All Saints, Year C
Ephesians 1:11-23
All Saints
Day was actually Nov. 1st. We
are allowed to celebrate it the following Sunday, which is what we are doing
today. The day after All Saints Day (Nov. 2nd) is All Souls Day. Why
two different days? It sounds like the same thing. Originally the term saint
was used to describe all Christians. That would include everyone here
today. However, early in the history of
the church, the meaning of the word saint began to evolve. It came to describe people who did marvelous
deeds, achieved heroic sanctity and piety.
The Roman Catholic Church even created an extensive process to determine
who was and who was not a saint. Saints became the especially holy people, the
people Christians looked to for inspiration.
Because the
word evolved to such an extent, it was decided that a new day needed to be
designated to commemorate all the departed.
It is this day when the church remembers all the people who might not be
officially approved saints. It is a time
to remember all those who have died, but are still near and dear to our
heart. They might not have performed
official miracles, but their existence was miraculous to us nonetheless.
Most churches combine the two and read the
list of those who have died in the All Saints Day service. This is a good an
appropriate thing. At St. John’s, we
have separated the two. We have a
separate service Sunday night when we remember our friends, our family—the
people from our community of believers (St. John’s). It’s more of a solemn and
contemplative service with beautiful music from our choir. But if we do that for our evening service,
what do we do this morning?
This
morning, I want us to focus on the original meaning of the word saint—which is
all Christians. That is why we asked
people to submit names of those living saints in their life. In a way, it’s a
trick question because every Christian is a saint. That list could be virtually
endless. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he thanks the Ephesians for their
love toward all of the saints. He was
talking about how they cared for one another in their fledgling Christian
community.
At first
glance (or in my case, for the first several hours of studying) the reading
from Ephesians seemed…well…unhelpful.
Compared to the clarity of the Gospel reading, it seemed too elaborate,
too full of churchy language, stuff that is totally irrelevant to our present
day. But the more I studied, the more I
realized this is probably more relevant now than it has been for about 1800
years.
The people
who Paul was writing to were committed Christians, but also people who were
part of a small faith group. They were a
minority community in very new territory and they were not sure where they were
going. What they had was written letters
from Paul, and maybe stories from the Gospels that were passed on orally. They had no established church, no formal
rules and directions on how to be church. Paul was telling them how thankful he
was to them for remaining faithful and caring for one another in an uncertain
time.
He was also
praying for certain things for them, certain attributes of a Christian. He asked God to give them the spirit of wisdom
and revelation to know God more fully.
He asked that God might enlighten their vision so that they may know the
hope to which God has already called them.
But he also reminded them that they already had been sealed by the Holy
Spirit---which means these lofty attributes that Paul is praying for them are
things that they already have. They just
can’t see it. They lack the vision and
clarity to fully understand what God has already given them.
While we are
in a place and a time much different than Ephesus, we share some of their
needs. We too lack vision and clarity.
We lack the wisdom to see what we have already been given. We lack the strength to fully claim those
attributes. We lack the confidence. We
didn’t end up printing all the names that many contributed. We were overwhelmed by names, which is good
for our faith, but hard on us administratively. What I was surprised to see was
that about 2/3 of the names were people from St. John’s. I don’t know why that surprised me. It shouldn’t have. But I would guarantee you
that most people who were listed would have been a little surprised to learn that
someone saw them as an inspiration.
Therefore
since we didn’t print the names, I have a favor to ask you. Tell them. Tell the
person whose name you submitted that you listed them as your saint. If you are shy, pass them a note, send an
e-mail, write a text. Because they need
to know. All of us need to be reminded that we are sealed by the Holy
Spirit. God has already given us wisdom
and enlightenment. We just need to claim it.
We
desperately need to claim it as a church today. We are not that different than
Ephesus. Our churches are dwindling
every year. In the past 10 years,
attendance at Episcopal Churches has dropped by 25%. Churches used to be important in this
country. They are not anymore. And you know what, that is not our concern. We
don’t need our world to affirm our reason for existence; we need to be the ones
affirming the world of their reason for existence.
One of the
last lines of our reading is, “And he 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.”
Now if I had 30 more minutes, I could explain what that means. Instead,
I want to read from another translation which is called “The Message.” “The church is not peripheral to the world;
the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he
speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.” That’s us St. John’s. We are the saints of God and we have some
work to do on this world around us. We also have some work to do on
ourselves.
And you know what, sometimes I am consumed by worry that we
can’t do it—that it’s too late, too hard.
But then I read this text and I am reminded that we have everything we
need. We have the wisdom of God. We know the hope to which God has called
us. More importantly, we know Jesus
Christ and he knows us. We have
everything we need. We just need to
start acting like we believe it.
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