Homily for the Feast of All Saints 4th November, 2007
The Very Revd Michael J. PittsDaniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Ephesians 1:12-23
Luke 6:20-31Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past 1That, of course, is not a Biblical quotation but from the pen of the almost equally revered (to some of us) Thomas Stearns Eliot. If you prefer a Biblical epigraph to a sermon then how about words from St Luke, writing about John the Baptist?
All who heard [these things] pondered them and said, "What then will this child become?" For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him. 2
Today, as well as celebrating the Baptism of Morgan Penny, we are also celebrating the feast of All Saints. But between the generally understood view of this festival and this year’s Biblical readings I sense an incongruity. For when we think of the Saints, we generally think of people who have lived in the past, often in the distant past. Each of our Biblical readings, however, is about the future. Let us spend a few moments with these readings.
The book of Daniel is part of a tradition within the broader prophetic tradition, which we usually call apocalyptic. Apocalyptic literature describes in a dreamy, mythical sort of way what may happen in the future, especially at those points of intersection where God specifically intervenes in the course of history. Sometimes the future prophecies of the apocalyptic literature are written after the fact. Daniel is almost certainly writing at a time in history when the four kings, the four great beasts of his coded language, had already reigned and wrought their havoc on earth. But Daniel writes thus anachronistically, to draw attention to his real message of the future:
But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever--forever and ever.3
Remember that Holy ones could also be translated Saints.
When we turn to the Epistle it is equally important to notice that, even though this is a relatively late writing in the Christian corpus, redemption is still seen as a future action of God. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not the grand finale, but merely a pledge or foretaste of what is to come. I find it particularly interesting that the author prays that his readers may (in the future) receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation. This is similar to John’s thought that the gift of the spirit would (in the future) lead us into all truth.4 This is in contrast to the generally accepted view of the church, particularly espoused by the Evangelicals, that revelation is totally contained in the past. Outside the delineated scriptures, in this view, there can no revelation.
Then, thirdly, the well known passage which we read from the Gospel, contrasts present and future. Jesus speaks of a future in which the present role of the poor and the rich will be reversed.
I would, in fact, go further than this. Not only these three readings, but almost the whole of the Jewish Christian scripture are about the future, about what will and can be, through the transforming power we call God. How sad that so much of the effort of Christians is spent on recalling and maintaining the past, whether that past be 1400, 1662 or 1950.
Even where a concern with the future has been maintained, another shift has occurred. When the scriptures speak of the future, for the most part the subject matter is the future of the collectivity, be that the People of God, the state, the nation or the entire world. As the church passed from its first paradigm where it was a community of persecuted political activists who put forward the Kingdom of God and the reign of Christ over against the political theology of the Roman Empire, a new theology began to be elaborated. The concern came to be not the future of the collectivity, but my personal future. By the middle ages the vision of future was the classical Death, Judgment, Heaven or Hell. This teaching was, of course, an ideal weapon to keep the masses in political subservience to both the religious and secular hierarchy and patriarchy. It is an entirely me-centered theology (or is that meology?). I wonder if, in more recent times its modern versions have not fitted well with the generality of the boomer age outlook. I wonder also if this might explain the strange resurgence of the evangelical-fundamentalist movement of the 70’s 80’s and 90’s, a movement which has done so much to eclipse the ideals of the Christian Socialism of F.D. Maurice, William Temple and their successors, not to mention the political theology of the World Council of Churches of the 60’s.
The word radical is derived from the Latin word for root, and rather than being labeled a liberal, or even progressive thinker, I am much happier to think of myself as a radical theologian. My concern is always to go back to the roots of our faith and theology, and to see how those deepest roots can nourish and sustain faith today. As I go back to those roots, I believe that the God of compassion, justice and inclusion is a far more prevalent and important theme of scripture than that of the God of vengeance, hatred and exclusion. I also believe that this God is as much concerned with the future of the whole of creation as with my personal future.
From there, let us return to the theme of All Saints. Just as the state honours people with awards like the Order of Quebec and the Order of Canada, so the Church has honoured the living with titles like Monsignor and Canon. We have honored the dead with the title Saint. But this too is a deviation from the Biblical witness, for the word saint translates both Greek and Latin words which mean Holy Ones. In the Christian Greek scriptures, and especially in the writings of Paul, "saints" is a word used to describe the collectivity of the people of God. We are all saints. This sainthood has nothing whatsoever to do with our morality or moral achievements, another common misconception. Sainthood is not given on the basis of anything which comes of us. It is rather the result of our sealing with the Holy Spirit. The sealing of the Holy Spirit, and the Gifts of the Spirit are conferred upon us through our Baptism. As we saw a moment ago in the thought of the later writer of the letter to the Church at Ephesus, this sealing of the spirit is not the end of the Christian life, but the beginning, whether it takes place in infancy or in later years. To be made a saint through Baptism is not an honor. It is a vocation to join with all God’s People in both proclaiming and struggling for God’s future, a future of grace, compassion and justice for all humanity.
In the years to come, I believe that struggle is going to be hard and long. It should involve us, I am sure, in political action to ensure that our province remains a place of openness and welcome, over against the narrow and xenophobic vision of which we have heard so much in the process of the Bouchard-Taylor commission. It should involve us in contradicting the general assumption that might makes right, whether that is expressed in invasion of foreign countries, or the easy victory of the rights of industry, commerce and state over the rights of the individual. It should involve us in the life and death struggle to change our greed-driven over-exploitation of our biosphere, to sustainable use and just distribution of what is available to us. It should lead us to want to build a world where men and women, different races and cultures, different abilities and gifts are welcomed, accepted and attuned to the common good. It should lead us to try to find ways to end the historical process in which one group after another is marginalized, scapegoated and persecuted to maintain our own group self-esteem. It should lead us to struggle to ensure that the church remains a place of openness and welcome. There will be many more struggles, both know and as yet unknown.
It is this struggling which is the vocation of the Saints of God, glorying in the Cross of Christ and working as co-creators of God’s future. As we celebrate the fact that we are all saints, as we recall our own baptism and as we make, through grace, Morgan Penny into God’s newest saint let us commit ourselves again to strive for God’s Kingdom with its justice, humanity and peace.
1. Thomas Stearns Eliot, Burnt Norton(The Four Quartets),1941
2. Luke 1:66 NRSV
3. Daniel 7:18
4. John 16:13-14