.  Being part of a Holy people, called by God. So as God calls us into a relationship with Him, through Jesus, he calls us to be Holy as he is Holy.  He calls us to be a special people, set apart, sanctified by His grace and consecrated by Him for His works.

But thinking about our image of a Saint, complete with halo, and recognising our own shortcomings and failings and how un-saintly we are, it's worth remembering that God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. God alone knows our shortcomings and failings and loves us as we are, warts and all. The truth is our image of a Saint is far from reality, and when we look at the lives of the Saints we see they were ordinary people like us, called to lead extraordinary lives, called to follow God, struggling and wrestling with God all the way, just like us.

Many of the Saints we remember answered that call and gave their lives to God’s service, making enormous sacrifices to do so, like St Paul who was destined for a very comfortable, wealthy life as a leading Pharisee in the Temple of Jerusalem.  St Francis of Assisi, who came from a wealthy family who gave it all up and used some of his father’s money to rebuild churches. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who gave up all worldly things to serve the poor of India. But for us ordinary mortals, God doesn’t call us to be consumed by Christian activity to the exclusion of other aspects of our lives, although we must acknowledge our individual Christian activity, and mission in one form or another for the benefit of the poor, the lonely, the sick and the bereaved is one of the ways we work out our holiness and faith. Look around you at what is happening in the world, in this country, in this town and you will see lots of ways to carry out your God-given mission. He doesn’t call us to be just spiritual, because it’s frankly no good being too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use to those around us. Some Saints lives were so heavenly minded that all earthly things meant nothing to them, but the majority of us have to live in the world and deal with the problems around us, back to God’s mission again. But he does call us to be Holy, living in communion with Him as a Holy God, and in communion with the saints around us, those who have gone before, those in the world now, and those who will come after us.  And being Holy is something we are, by the very nature of our relationship with God. 

Being Holy is about being open to His presence around us, open to be touched by him, prompted by Him, guided by Him and the Holy Spirit.  It is about being open to experience more and more of Him in our lives, in our worship and in our service to others.  It is something we are, and something we need to grow in throughout our Christian lives, it’s the journey we are on throughout our Christian lives. It starts in the waters of Baptism and it moves to a new experience when our baptism is completed at our death. The problem for most of us is that we fail to hear God’s call, deny it or turn away from it. Don’t confuse being Holy with being Spiritual.  We are all spiritual beings but as Christians we experience that spiritual dimension in our lives through our relationship with God who makes us Holy. And there is a wider dimension to our relationship with God, because as part of that relationship we are called to be part of the Communion of Saints, those other saints like us in that relationship with God, but who often seem very different to ourselves, seem somehow more saintly, more devout than we do.  But they are pilgrims on the same journey, experiencing the same difficulties of life as we do, suffering the same joy and sorrow. Sometimes it’s that relationship with others, with those around us that can get in the way of our relationship with God. It’s often the way we feel about others, especially if we feel they have wronged us or are the cause of injustice to us, that can hinder our relationship with God, can set our hearts and minds in the wrong direction on our journey to faith, and hinder us in our quest for holiness. That’s what Jesus taught us in The Beatitudes which we are reminded of again today.

Blessed comes from the English word bloodshed, and literally means to consecrate with blood.  Not just any blood will do for Christians.  The New Testament is the record of the shedding of Jesus Christ’s Blood on our behalf, the New Covenant, and we renew that Covenant when we receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and then are made Holy by the blood of Christ. In the vision of heaven from the revelation of St. John there is only one thing that unites the saved multitudes of all the nations which stand before the throne of God.  All in that multitude have been washed in the Blood of Jesus Christ, all have been made holy by the grace of God, all are Saints in Jesus Christ.  

A saint, then, is only this: a human being who belongs to God, who has been set apart from the world by the Blood of Jesus Christ, shed for us on the cross, and received in the Holy Eucharist, there is no other qualification.  We are Holy because of God’s action in our lives, every member of the Church in heaven is a saint; and every member of the Church on earth who is faithful to Jesus Christ, who puts his trust in Jesus Christ, is just as much a saint. On this day of all days, God invites us to come and receive His holiness and His wholeness so that we can take our place in the Communion of Saints.  Amen.