Rise Up, O Saints of God Luke 6:20-36 All Saints' Sunday, November 2, 2003 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi Last evening as part of our liturgy celebrating the eve of All Saints' Sunday and today in the prayers of the people, we read with reverence and thanks the names of those people who have passed. Today, we sing various hymns noting the Saints who have gone on before us. Who are all these saints we acknowledge today? Except for the historians among us, most of us know little about the designated saints - you know, those with "St." in front of their names. Instead, we are more familiar with those who in our own time have lived more saintly lives, such as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who recently has been beatified and may be designated a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. However, today's Feast Day of All Saints' is less about those with "St." in front of their names and more about those who were not famous, those who are not remembered by everyone, but those whose lives and deeds have endured beyond their death, those saints who envisioned and worked to build this space in which we worship today, those who by their personal example and their love for us have influenced our personal faith journeys. The list includes our own beloved dead, those who have lived and died within our own faith community, our own families, our own circle of spiritual companions. So, today we remember all of those who have gone before us, the ones on whose shoulders we stand, the ones whose lives and witness have brought us to this new day. Today we celebrate because our ancestors in the faith raised their voices, made bold decisions and prayed and taught the faith. We are here today because they loved Jesus and chose to give of their time, talents and treasures and allowed this love of Christ to guide them rather than their differences and their conflicts. We are also here because they loved us, their descendants whom they would never know. They loved us so much that they wanted to make sure the story of the gospel was here for us. We are who we are today because of their faith, devotion and bravery. These are the saints we celebrate today. However, we cannot stop there as we consider the saints who have gone on before us. Are we not also here today, and who we are, in the condition in which we find ourselves because we also had biological and spiritual ancestors who sat on their hands, who cared only for themselves, who thought little about the impact of their actions on future generations? Are we not also the products of those who were apathetic in their witness. Are we not the biological and spiritual descendants, for example, of those who advocated a racially segregated society, who refused any change regardless if it meant the Good News would have been heard by more and more of those who had never heard the Gospel? Are we not descendants of those motivated by oppression and greed? Yes, we are products both of those ancestors who fought for the faith and of those who fought against the faith. We are the descendants of both sets of grandparents. We have saints in our blood and skeletons in our closets. Thus being descendants of both, Jesus tells us in today's gospel what we should look for in saints in every generation: righteousness, mercy, peacemaking. Exercising these virtues does not require that we dedicate our lives to the Church, but rather that we dedicate our lives to God. It does require courage, because showing mercy, or doing what is right, is seldom popular. The history of the Christian faith is a history of people who love mercy, justice and peace so much they have been willing to die for those things. It has been the history of people who have given shelter to the poor, worked to free slaves, loved those rejected by society - in short, people who have believed that God created everyone and everything and are willing to treat all of their sisters and brothers as member of God's beloved family. He speaks to those ordinary disciples and to all the ordinary people who are to follow them, including those of us gathered here this morning. Let us never forget that those to whom Jesus speaks while they were early saints and those with "St." in front of their names and with designated saint days, they were also the ones who continually failed to understand his teachings, who fled when he was arrested, who denied they even knew him. So, we are not that much different than his audience or the saints we observe today. You see, today's saints are not only ancient saints or the Mother Teresas of our time, but the saints are the faithful but still imperfect as we are. Perhaps the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor best captures this, as she writes of the Feast of the Communion of Saints as a sort of "family reunion." Listen as she says: "What makes a saint? Extravagance. Excessive love, flagrant mercy, radical affection, exorbitant charity, immoderate faith, intemperate hope, inordinate love. None of which is an achievement, a badge to be earned or a trophy to be sought; all are secondary by-products of the one thing that truly makes a saint, which is the love of God, which is membership in the body of Christ, which is what all of us, living and dead, remembered and forgotten, great souls and small, have in common. Some of us may do more with that love than others and may find ourselves able to reflect it in a way that causes others to call us saints, but the title is one that has been given to us all by virtue of our baptisms. The moment we rose dripping from the holy water we joined the communion of saints, and we cannot go back any more than we can give back our names or the blood in our veins. So All Saints' Day is a family reunion indeed, of a clan made kin by Christ's blood. There are heroes and scoundrels at the party, beloved aunts and estranged cousins, relatives we adore and those who plainly baffle us. They are all ours, and we are all included. On All Saints' Day we worship amidst a great fluttering of wings, with the whole host of heaven crowding the air above our heads. Matthew is there, and Thomas, Barnabas, and the Virgin Mary. Teresa is there, along with Ignatius, Pius, and Columba, plus all those whom we have loved and lost during the year: Hank, Dorothy, Margaret, Al. Call their names and hear them answer, "Present." On All Saints Day they belong to us and we to them, and as their ranks swell, so do the possibilities that open up in our own lives. Because of them and because of one another and because of the God who binds us all together, we can do more than any of us had dreamed to do alone." (Weavings, Sept.-Oct. 1988, pp. 34-35, quoted in Synthesis) In essence, today is our feast day as much as it is the feast days of those who have gone on before us. It is the feast day of each of us who have accepted, as will Corey Cain today, through our baptisms the call to be imitators of Christ, to join the multitude of nameless saints who give of their time to feed the hungry or visit the sick; who when they vote strive for justice and peace among all people; who work to produce goods and services that sustain our lives and try to do that in a way that respects the earth as God's precious creation; who take time to mentor a child or to mourn with the bereaved; who work for what is right and good and fair for all people, rather than just for themselves or the people most like them. You see, one of these All Saints Days your name and my name will be read. We are the saints for future generations. Sometimes we forget that we aren't just living our busy lives but also laying a foundation, molding a future and establishing a legacy. In this awareness we must ask: Are we using our time and gifts for self or others? Are we giving our treasure in thanksgiving to God or using it for our desires and as a means to control others? Will we be ancestors who sat on our hands or ancestors who raised our hands? Will we leave a legacy of generosity or greed, a bequest of justice or oppression? Will we leave a heritage of hope or despair? Will we leave an inheritance of forgiveness or conflict and judging. As we remember the strong shoulders on which we stand, we are challenged to strengthen our own shoulders, to be the shoulders on which others will stand. We are ancestors in the making and saints for a generation yet unborn. It is an awesome opportunity. So, let us rise up, O saints of God!