Year C All Saints Sunday - November 6, 2022
All Saints Sunday
Ps 149:1 - Hallelujah! Sing to the Lord a new song; * sing his praise in the congregation of the faithful.
Well, that certainly fits our worship this morning. You do sing to the Lord, in our Anglican ancient hymnody and hymns more recently composed. Trinity continues to reveal new ways to praise God and share Christ’s love. Whatever innovation we might add to our parish life, we build, always, on the foundation our forebears laid for us.
Eph 1:15 - I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.
Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday: the feast when Christians recall the men, women, and people who shaped the world more closely to Christ’s vision for Creation. In the Anglican tradition, saints are defined by their impact on the power of our faith. We do not require miracles or membership in an Anglican church. Our witnesses are ancient blood martyrs, English Renaissance poets, American Civil Rights leaders, Ugandan bishops, twenty-first century peacemakers, and the spectrum of Christian leaders in-between.
The saints, as our beloved hymn states, “are just folk like me” and you. They are followers of Jesus who left us a witness of courageous faith, love, and a public life bringing God’s dream for the world into being.
Christ gives us a picture of that dream in the passage from Luke we call The Beatitudes. A world where those now in poverty have all they need in comfort, where those who now are hungry are well fed and healthy, where those who are now weeping laugh with joy, and where people of peace are celebrated. Saints give us inspiration to follow the teachings of Jesus and turn this world away from human curses toward God’s promise.
Along with apostles, martyrs, and heroes of our faith, today Trinity lifts to God our beloved members who died during 2020 and 2021 without a funeral. These loved ones may never be assigned a feast day in the Book of Common Prayer, nonetheless, they were tutors of our prayer, and an inspiration by their service, generosity, and love. [Name the dead.]
It is said the blood of the martyrs watered the seeds of the Gospel and that saints. These ?? Dear ones bloomed with the strength of Christian saints. They were the gardeners of the congregation that sits in front of me. You are the fruit of their labors, the harvest reaped by their planting is our spiritual life here. Most of us did not have the blessing of walking with them, but their steps have beaten the path of Christ’s way for us.
We make our way to Trinity from a diversity of spiritual paths. No matter our formation, we come thirsty for communion with Jesus and with his Body, the Church.
The Holy Spirit draws together members striving for the Way of Love; by emulating the saints, we inherit the blessings the letter to the Ephesians calls “the spirit of wisdom” and “the hope” Christ’s reveals to us. You have been called to Trinity because God poured into you a gift, a trait, some knowledge, or skill required for Trinity to flourish. We are an outpost of Christ’s Commonwealth caring for Omaha. The Spirit has provided all we need to accomplish Christ’s purpose here. Those gifts of all kinds are embedded in you.
You are not consumers of sacred performance, but artisans of worship and pathfinders leading Omaha’s people to the Commonwealth of God. We choose to come into these old, old walls, sitting on the same pews of generations before us, to sing together in joy and in sorrow, to meditate in silence for inspiration and peace, and to keep alive a legacy of faith that will shape the children, friends, and saints who follow us. Let us pray.
“O Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living.” Amen.
“Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living.” Amen.
The Very Rev. Vanessa E. B. Clark+