All Saints’ Sunday 2008

November 2, 2008
The Rev. Susan J. Latimer

Love is not changed by death
And nothing is lost
And all in the end is harvest
( Edith Sitwell)

Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints’.

Today we remember that great cloud of witnesses that stretches back through time.

Today we remember our own beloved who have died and gone on before us.

The Feast of All Saint’s reminds us that
We are not alone in our journey of faith.
We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.

Each year on the Feast of All Saints’ I remember my own loved ones who have died. Grandparents, my father, friends. I think also of all the people that I have buried in my role as priest, and particularly those who have died over the past year. Today at the Great Thanksgiving we will have a moment to remember all of our beloved dead.

In seminary, I learned about the communion of saints from the Rev. Ted Hackett, director of the Episcopal Studies program. Ted used an image of a great elevator reaching from the altar up into the heavens, connecting heaven and earth. Every time we celebrate the eucharist together, it is as if all of heaven opens up to us, and we are connected to the whole communion of saints. Every time I celebrate the Eucharist, I know that we are surrounded by all the saints.

On All Saint’s, particularly, we remember that when we sing Holy, Holy, Holy we raise our voices with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven…..

Or as prayer C tells us – we join with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles and martyrs, and with all those in every generation who have looked to you in hope, to proclaim with them your glory…..

Today, also, we are blessed to celebrate the sacrament of Baptism.

All Saints’ is one of the four Feast Days of the year particularly set aside for Baptism. The others are The Baptism of our Lord, Easter, and Pentecost.

In a few minutes, Sara Keith Glover will be baptized into Christ’s Holy Church. Many things happen when we are baptized:

In Baptism we are adopted as children of God
In Baptism we become part of the body of Christ
In Baptism, we join the great communion of saints.

Baptism is done with the community of faith as witness –
Baptism is done in the context of the Christian community –
because we are not meant to make this journey alone.

We are called by God into a community of faith, so that we can share our life journeys with each other.

We heard these words from the first letter of John this morning:
“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are….Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”

God knows each one of us better than we know ourselves.

Our life journey is a journey to become the person that God intends for us to be.

God loves us just as we are, and also wants much more for us than we can imagine. God wants us all to grow in faith, hope, and love.

In baptism, the Holy Spirit blesses the individual and the community.

In baptism, the Holy Spirit gives gifts to each of us – gifts that are meant to be used in the service of God - gifts that are meant to be used for the good of the world.

One of the gifts of Baptism is illumination by the Holy Spirit – that is, the ability to receive wisdom from the Holy Spirit - the ability to be enlightened in our faith.

This wisdom is not simply knowledge – not simply a “head” thing.

True wisdom comes as much from the heart as from the head. True wisdom is found by looking at the world through the lens of our hearts.

In the baptismal service, we pray for inquiring and discerning hearts – so that we can seek out the Truth and try to do God’s will in our life.

Baptism also brings us hope.
In Baptism we are marked as Christ’s own forever.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is our great hope. We are not alone.

Surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses,
Strengthened by hope,
We can go forth to bring the love of God to a broken world.

All of us are saints – none of us are perfect – but all of us are saints.
We are not called to be something that we cannot be.
We are called to become the person that God intends for us to become.
This is a lifelong task.

Antony of the Desert, a 3rd Century monk, reminds us,

When you die and go to your place of judgement,
you will not be asked whether you have become another St. Paul or St. Mary.
You will be asked whether you have become truly yourself.

Love is not changed by death
And nothing is lost
And all in the end is harvest
( Edith Sitwell)
Like a clear spring through the heart of a stone
Hope breaks out through the human heart.

( Irish Traditional Poem )