Proper of All Saints_RCL Nov 6, 2011 St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh
Rev 7: 9-17 Ps 34 1 John 3: 1-3 Matthew 5: 5-12 (Beatitudes)
Getting Your Mind and Heart Put Right
It’s All Saints Day! This is the day that we disgustingly uninhibited, somewhat boundary-less Episcopalians remember everyone who has gone before, because, to quote the fabulous Louis Crew, Founder of Integrity, “God loves absolutely everyone!”.
Let’s take a minute or two to remember our favourite “saints”. I’ll start with a couple. First, my Nana, Margaret Harker Angell. I went to visit her every Saturday when I was a boy. She lived in the then wilds of Montreal East, and it was an adventure, taking 1.5 hours on three buses, all by myself from age 9 till 15. The visit started with her putting five dollars in my hand and sending me to the store at the top of the street to buy five pounds of chocolates. I got to eat a few, and she would consume the rest during the week - “to soothe her throat” she said. Then we would play cards ….. for money! She staked me five dollars. She always let me win, and I would go home with ten or twenty dollars – an enormous sum in those days for a kid. (I never told my parents.) She’d cook me lunch; whatever else we had, it always included home-made chips (known in this country as French Fries) with vinegar. And we would laugh a lot, and look forward to the summer, when I would go to her cottage in the mountains to spend an idyllic three months. She died at age 82 in 1968, when I was 21 and a postulant in the Order of the Holy Cross ….. alas from smoke inhalation in a fire, caused – you guessed it – from cooking chips. I was on our postulant retreat at the time. My novice master came to tell me the news, and asked if I wanted to go to Montreal for her funeral. I knew it would be at some horrible funeral home, with who knows who leading the service. “No”, I said, “I want to remember her as she was”. Nana was full of life; always generous, not just to me; never went to church; loved being with her friends, at card parties and lunches at the cottage, to which I was always invited. Oh yes, she could be demanding! But to me she was primarily a kind, loving, fun-loving, failable human being ….. qualities I look for in a saint.
Three others, among many: Pope John XXIII, a simple man, and a true reflection of Jesus. Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Anglican bishop of Shanghai, who, after a stroke, with the use only of one finger, typed out a Mandarin translation of the Gospels – a work of love and faithfulness. And my friend Bishop Ann Tottenham, retired Suffragan bishop of Toronto, one of the funniest people I know, and devoted to nurturing the young as a school headmistress, and her clergy as a bishop. She could bring healing humour to any trouble, and a fine humility about herself.
What about you? Go: you have 2 minutes. [ Give 2-3 minutes ]
On this All Saints Day, I want to lead us in a meditation about the nurturing of the soul in the image of God. That, I think, is what the feast of All Saints is essentially about. It is about our fellowship with those who have sought, many with great struggle and all with varying levels of success, to be filled with the wondrous mystery of God. Which includes all of us, in this eccentric and so very human community of Christians at St. Benedict’s. And which brings me to another “saint” of mine: Dr. Eugene Peterson, the creator of the version of Scripture known as The Message. For many generations, the Gospel reading for the Feast of All Saints has been The Sermon on the Mount (or as Luke has it, The Sermon on the Plain), called The Beatitudes. Being good Episcopalians, we have left off the following Curses, in the theologically astute knowledge that Jesus could not possibly have uttered them! [ I thank Caro for having that optional Gospel today instead of the one appointed.]
We are all familiar with The Beatitudes we just heard in the “traditional” translations. Libraries have been written about them. But Dr. Peterson, who is a Biblical scholar and an expert in ancient Biblical languages, sees through to the essence of living the Way of the Beatitudes, the Way of the Saints. You can hear it; listen:
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
Becoming homoousios – “of one being with the [Holy One]”; that is the path of sainthood. Desire “More of God”. Hunger for God’s embrace. Understand the essential giftedness of Life. Sustain yourself with Holy Food. Sainthood has little to do with dumbed-down morality and with “following the rules”. Have you ever wondered why such a big deal is made of ordaining priests in our church? Sure, priests are being given a ministry to do; but essentially we reflect the baptismal promise to every one of us: we are being made – ontologically changed - by the Holy Spirit into a saint, a member of the Priesthood of All Believers.
This has nothing whatever to do with denying our humanity and our mortality. It is simply our own attempt to manifest what our mind, heart and spirit has revealed to us, deep within our being, of Who We Are. We are each a Christ, a part of God.
Am I trying to make you “feel good” about yourself. You bet I am! We are all “saints of God”, all on the path to whatever beauty we can manage in this earthly life. And so, I believe, is every human being - and that is why we decline to dishonour or denigrate any person, why we welcome every person here whatever their stage of “The Journey”. We are neither perfect or imperfect: we are, as Dr. Peterson says, “content with just who we are”, inching, with each others’ help, to Wholeness.
We are here today, as every Sunday, for the best and most deeply satisfying meal that we will ever eat: God! Partaking of the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ is the Sacred Longing at the heart of our lives – the longing to be One with God.
Eat this bread, drink this cup / come to me and never be hungry. / trust in me and you will not thirst.
O blessed Communion, fellowship divine! / We feebly struggle, they in glory shine / Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine / Alleluia! Our participation in the community of the saints is a daily walk. And, less we feel overwhelmed by the path we must walk, The Talmud shows us the simple, faithful way:
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
