This weekend we observe All Saints’ Sunday, culminating a week of remembering and honoring all the Saints and all the saints. God loves all his followers equally, yet it is an important distinction: Saints (capital S) are those who have embodied particular holiness in their lives and are exemplars of the Christian faith and life, while saints (small s) are all the baptized who have chosen to follow Christ. In the gospel for All Saints’ Sunday, we’ll be reminded once again what it looks like to be his follower, and why it is that only a relative few have been named by the Church throughout the centuries as models for the rest of us. The way of Jesus is big and hard, even as it is holy and beautiful. Eugene Peterson translates the passage we’ll hear like this:
Jesus says, “To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies.
Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.
When someone gives you a hard time,
respond with the energies of prayer for that person.
If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it.
If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it.
If someone takes unfair advantage of you,
use the occasion to practice the servant life.
No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior:
Ask yourself what you want people to do for you;
then grab the initiative and do it for them!
If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back?
Run-of-the-mill sinners do that.
If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal?
Garden-variety sinners do that.
If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity?
The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.” (Luke 6:27-34)
For we who have clothed ourselves in Christ through the waters of baptism, we are called to this big, beautiful, hard way. We are called to choose more than the easy way. Our lives should be different – more loving, more generous, more sacrificial – because we follow Jesus. And we have a great cloud of witnesses down through the ages to be our role models, people whom we can look up to and emulate. These are the Saints. These are the ones who draw all of us “little s saints” to the fuller, richer, more demanding work of embodying what Jesus describes in that sermon.
I hope this teaching from Jesus, and our remembrance of all the Saints, will inspire us as we head into next week. I know I don’t have to remind you what is happening on November 8. Echoing a message from our Presiding Bishop, I strongly encourage you to vote as a Christian duty, and I hope that your decisions will be grounded in the way of Jesus. Just this week I read an excellent online piece by Sojourners called “4 Guidelines for Voting While Christian,” which I commend to you.
We will hold a Eucharist on the eve of Election Day, Monday evening, at 6:00 p.m. and if you are feeling as anxious as I am about this election, I hope you’ll come and join your prayers with those of others. We need to pray together. We need to remember God’s presence in the midst of these events. We need to ask for wisdom and guidance. But mostly we need to ask for courage to live out our true calling as followers of Jesus, as God’s baptized saints in the world, so that whatever may come, we will live in the light of the Kingdom of God.
See you this weekend.
-Casey+