A Reflection on sainthood: near and far; past, present, and yet to come
What makes someone a saint? Is it a life of extraordinary holiness? A miracle or two? A name preceded by “Saint” and a feast day on the Church calendar? Or is sainthood something much closer to home?
In the Anglican tradition, the answer is both wonderfully simple and profoundly expansive.
We believe in the communion of saints, that great fellowship of the faithful, living and departed, who are bound together in the love of God. While the Episcopal Church recognizes particular men and women whose lives offer extraordinary examples of Christian faithfulness, we also understand that sainthood is not reserved for the famous, the heroic, or the particularly pious. In the New Testament, the word saints refers quite simply to the people of God. All of us, by virtue of our baptism, are called into this holy fellowship.
Our Episcopal calendar commemorates saints throughout the year. There are apostles and evangelists, martyrs and missionaries, theologians and reformers, and faithful Christians whose lives have borne witness to the Gospel across centuries and cultures. We honor them not because they were perfect, nor because we worship them, but because their lives reveal something of the grace and goodness of God. Their stories encourage us. Their examples challenge us. Their faithfulness reminds us that holiness is possible even in the midst of ordinary human life.
But I think there is something even more beautiful about the communion of saints than the names we find printed on the Church calendar.
In his sermon at our 50th Anniversary celebration last Sunday, Bishop Wright offered an image that has stayed with me. He spoke of those who have gone before us as “those peering over from heaven’s balcony.”
I love that image.
It brings to mind the words of the Letter to the Hebrews, which describes us as being surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses.” These are the faithful who have run their race and kept the faith. Their lives continue to bear witness to the goodness of God. They are not simply names in history books or figures memorialized in stained glass. They are part of the great story of God's redeeming love, a story in which we, too, have been given a part.
And I rather like imagining them peering over the balcony, watching as we continue the work they began. Perhaps occasionally shaking their heads at our foolishness, but surely rejoicing whenever we manage to get something right!
Some of those saints are familiar to nearly everyone. We know St. Patrick, St. Valentine, and St. Francis. We remember the biblical writers who first gave voice to the Good News. We honor the countless brave men and women who risked, and sometimes surrendered, their lives for the sake of the Gospel.
Others are remembered not with the title Saint, but through the extraordinary witness of their lives. As Georgians, we have a particularly rich inheritance in this regard. John Wesley preached and ministered in colonial Georgia before becoming one of the great voices of Christian renewal. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a son of Atlanta, challenged the Church and the nation to take seriously the Gospel's demands for justice, dignity, and love of neighbor. And President Jimmy Carter, whose faith was formed in the small Georgia town of Plains, demonstrated that Christian discipleship could find expression in public service, peacemaking, and the humble work of building homes for those in need.
Their lives were very different. Their contributions to our common life were profound. Each reminds us that faith is not simply something we profess on Sunday morning. It is something we are called to live in the world.
But at Christ Church, particularly as we emerge from the celebration of our first fifty years, I find myself thinking about saints whose names are much closer to home.
I think of Buff Bowen, who for decades began our Christmas Eve celebrations with the joyful sounds of the Caribbean carol Mary's Boy Child. I think of Ibby Allison, whose careful and faithful hands placed the Lenten drapes so perfectly over the great cross behind our altar year after year.
These might seem like small things in the grand scheme of Christian history. But are they?
How many people encountered the joy of Christmas through that familiar music? How many souls were invited into the solemn beauty of Lent because someone took the time to prepare our worship space with such care? How many children grew up understanding the rhythms of the Church year because faithful people quietly and lovingly made those traditions possible?
And then there are the names woven into the very fabric of our common life. Names like Dibble, Perry, and Shaw. Names that may never appear on the Church's official calendar, but whose faithfulness helped make Christ Church the community we know today.
Their witness lives on in the buildings we inhabit, the prayers we pray, and the traditions we treasure. It lives on in the welcome we extend to those who walk through our doors.
One of the great gifts of celebrating fifty years as a parish is recognizing that we have inherited something we did not create entirely for ourselves. We worship in a place shaped by the prayers and sacrifices of those who came before us. Some we knew and loved. Others we know only by name. Still others have been forgotten by history, but never by God.
And perhaps that is one of the most important things All Saints' Day has to teach us: sainthood is not ultimately about being remembered. It is about being faithful.
The saints did not necessarily set out to become saints. Most were simply trying to follow Jesus in the circumstances of their own lives. They raised children and cared for neighbors. They taught Sunday school, sang in choirs, visited the sick, and stood up against injustice. They offered what they had for the sake of others. They were imperfect people, just like us, whose lives nevertheless became instruments of God's grace.
And this is where All Saints' Day turns from remembrance toward invitation.
Because the communion of saints is not merely a collection of people who lived long ago, or even those we have recently commended to God's eternal care. It includes those of us still running the race.
The saints of tomorrow are being formed among us today.
They are the children learning to pray at JoyMass. They are the teenagers discovering what it means to serve someone other than themselves. They are the parents teaching their children kindness and compassion. They are the volunteers preparing our altar and the parishioners visiting someone who is lonely. They are the quiet souls whose acts of generosity will never be publicly acknowledged.
They are people who may never imagine themselves particularly holy, but who are nevertheless being shaped, day by day, into the likeness of Christ.
That is the wonderful and sometimes uncomfortable truth of All Saints' Day. We are not simply invited to admire the saints. We are called to become them.
Not through perfection or fame or extraordinary accomplishments, but through the ordinary and persistent practice of loving God and loving our neighbors.
Perhaps one day, fifty years from now, someone will be standing in this same parish remembering the faithful people of our generation. Perhaps they will recall a song we sang, a kindness we offered, a ministry we began, or a tradition we lovingly preserved. Perhaps they will remember something we have not even thought to do yet.
And perhaps, by the grace of God, we too will be among those peering over heaven's balcony, rejoicing in the faithfulness of those who come after us.
After all, saints are ordinary people whose extraordinary commitment to God and neighbor makes their lives remarkable. And the work of forming such people is not finished. It is happening here, among us, even now.
At JoyMass, near the conclusion of our Eucharistic Prayer, we offer a petition that captures this hope beautifully:
“Bring us into the everlasting heritage of your daughters and sons, that with the Blessed Virgin Mary and all your saints, past, present, and yet to come, we may praise your Name for ever.”
Past, present, and yet to come...
What a beautiful reminder that God's grace is still at work. The communion of saints is still growing. And the next generation of saints may very well be sitting beside us in the pews this Sunday.
Thanks be to God for all the saints!
Pax et Bonum!
Fr. Ben
