ALL SAINTS’ SUNDAY - Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10, 13-14; Psalm 149; Revelation 7:2-4, 9-17; Matthew 5:1-12 - 4 November 2007 - A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

 

Saints Are Everyday People

 

INTRODUCTION - Saintly Music

 

My wife, Julia, bought a couple of CD’s recently. She doesn’t do that very often. One of them was by Reba McEntire and is called Duets. It is Ms. McEntire singing eleven songs with eleven different people. I didn’t even know that Julia liked Reba McEntire! Has Julia gone country on me, all of a sudden? Anyway, I was driving Julia’s van one day and I saw the CD there, and popped it in.

 

One of the songs Ms. McEntire sings is with Carole King. It’s called “Everyday People”, and the words go like this:

 

College kids turning 21 in their senior year

Spring break was here

They headed South but not for sun on their skin

Where the storms had been

It was hard, fixing windows and shingles and doors

And tired never felt so good before

 

Chorus:

 

Everyday people

Are the ones who are making miracles

And it’s beautiful

Everyday people

Lifting up the world, like an answered prayer

I thank God they’re there, they’re the ones who care

Everyday people

 

Here’s a similar idea from the 1900's:

 

They lived not only in ages past

There are hundreds of thousands still

The world is bright with the joyous saints

Who love to do Jesus’ will.

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea

In church, or in trains, or in shows, or at tea

For the saints of God are just folk like me

And I mean to be one too.

                              - The Hymnal 1982 (Episcopal), Hymn 293

 

WHAT DOES "SAINT" MEAN TO YOU?

 

Saints are ordinary people who love God and love others, and are faithful and loving, no matter what circumstances they are going through in their lives.

 

And yet, what associations do we normally make with the word "saint"? How do we use the word?

 

We can use it in a "super-human, super-holy" kind of way. As in, "That person is an absolute saint!" - meaning exceptionally loving, patient, and enduring all kinds of trials and suffering.

 

We use it, perhaps, for people who seem to be almost too "squeaky clean", or people who sacrifice way beyond what most of us are willing to bear. "He's a saint! I've never heard a bad worth come out of her mouth, and he never complains!" Or, "She gave up her own career and the possibility of her own family to live with and take care of her ailing parents, and she did that for over forty years. What a saint!"

 

We use it for those who have died and have been officially canonized by the church - someone who can intercede for those of us still living on earth. We use it for the "biggies" of the faith - St. Paul, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, St. John, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Avila, etc.

 

But that is not how the word "saint" is used in the Bible.

 

"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle... to all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and preace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 1:1, 8)

 

"Paul... to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints..." (1 Corinthians 1:1-2)

 

"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus..." (Ephesians 1:1)

 

Saints are ordinary people who love God and love others, and are faithful and loving, no matter what circumstances they are going through in their lives.

 

Saints are everyday people, like you and me. Whenever you are being faithful toGod and engaged in acts of loving service, you are a saint.

 

We have saints right here among us who come in, week after week, and service after service, and prepare the altar for us. They bake the bread and set up the Credence Table with bread and wine, chalice and paten, purificators and palls and cruets and all the rest, and after the service is over, they clean it all up, and take home the linens and wash them, and bring them back, all clean and ironed and folded and ready for the next service.

 

We have saints among us right here, who volunteer to cook food at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless. They also serve the food, and treat those who receive it with dignity and respect, by talking with them and recognizing them as equals.

 

We have saints among us right here. They are called teachers and nurses and other professionals who do home health visits. Year after year, they love and serve children who come from wonderful homes, and children who come from very troubled homes, and they do it graciously, and without being paid very well, and while having to deal with administrators and parents who are not always supportive of what they are doing. Year after year, they strive to care for people in hospitals and in homes who are hurting, anxious or terrified, cantankerous or confused, and the ones I see in this ministry are almost always doing it with compassion, patience, and the most faithful kind of dedication to their patients.

 

We have saints among us right here, studying the sun and the earth's climate, noticing patterns and trends, noting what impacts our living habits are having on our environment, and trying to teach us how we can live differently, so that we can preserve "this fragile earth, our island home" for future generations. They do this work faithfully, and with love and patience, even when other people dismiss their findings or attack them as "doom and gloom" scientists.

 

THE VALUES OF SAINTS

 

On this All Saints' Sunday we remember and celebrate the everyday people who are faithful to God and loving of their fellow man, or loving of the earth and all the species that live on it.

 

Marcus J. Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity, writes, "In the United States, the central values of our culture are the "three A's": attractiveness, achievement, and affluence." (p. 190) The saints of our day, and of any generation, are not obsessed with the "three A's". If anyhing they are concerned with four very different values:

 

Being faithful - which is not necessarily the same thing as being successful

 

Being loving - which has nothing to do with being rich or beautiful

 

Being servants - which has nothing to do with achievement, or being famous

 

Being joyful - joy transcends happiness, and transcends circumstances - Good times or bad times... times of abundance or times of scarcity... times of being "in favor" with others or times of being criticized or persecuted... times of robust health or times of illness - saints don't let circumstances define their inner world. Joy has to do with knowing that you are the Beloved of God, which can never be taken away from you, and being thankful for ALL the ways that you are blessed by God, which are more than numerous, even in the hard times.

 

COMMUNION OF SAINTS

On this All Saints' Sunday we remember and celebrate one of the great mysteries of the Church - something we call the "Communion of Saints". And it is something to remember, and something to celebrate!

 

We have the faithful here, and around the world. When each of us does his or her part, it works. You might ask me, "What works?" When each person is striving to be a faithful, loving, joyful, servant of God, then we become the Body of Christ. "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." That is what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. (1 Cor. 12:7) When each of us manifests the Spirit in the way that only we can, for the common good, then we have the Body of Christ at work in the world today. But the Communion of Saints transcends even that.

 

The Communion of Saints also includes all of those who have gone before us in the faith, all those who were the saints of their particular day. They may have died a few days ago or a few months ago or ten or twenty years ago. They may have died 300 years ago or 1,000 years ago or 1,900 years ago. But we are all connected. Our prayers and our songs of praise join with them - "with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, martyrs, and with all those in every generation who have looked to You in hope [that is, with all the saints from all generations]..." (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 370)

 

We will take some time today to remember some of those saints, known to us, who have gone before us in the faith. There are countless throngs that we've never met, "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands." (Revelation 7:9)

 

We are connected with all these saints, too. In a very real sense, when you and I pray and sing hymns to God, when you and I come forward to this altar rail and receive communion, when you and I engage in any act of loving service, in Jesus' name, all of these other people - those saints who are alive today and those who have passed on from this life - are with us. They are singing with us, praying with us, partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ with us, serving with us. That is the amazing, mystical thing we call the Communion of Saints. I can't explain it. I just know it to be true.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Saints are everyday people, like you and me. Folks have been writing and singing about these everyday people for thousands of years, because - thanks be to God - they have existed in every generation. They exist in our generation, too.

 

"O blest communion, fellowship divine!

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

Yet all are one in thee, for all are thine,

Alleluia, alleluia!"

 

Verse 4

Hymn 287 - "For All the Saints"

The Hymnal 1982