All Saints’ Day. I have to confess that I’ve always found this a bit of an odd feast day (we celebrate them individually and then all together - why?) and, frankly, I think the whole Hallowe’en “thing” has rather messed up the importance of the day. Roman Catholics have a particular understanding of the saints and the role they play in the life of the Church. Some Protestant traditions don't observe All Saints’ Day at all. So what is it that we, as Anglicans, are celebrating?
Well, I think the answer has less to do with putting certain people on pedestals and much more to do with remembering the people who have shown us what it means to live a life shaped by God's love. When we think about saints, we tend to think of the great figures of the Church—the Apostles, the martyrs, the people whose names we find in the Bible, those whom churches are named after or whose images appear in stained-glass windows.
The vision we hear about in Revelation today is so much bigger than that. John, the presumed author of Revelation, sees a multitude beyond counting, from every nation, tribe, people and language. Think about that for a moment. Every nation. Every tribe. Every people. Every language. God's saints are an extraordinarily diverse bunch. They come from different places, different cultures and different circumstances. They have different gifts, different stories and different ways of making the world a better place.
That makes me wonder whether we sometimes make sainthood far too complicated. Perhaps we think of saints as people who are somehow so much holier than the rest of us that we could never hope to be like them.
What if we thought about it a little differently? What if, rather than beginning with the saints whose names we find in books or on church calendars, we began with the people who have made a difference in our own lives? The people who have shown us kindness when we needed it. The people who stood beside us when life was difficult. The people who taught us something about courage, compassion, forgiveness or love—not necessarily by telling us what to do, but simply by the way they lived.
So I want you to take a moment this morning and think about someone who has been like a saint to you in your own life. It could be someone in your family. It could be a friend, a teacher, a colleague, a public figure or a personal hero. Perhaps it's someone who is no longer with us. Or perhaps it's someone sitting right here beside you this morning.
Take a moment and bring that person to mind.
Now think about why that person has been so important to you. What was it about them? How did they help you? What did they teach you about how to live?
I think this is where we begin to understand what All Saints’ Day is really about. Saints are not simply people we admire. They are people who show us something about how to live. That brings me to someone I've mentioned before—Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi is one of my heroes. To me, he’s a saint. He is someone I have looked to as a role model, including in thinking about my own ministry. Gandhi wasn't a Christian, and I certainly don't suggest that he was perfect or that I agree with everything he ever said or did, but I have always thought of him as a kind of saint in my own life because his life taught me something about how to live mine.
He challenged violence with nonviolence, hatred with love, injustice with courage, and oppression with a determination to seek truth. There is a wonderful story about Gandhi that I think captures something important about sainthood. He was once asked if he had a message that he would like to give to the world and his response was very simple: “My life is my message.”
I love that because isn't that, in many ways, what the saints do? Their lives become their message. They show us what courage looks like. They show us what compassion looks like. They show us what forgiveness looks like. They show us what it means to stand up for what is right. They show us what it means to make peace. They show us what it means to love.
When we run through those traits it makes it clear why the Beatitudes are such an appropriate Gospel for All Saints’ Day.
Jesus says:
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
Jesus is giving us a picture of what a life shaped by God's kingdom looks like. When we think about the people who have been saints in our own lives, I suspect that many of them look remarkably like this. They were merciful. They were compassionate. They knew how to mourn with us. They stood up for what was right. They made peace. They helped us when we were struggling. They didn't necessarily have all the answers. They weren't perfect but they were perfectly human.
Perhaps that is precisely why they were so important to us. Sometimes Jesus can seem almost too good to be true. Too perfect. Too far above us. Too remote. We hear the Sermon on the Mount and think, “Well, that's Jesus. Of course Jesus could live like that. But I'm just me.” So God gives us other people.
People who are fully human. People who make mistakes. People who have struggles and doubts and weaknesses just like we do yet somehow, through their lives, we catch a glimpse of what it means to live as Jesus lived. Those are the saints. Some are saints we read about in Scripture. Some are saints the Church has remembered for centuries. Some are saints whose names will never appear in a church calendar but they have nevertheless changed our lives. Their lives have become their message.
For me, this is why I also love the diversity of John's vision in Revelation so much. The beauty of his description of the multitude of saints screams against the xenophobia that is so pervasive in our world today: The saints don't all look alike. They don't all think alike. They don't all come from the same place. They don't all have the same gifts. They don't all have the same story.
There is room in that multitude for people from every nation, every tribe, every people and every language. There is room in that multitude for us. The first letter of John tells us something else that is essential to All Saints’ Day: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.” That is who we are. We are God's children.
Then John says something that I find both comforting and challenging: “What we will be has not yet been revealed.” In other words, regardless of our age, God isn't finished with us yet. We are still becoming. Perhaps one of the things we are becoming is a saint. Not a stained-glass-window saint. Not a perfect saint. Not somebody who never gets angry or never makes a mistake or always knows exactly what to do. But a human being through whom God's love becomes a little more visible in the world.
Which means that All Saints’ Day isn't simply about asking: Who were the saints who came before us? It is also asking: Whose saint might I become?
Somewhere, sometime, there may be someone who needs what you have to offer. Someone who needs your kindness. Someone who needs your patience. Someone who needs you to forgive them. Someone who needs you to listen. Someone who needs you to stand beside them when they are hurting. Someone who needs you to speak up for what is right. Someone who simply needs to know that they are not alone.
You may never even know that you were that person for them. You may never receive a medal. There probably won't be a statue. Your name almost certainly won't end up in a stained-glass window but you may have become a saint in someone's life simply because you showed up when they needed you. Your life may have become your message.
So, I hope that this is what we take away from All Saints’ Day today: We honour the saints by remembering them but we honour them even more by following them. By allowing their lives to teach us. By taking what they have shown us and carrying it forward. The saints exist not simply to be honoured on special days like today. They exist to remind us how to live, every day.
So this morning I invite you to remember, remember the saints who have shaped you. Remember the people who showed you mercy. Who taught you courage. Who helped you when you were hurting. Who made you laugh in the midst of sorrow. Who stood beside you. Who showed you the warmth of God's love.
Give thanks for them. Then ask yourself one final question:
What will my life say? What will my life be a message about? Will it say something about kindness? About courage? About forgiveness? About justice? About peace? About love?
That is ultimately what Jesus is asking of us in the Beatitudes. Not simply to believe certain things. Not simply to admire certain people but to live differently. To let our lives become the message.
Today let us honour the saints who have gone before us. Let us give thanks for the saints who walk beside us. Then let us go out into the world and become saints for someone else. Not by being perfect. Not by being extraordinary but simply by living as Jesus taught us to live: with mercy, with compassion, with courage, with humility, with a hunger for justice, with a commitment to peace, and above all else, with love. My friends, that is what sainthood really is – it's just us, ordinary human beings allowing the extraordinary love of God to become visible through our lives. “My life is my message.” Like Gandhi, may our lives also become a message and may that message be this: Through us the love of God is made alive in this world.
Amen.