All Saints

The Holy Common people of God, the Ordinary Holy people of God, the plebs sancta dei. We celebrate today those we name and those in the vast throng of Christians who have gone before us remembered to only a few or to none at all.

All Saints Day seems to me to be a cross somewhere between looking through the family photo albums which go back further than anyone can remember and watching superhero movies. The Saints are both our family in Christ and our heroes and heroines in the faith. We are one with them in the sense that we are all called to the same journey, but because of some particular faith or action they are set apart as examples and guides for us.

But never be fooled into thinking that Saints are so different from the rest of us that we have to steer clear of them or that we can never be “good enough”. God makes the best Saints from ordinary stuff, just human beings like you and me. In the Sound of Music there is that lovely song about Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and various other every day things which we perhaps do or do not notice. I was looking at some kittens yesterday and did not particularly notice their whiskers. But the point is that these ordinary things are the things which calm and soothe the singer – they become points of extraordinary contact in her hand and in her voice. We too, are extraordinary points of contact when we are touched by God and made holy and that is a call to each and every one of us, whether or not we ever get a day with our name on it!
I remember when my father built our garden shed, how he carefully laid the slab and then the lumber came in from my grandparent’s house. My grandfather had died and before my grandmother left the house the shed was moved. He built a small dark shed which smelled of creosote. We were not allowed to hide in there – although we did and in that dark place the world was all outside and you were somewhere else.
C.S. Lewis reflects upon his toolshed. I imagine it was a perfectly ordinary, small, dark musty smelling old shed – much like ours. No windows, very functional. Whilst in there he notices a beam of light coming in through the roof – it was the only light in the dark space and he watched it a while before going and standing directly under it and looking up through the hole. From this perspective he saw many different things – a world of light, trees swaying their green leaves dancing in the breeze.
A beam of light through a space in the roof of a shed – an ordinary thing - but when God works through that experience it becomes extraordinary. It changes Lewis and in turn he changes it for us by writing a reflection on both our life as those who observe and our life as those who experience. Neither, he says is mutually exclusive. Beware, he says, that the observant world of the expert can never replace the experienced world of the every day.
In the Church those who we hold up as our experts in the faith are the Saints. They are indeed the raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens for they were all ordinary people made extraordinary by God’s choice of them and God’s leading and nurturing of them. They catch our attention in various ways - sometimes by what they say or do and sometimes just by who they are.
Our experts, however, are not simply those who observe and who know about they are those who have entered into and know God – they are those who pray to God, who listen to God who hold conversation with the divine. Our experts may watch the beam of light and marvel and the million dancing pieces of dust in its path but then they step into it and allow the pain as their eyes adjust to see what is beyond the roof. In fact I would argue that our experts would find it hard not to do this – so great is the pull and call towards holiness and towards the kingdom of God in their lives.
William Law, the English mystic, said the mark of a saint was a heart that turns all things to praise. The human life that makes everything Holy by blessing it to God’s use and to God’s name – that is a saint. The person who sees from the outside and from the inside as holy moments and as somehow sacred and continuous.

I nearly called this sermon inefabile – the Spanish word for ineffable – something which is holy, untouchable, indescribable. Patrick read it out the other day and it caught my imagination – not I think because I think of the communion of saints as far away and untouchable but because I think of the mystery which allows them to be so close – because I think that eternity is not just an add on module at the end of time, because we are all in this together now and the holiness which touches saints can touch us too. This apparently mixed up and confusing set of things is very real, saints on earth and saints in heaven can all sing together – and if we can allow that just to be – if we can allow ourselves to believe in something so wonderful – inefabile – then we are blessed indeed.

Listen to how Scott Holland describes Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, who is commemorated in the Church of England on March 8th:

“It was a light that he carried with him – the light that shone through him the light that flowed from him. The room was lit into which he entered. It was as if he had fallen under a streak of sunlight, that flickered, and danced, and laughed and all turned to color and gold…….”

Saints are not only themselves changed but change the world around them. They are not only transformed but are instruments of transformation. They are not merely some historical artifact to be admired but a continuing and living part of our community – the idea of the communion of saints – saints on Earth and Saints in heaven is not a mere platitude it is a reality. We are all together, in one continuing chorus, the ordinary, holy people of God.

Holiness is catching – holiness is catching in the ways we see it and the ways we don’t. It is catching in the ways we grab a hold of it and the ways we refuse it. It is catching in our own lives and it is catching in the lives of other people.

Saints pray with us and Saints lead us. Saints confront us and Saints sit next to us. But we are all called to sainthood – perhaps not with a day named after us but there is a self-hood in our faith beyond simply checking the boxes and it is in the image of Christ shown forth in our own lives that we are made holy. Being filled with Jesus and reflecting Jesus in all that we do are flip sides of the same coin.

So the Englishman in his toolshed, the Bishop at a gathering, the schoolteacher with her class, the doctor with a patient, the realtor with a client, the accountant crunching numbers all of us have that invitation to holiness – and how? Through these common things – through this ordinary meal – transformed and transforming. The Plebs Santa Dei - we people – are invited to both learn and experience, to both observe and feast. We are invited to trip into light and to watch the leaves dance in the sunlight.

Almighty and Everlasting God,
you light a sacred flame in the hearts of your saints,
give us the same faith and power in your love;
that, as we celebrate their lives
we may learn from their examples, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Gothic Missal

Caroline Kramer 2008

References

C.S. Lewis - Undeceptions: Essays on Theology and Ethics
Dom Gregory Dix – The Shape of the Liturgy
Geoffrey Rowell – The Vision Glorious