Sermons

"Folks Just Like Me"

Two Homilies by Mary Garner
Emmanuel Church, Newport, RI
All Saints, November 2, 2005

Homily #1

Today we celebrate All Saint’s Day and remember all the holy women and men who have gone before us in the faith. I grew up with stories of the saints. As a Roman Catholic child I was taught that there was a saint for every problem; a patron saint for every occupation, every country, and every sort of illness. Praying to the saints was an every day occurrence. If you lost something, you prayed,” St Anthony, St Anthony, look all around, something has been lost and can’t be found.” When things were hopeless, you prayed to St. Jude. When you needed a job or were trying to sell your house, you prayed to St Joseph. Women looking for husbands were encouraged to pray,” St Anne, St Anne, get me a man.”

When I was a little girl, I received a small, illustrated book about great women saints. As I remember that book, most of the pious women included in its pages were martyrs. And most of them were martyrs because they refused to renounce Christianity or they refused to marry a rich, handsome, pagan Roman nobleman. In Catholic school, we were encouraged to imitate the lives of the saints. But I knew that if I were given the choice between the handsome pagan and a gory death- well I would have picked the pagan. The saints were impossibly perfect people who lived long ago. They could ask God to help you find your homework or a husband, but there was no way a regular person could be considered a saint.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I attended my first All Saint’s Day liturgy in an Episcopal church. I opened the hymnal to “I sing a song of the saints of God patient and brave and true.” When we got to the part about meeting saints in lanes or at tea, I thought, "lanes and tea” - "How quaint!” "How English!” “How Anglican!” Then I thought, How amazing, how wonderful! How challenging! The saints of God are just folk like me and I want to be one too.” Through the years, I have come to understand that all Christians are called to be saints-not martyrs. We are called to holy living and holy dying. In the world we live in, that challenge may be every bit as difficult as it was for the women and men who suffered and fought for their faith in the face of persecution and intolerance.

Christians today don’t face lions; we face injustice to the oppressed, indifference to the poor and the hungry, irrelevance concerning war, violence, and ecological destruction. Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount lay out the requirements for sainthood. They are poverty, meekness, a hunger and thirst for justice, mercy, and making peace. They are not easy requirements. But they are given in love. As the epistle says, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God and that is what we are.” We and all the saints are all children of God, “knit together in one communion and fellowship” Our failure to live out the Beatitudes and our sins against our neighbor, our planet and our God cannot exclude us from our communion and fellowship in the body of Christ. God stands ever ready to forgive, restore, and heal our brokenness. The call to holy living is never over. As Oscar Wilde said,” Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

In our Eucharist, we stand with the multitude of saints surrounded with a great cloud of witnesses. We are given the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation so that we can give hope to the poor, justice to the oppressed and peace to the suffering. Let us praise and thank God, for the glory of the saints who live by the example of Jesus, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Amen

Homily #2

Today is truly a great festival day in the life of the church. As we celebrate All Saint’s Day, we remember the examples of all the holy men and women who have gone before us in the faith. We believe that all of the saints who have followed the way of Christ live forever as members of his body. Because of the holiness of their lives, we honor their example and pray to imitate their devotion to God and neighbor.

But this morning we are not just celebrating the lives of famous men and women, we do not honor only apostles, martyrs, theologians, doctors of the church and miracle workers. We celebrate the life and example of ordinary men and women who lived quiet lives of goodness and grace - regular people who struggled, prayed, lived, and died. We remember those we loved who have gone on to live in glory whose names are written in the Book of Remembrance that will be brought up and placed on the altar. We remember those we loved whose names are written in our hearts and who give witness to the triumph of Resurrection. Every one of us sitting here this morning carries with them the holy memory of a loved one who we can no longer see, but who we know lives forever with God; part of the company of heaven, members of Christ’s body now and forever. And we remember those whose names are known to God alone, who lived and died in obscurity, poverty, pain, and loneliness.

Today is more than a day of remembrance, though. In a few minutes, we will celebrate the baptism of James Dixon and Michael Fisher. We will pray that the Holy Spirit will sustain them to live holy lives; lives of courage and love of God. We will promise to do everything we can to support James and Michael in their life in Christ. We will renew our own baptismal vows and promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being. We will welcome them as new members of the body of Christ, members rich in promise and potential; children of God called to abundant life.

We will honor the members of the Girl’s Friendly Society, new members, and former members who promise to uphold the ideal of friendship for people of all races and nations and to bear one another’s burdens, in imitation of Jesus. We will honor their prayers to live not for themselves, but for others as members of the body of Christ.

These are extraordinary vows, promises, and prayers. They are not easy, they are not practical, and they are in direct opposition to the values of the world we live in today. How can we ever hope to seek and serve Christ in all persons? How hard it is to respect the dignity of every human being! What a challenge to bear one another’s burdens and live for others. How hard to be a saint! Jesus shows us the way and it is a way of poverty and meekness, of hunger and thirst for justice and passion for peace.

It simply can’t be done alone. But I believe with all my heart that it can be done in the knowledge that we are called children of God and that is what we are. It can be done because we stand together at our Eucharistic feast. We stand with each other in this church, with the multitude of saints surrounded with a great cloud of witnesses. We are given the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation so that we can give hope to the poor, justice to the oppressed and peace to the suffering. God comes into our hearts so that we keep our extraordinary vows, our impossible promises, our fervent prayers. Let us praise and thank God for the glory of the saints who live by the example of Jesus - saints of yesterday, saints of today, and saints of tomorrow. Amen