All Saints Day, 2024: Bound together in Christ

Lectionary:Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9; Isaiah 25:6-9; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44 

En el nombre de Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador. In the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen. 

 As you may have noticed, the saints we remembered in our Litany today include Christians and non-Christians, medieval mystics, civil rights advocates, writers, health-care givers, theologians, and so much more. They are lay and ordained, women, men, and non-binary: they are all of us. 

As Episcopalians, we don’t hold sainthood and heaven to be things we achieve after our death. For us, these are both eternal and present realities.

The communion of saints, something we profess to believe in each time we say our Creeds together, includes all those who were, who are, and who are yet to come. The Catechism in our Prayer Book, says that “the communion of saints is the whole family of God, the living and the dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together in Christ by sacrament, prayer, and praise.” (BCP, 862) Our unity in Christ brings down every boundary that separates us, even the boundary between life and death.

It’s important to remember that a saint isn’t someone who overcame their humanity and lived a life of perfection. Our Scriptures are honest in describing our forebears in faith in all their human frailty. And thanks be to God for that!

A saint is someone who remembers they have access to the divine presence, to a well-spring of live-giving sustenance, strength, wisdom, and compassion no matter how dark and terrible a night they may be experiencing.

We are all saints, and we all have access to that well-spring. Jesus promised and delivered that to us. We also have a cloud of witnesses, the whole company of heaven, praying for us and walking with us through the many vicissitudes and fortunes of our lives.

The communion of saints isn’t just an interesting theological doctrine. It’s very real. I’ve been polling folks at Emmanuel asking this question: have any of you ever experienced the presence of someone beloved to you who died? …in your dreams or in your waking? Most everyone said they have. Have you? 

If you’re comfortable, raise your hand if you have. This is a real experience of the communion of saints who went before. It’s OK. Having these experiences doesn’t make us insane, just open to the Spirit.

When my daughter was pregnant with her first child, I was struggling to figure out what my grandchildren should call me. I had a dream that I met this soon-to-arrive grandchild. He had brown eyes and hair and the cutest lisp when he told me he wanted me to be called, Mamacita - which is what I’m called. My daughter still marvels that Emerson arrived with brown hair, brown eyes, and the cutest lisp. That is my experience of relationship with the saints yet to come. I’d love to hear some of yours.

We all share experiences of the saints who are. We don’t hesitate to ask someone for their prayers when we need their support. We don’t ask them for prayer because we need them to intercede for us – we all have direct access to God ourselves. We ask them because we want their companionship as we navigate difficult moments.

Our spiritual friends among the communion of saints on earth are the simple and the special, the ordinary and the extraordinary… the young and the old… They are whoever is present in our lives, whoever God has given to us to love.

Some of these saints challenge us and can even try our Christian virtue - a reality we are well aware of in the current political climate. Some saints open our closed minds by their innocence or their faith. They soothe our tired souls with their compassion, and nourish us with their prayer and friendship.

It is this great communion of saints, who were, who are, and who are yet to come, who support us and encourage us to do as Christ did - to go to those among us who, like Lazarus, are walking around spiritually dead or dying, and help them to cast off whatever binds them, setting them free to live in the fullness of joy found only in being bound together in Jesus Christ who overcame the life-destroying power of death and transformed it into a doorway to new life.

So let’s bring down the boundaries we have built up in our minds and in our faith – the ones that we think keep us safe and sane - but that actually separate us from one another and from God. Let’s claim and nourish the spiritual gifts each of us has been given by God to do our part to make Jesus’ dream of “on earth as it is in heaven” a reality.

Let’s live like the saints we are, knowing that, in the divine economy, the more we give of our time, talents, and treasures, the more God will give us to share, and therefore, the more the abundance of God’s love is made manifest on the earth.

If anyone was wondering what the purpose of Church is – there it is. 

 Happy All Saints Day. Amen.