Episcopal Church of the Incarnation

West Point, Mississippi

All Saints’ Sunday (Year B)

Isaiah 25.6-9 Psalm 24 Revelation 21.1-6a John 11.32-44

May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart,

that I may rightly and truly proclaim His Holy Word. Amen.

"See, I am making all things new" (Rev. 21.5). If you have seen Mel Gibson’s version of Passion of the Christ, you will recall that Jesus says these words to His Mother. These words are not quoted in any gospel account of the Passion, but it’s hard to fault the dramatic and theological instincts that have the words of the one seated on the throne of heaven in the Revelation to John spoken by Jesus as he stumbles in bloody pain on His way to the cross, for it is in the supreme sacrifice of our Lord, it is by His death, resurrection and ascension, that we are redeemed, and that what was cast down is raised up. All things are made new, and on this feast of All Saints we do well to remember that despite our fallenness, despite the depths which human experience can plumb, grace wins, love triumphs.

The Feast of All Saints is not the feast for all those saints for whom there is not a designated feast day on the calendar. It is not about the unknowns, although the unknowns are certainly included in this celebration of redemption. The unknowns are remembered tomorrow, at the Feast of All faithful Departed, or All Souls’ Day. All Saints’ is about all saints, known and unknown. What we celebrate is the fact that all believers are called to be saints.

How are we called? Why is it that St. Paul can address a letter to believers as one “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints” (Rom. 1.7), or to those “called to be saints together” (1 Cor. 2), or to “all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia” (2 Cor. 1.1)? It is for the same reason that if Paul were writing to us today he would write, “To God’s people in West Point, called to be saints”. We are called to be holy, holy ones, hágios in Paul’s Greek, and what holy means is that which is set aside for God, designated for God, lifted up to God. You see, when we recognize that we are set aside, marked as God’s, then we know that the call to be God’s is made to each one of us, and the question becomes what this means in how we live.

I’m not speaking of predestination when I say we are set aside for God. I am speaking of an act of will by which we conform ourselves to be God’s, and to do His will. If you were baptized as an infant, somebody decided to set you aside for God, and in your confirmation you made this your will. If you were baptized as an adult, you decided on your own to give yourself to God, and if you are unbaptized then you are here today because you recognize the spark of the divine, the image and likeness of God in which you were created. In baptism we participate in Jesus’ death and resurrection to new life. All things are made new. In baptism, we are sealed, set aside, marked as Christ’s own forever. Being marked as God’s own we receive the Holy Spirit, and so receive the grace to say “yes” to God. We are called to be saints–holy–and by God’s grace we are empowered to be.

All things are made new, and in this newness of eternal creation, in this newness of God’s purpose fulfilled, in the redemption of those who were held in bondage, God reveals His glory. In the story of the raising of Lazarus, of the triumph of life over death, we have a crowning example that grace wins, love triumphs. Jesus says to Martha, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" (John 11.40), but notice that He says this before He calls Lazarus forth from the grave. He’s not saying, “See, I told you;” He’s saying, “Believe, and you will see. Believe that nothing can separate from the love of God those whom God has called to Himself; those whom God has called and who have said ‘Yes’ to Him.”

When we believe that we are called to be saints, and when we seek to respond to this call, we testify to who God is, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Rom. 5.8). We testify that God “... [has] knit together [His] elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of [His] Son Christ our Lord,” (Collect for All Saints’). And so we testify that in worship, in the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, the kingdom of heaven breaks into this world. In the Great Thanksgiving we pray:

Therefore, we praise you, joining our voices with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven, who forever sing this hymn to proclaim the glory of your Name:

We testify that earth is redeemed, for heaven and earth are one. In the fullness of creation all is set aside for God.

That’s how we testify in prayer, but how do we testify in how we live? We do this in being visible, obvious in faith, just as Jesus does when He says, before calling forth Lazarus, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me" (John 11.41-42). So, on this Feast of All Saints, ask yourself, “As one called to be a saint, how do I live so that others may see the glory of God; so that they may believe?” There’s no simple answer. There are different answers for each of us at different times, but each answer will involve actions and maybe words that testify that God is more important to us than anything or anyone else; that God comes first, then others, and only then us.

Being called to be a saint is not the same thing as being called to be a good person. We are called to be good people, to love our neighbors as ourselves. But this will not save us; we cannot earn salvation. Salvation is a free gift, that we are redeemed by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who died not to make bad people good, but to make dead people live, and when we recognize this gift and recognize and accept this new life, then goodness will follow and our lives will testify to the truth that we have been called to holiness.

If you remember the Mel Gibson movie, you remember being shocked. The torture of Jesus is depicted in the most graphic terms. But shocked is not the same thing as “grossed out,” sickened. I once worked in the medical examiner’s office in Philadelphia. I worked in the autopsy theatre, assisting in the investigation of deaths often violent and never pretty, and so I could look upon the depiction of Jesus’ torture without a queasy stomach, but I was still shocked; shocked and drained by the contrast between brutality and degradation–between the fallenness of evil made manifest–and the truth that the author of creation made us for and calls us into creation which is not fallen, into creation which is perfect and holy. It is in and to the depths of degradation and despair that our Lord says, "See, I am making all things new."

All Saints. All called to be holy. All called into new life always and at all times, no matter in what circumstance pain is found, loss is encountered, evil is confronted. All saints who know their Lord, who know that He makes all things new, and follow His call to holiness.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was

in the beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.