For All the Saints
The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, All Saints Sunday, November 2nd, 2024
Today is All Saints Sunday, the day in the church year when we focus on what it means to be knit together in the communion of saints. We are reminded today that we live our lives in the here and now mindful of all the faithful people who have gone before us. Those people are still with us as our heavenly cheerleaders, encouraging us and helping us onward. Today I am mindful of faithful Saint Georgians who have died. I remember seeing them at church every Sunday and hearing what was going on in their lives. I can still see where they sat, and recall the ministries they served in. I remember visiting them and sharing communion when they weren’t able to be in church anymore. I really miss them but take comfort in knowing that they are with us still. I am also aware of family members, my grandparents, my father, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law. You may be mindful of people in your own life who have died. Even if it has been a while, their memory is still alive, and not only that, they are very much alive in a spiritual sense. Every Sunday in the Eucharistic Prayer we praise God with the angels, archangels and all the company of heaven. They are the company of heaven , all those who we love but see no longer, and that is a comforting and empowering thought.
We are all going through a lot right now, as a country, and as individuals, and the faithful departed went through a lot of trials and tribulations too. They persevered in the midst of world wars, economic hardship, social inequities, loss and disappointment, relationship issues, crises of faith. You name it. The particulars are different, but they made it through and we can too. When I think about my maternal grandmother, growing up dirt poor, with an 8th grade education, which was actually pretty good for girls in rural areas in the south in the early 1900s. I think about her marrying my grandfather, raising children and subsisting on the proceeds from their small, yearly crop. I’m amazed that she was the generous, loving, and joyful person that she was. She had a lot of reasons not to be. But the bedrock of her life was her faith. She knew that Jesus was with her every day, helping her to get through. She talked about it sometimes, but mostly she showed it. And her trust in him was everything, which is why she always fed anybody who showed up at her door, and was always grateful for her blessings. She knew she was rich even though she was poor. And when I went to visit her every summer, we would go to Red Bud Baptist Church. She was there every Sunday. And even though she could not carry a tune, she did not care. I remember as a little girl standing beside her as she belted out the hymns like nobody’s business. That’s when her faith really sang out, from her head to toes. She has long since been in the communion of saints and it gives me a lot of comfort to know that she is singing away (although she probably sounds a lot better) and that she is still with me today. You probably have people in your own life who influenced your faith who have died. Today we give thanks for your person and my person, your people and my people. And if you didn’t have people who gave you models of faithful living, we give thanks for the people who have gone before who are there for all of us. Each of us has their support, every single one of us, every day of our lives.
One of the great things about All Saints Sunday, among the many, is getting to sing For All the Saints. It was written especially for All Saints Day, so we only normally sing it once a year on this feast day and sometimes at funerals. It was written by William Walsham How. He lived in the 1800s and was an Oxford graduate who eventually became a bishop in the Church of England, but he definitely did not think of himself more highly than he ought. He turned down a lot of prestigious appointments, but finally accepted the position of Suffragan Bishop of Bedford, which gave him responsibility for the very poor in the East End of London. He was apparently exceptionally down-to-earth and the people he worked with loved him dearly. Children were especially drawn to him. People called him “the children’s bishop” or the “the bishop of the poor”. He wrote a lot of hymns as a means of infusing more joy and vitality into worship. For All the Saints is his greatest hit.
For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who Thee by faith before the world confessed;
Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
All Saints Sunday puts our hopes, our fears, and our dreams in a larger context of faith. It reminds us of our destination when we die, when we will experience a new heaven and a new earth. It also reminds us that we are part of that new heaven and new earth right now. As Christians we are called to live as if it is already a reality, knowing that we will only fully know it when we see Jesus face-to-face. We are called to witness to our faith. We are called to resist evil and make a conscious decision to follow Jesus every day. We are to work for justice and peace. We are called to honor the dignity of every human being: People who look like us and don’t look like us. People who are poor and people who are rich. People who believe in Jesus and do not believe in Jesus. People who are loving and people who are hateful. That is what we are all reminded of today as we prepare to baptize little Joseph Aplin Mathai and renew our own baptismal covenant. Joseph is being brought into the fellowship of faith and marked as Christ’s own forever, and that is a wondrous and powerful thing. So today we pray for Jospeh and his baptism and we pray for ourselves, that we will always remember that we too are marked as Christ’s own forever, and we are never, ever alone, in our joys or in our struggles.
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!