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Sermon – Lectionary C, All- Day, Ephesians 1:11-23:1-14, Luke 6:20-31 HELP ME TO BE A , TOO Zion Episcopal Church 11/3/19 By James A. Hackney, LLP

Today we celebrate All Saints’ Day, one of the seven principal feasts of the church year. Just as a reminder, the other six are: Christmas Day, the Epiphany, Easter Sunday, Ascension Day, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. The colors on the altar are always white for principal feasts. The Christian celebration of All Saints' Day stems from a belief that there is a powerful spiritual bond between those in heaven, called the "Church triumphant", and the living, called the "Church militant". On this day we honor all those who have entered heaven. In the and in most Protestant denominations, All Saints’ is celebrated every year on November 1, or as in our case today, the first Sunday thereafter. The Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. In the early centuries after Christ, Christians were accustomed to holding a solemn ceremony on the anniversary of a 's death at the place of his or her martyrdom. Soon, neighboring dioceses began to join together in a common feast. In the persecution of Roman Emperor Diocletian around 300 A.D., the number of became so great that a separate day could not be assigned to each. The Church, feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day for all. A little after 600 A.D., Pope Boniface IV established the date of All Saints’ Day as May 13. However, as has happened in a number of other cases, there were already similar pagan celebrations in countries where the early church was growing. The Frankish empire was celebrating a of All Saints on November 1, and there was also the Celtic festival of Samhain on the same date. So, around 740 A.D., Pope Gregory III took advantage of combining these celebrations and moved the date of All Saints’ Day to November 1, the day we still celebrate. We tend to think of saints mainly in the context of the Catholic tradition. The first saints were martyrs who were believed to have died for their faith and were immediately whisked off to heaven. Local congregations began venerating them. Pilgrims visited their burial sites, and groups or towns adopted them as patron saints and prayed to them for help and miracles. Later saints included those called "confessors," people who lived heroic or especially pious lives but were not killed for their beliefs. These martyrs and confessors were formally beatified by the Catholic Church as Saints. Christ’s original apostles, excluding - 2 -

Judas, and other early disciples such as Saint Paul, Saint Luke, Saint Mark, , and Mary and of Bethany, were beatified as Saints. So were early Christians such as , Saint Augustine, , and the like. Then there are saints in very recent times, such as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, whom we knew as . Are these the Saints we are celebrating today? Perhaps, but they are only a small part of the body of saints. One area where we Protestants differ in tradition from our Catholic brothers and sisters is in this understanding of saints. On All Saints’ Day, we Protestants commemorate all Christians, past and present, who have died. Our view of Christian saints is usually that they all had an unwavering faith in God and . As I read about both the early and recent saints, I was somewhat surprised to learn that this was often not true. Many of them struggled with doubts and disbelief. One of the first was Saint Thomas, who had been with Jesus for three years and had heard Jesus say numerous times that he would be crucified but would be resurrected from the dead. In spite of this, when all the other apostles told him that they had seen the risen Jesus, Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” One of the most recent saints, Mother Teresa – now Saint Teresa of Calcutta – went through a 40-year struggle with doubt. She wrote, “Darkness is such that I really do not see - neither with my mind nor with my reason. The place of God in my soul is blank. There is no God in me.” In fact, the Catholic Church now considers Saint Teresa to be the Patron Saint of Doubters. These two were not alone. Some of our most prominent Protestant Christian icons similarly struggled with doubt. Martin Luther, father of the Protestant movement, struggled with doubt. At one point, he wrote, “For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell. I trembled in all my members. Christ was wholly lost. I was shaken by desperation and blasphemy of God.” John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, wrote in his journal, “I went to America to convert the Indians, but oh, who shall convert me?” Wesley later told his friend, Peter Böhler, that he (Wesley) should stop preaching since he lacked true faith. Böhler’s advice to him was: “preach faith till you have it, and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.” The list of those struggling with doubt goes on: John Calvin, C.S. Lewis, Charles Spurgeon, Pope Francis, and many more. Why do I point this out? To make the point that doubt is normal and human, both in the saints and in us. Those great people had their doubts, but they overcame them. In the - 3 - end, their doubts didn’t overcome their faith. I think that’s what Jesus might have meant when he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” God forgives, and God redeems. Do we sometimes have doubts? Do we sometimes ask, “how could a loving and all powerful God allow so much misery in the world? How could God allow so much evil? Why is there so much poverty, disease, war and tragedy?” If we have agonized over these questions, we are in good company. Many saints have asked these same questions through the ages. I don’t know the answer to them, and neither does any priest or theologian. There are many things we don’t understand about the world, and this is one of them. One thing we can learn from the saints is that questioning and doubt don’t separate us from God. There are a few things I do know. I do know that if we follow Jesus’ teachings, we will do what we can to make things better, a little bit at a time. I do know that in helping those who need help, we feel the presence of God in our hearts. And, I do know that although there are struggles and problems in our lives, the one constant is God’s love and comfort. Martin Luther wrote a prayer which has been widely published: “Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it. I am weak in the faith; strengthen me. I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent, that my love may go out to my neighbor. I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times I doubt and am unable to trust you altogether. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you.” If this prayer was fitting for Martin Luther, it is fitting for me. I pray it every night. So, as we celebrate All Saints’ Day, we remember and pray for all those who rest from their labors. Those whose faith was evident to us, and those whose faith was known to God alone. Inevitably, the day will come when we will join them. For today, let us live in the faith they taught us. May the last verse of our closing hymn today be our credo: “They lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still. The world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will. You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea. For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.” Amen.