Readings
Daniel 7:1-3,15-18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31
Blessed are you who are poor. Blessed are you who are hungry now. Blessed are you who weep now. Blessed are you when people hate you.
It is with these words that our Gospel lesson opens. And it is with these words that we embrace this day, All Saints Sunday. But the truth is that such teaching from Jesus, once again, leaves us scratching our heads and wondering what exactly is Jesus getting at?
How exactly is being poor, hungry, sorrowful, or hated a blessed state? Why does he then follow up with a set of woes to those who are rich, full, laughing, or well respected? On the surface this is the antithesis to our visceral experience of life. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather be rich than poor; be full rather than hungry; be happy rather than sad; and be well respected than hated. The woes Jesus outlines seem to be the better state than the blessed’s.
But perhaps, just perhaps, Jesus is offering us an insight into reality that we often don’t want to acknowledge. If we pay attention to all that he says we may well gain an insight into what he is getting at.
You see each of those difficult circumstances he calls blessed ends with the promise that such a state will be transformed into what we all see as good. And likewise, he warns that each of those states that we presume to be good will inevitably end with such states being less than optimal. I believe that taken as a whole Jesus isn’t simply calling the dire states blessed and the good states woeful, but rather he is getting at the impermanence of the human condition. He is offering a word of hope to those who are suffering and a word of warning to those who are doing well.
The mystery of the human condition is that nothing lasts forever. The truth of our existence in this world is that everything ends. All good things come to an end and all evil things as well. Even our lives ultimately come into being for a time and then end, only to be transformed into new life once again.
Perhaps the message that Jesus is offering us is to not put too much stock in the situation we find ourselves in. Perhaps he is inviting us to live into the impermanence of our condition so that we might be open to the grace of God, rather than relying on ourselves and the circumstances of our lives.
On this day, when we remember both the saints of the church and the faithful departed, I am struck that many of those we remember as saints were people who lived by this truth. Their hope and trust was in the God who makes all things. They did not rely so much on their circumstance as they did on God’s grace and love.
Regardless of which saint we choose to focus on we can see that what marks them apart from the vast majority of humanity was not that they were heroes of the faith, but that in their very humanity they rose above their circumstance and became vessels of grace to others around them.
Many saints struggled mightily with the human condition. Some suffered from depression, some from illness, some from poverty, and some were discounted and abused in their own day. And yet, even with such issues, these people were an experience of the living and loving presence of God. Each of them lived out the pattern Jesus articulates at the end of this passage. They loved their enemies, they did good to those who hated them, they blessed those who cursed them, and they prayed for those who abused them. In short they treated others the way they would want to be treated. They offered a steadfast love and faithfulness that embodied the steadfast love and faithfulness of God.
But even so, I am left wondering about the rest of us. Where do we fit into this grand scheme? And where do those we love?
In the Episcopal Church a popular saying on this day is that all of us are saints by means of our baptism. But again, that begs the question of what that means.
Well, to go back to what I said a moment ago. The people we call saints were not heroes. They were ordinary people like you and me who chose to live an intentional life of faith that does not rely on the certainty of our life circumstances, but rather on the grace and love of God. By doing so they were free to be that grace and love to the world.
When we make promises at our baptism and become a part of the body of Christ we enter into that same reality. We are invited into a conscious recognition of the impermanence of the human condition. We are invited to put our trust in the grace and love of God. And to the degree that we do so, we, like the saints of the church, rise above and become vessels of the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. We become nothing less than the embodiment of God’s grace.
It is for this reason that we remember the faithful departed today. Each of them in their own generation, to one degree or another, lived out this reality. Each of us remembers beloved persons who embodied a love that transcended our impermanent and mundane existence. Yes, they were not perfect. But through them we gained insight into our own life of faith and through them we experienced something of the grace and love of God. We remember them on this day as saints of the church and honor them as our ancestors in faith.
The question for us is: to what degree will we embrace the truth of the lesson we hear today? Will we acknowledge and accept the impermanence of our lives and the world in which we live? Will we abandon a sense of wellbeing that is grounded in the situation and circumstances of our lives? Will we, as our baptismal covenant asks, put our whole trust and faith in God’s love? Will we allow ourselves to embrace both those things that are blessed and those things that are woeful knowing that God will sustain us?
To do so will free us to live as Jesus proclaims: to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, and to pray for those who abuse us. It will free us to do unto others as we would have them do to us. It will allow us to experience the love and grace of God and to be that love and grace for the world in which we live. In short we will join with our ancestors and be what we celebrate today: nothing less than saints of God.