Luke 6:20-31

So… what do y’all know about the Feast of All Saints?

Well… it comes around on November 1st every year. Right! What else? Umm… I remember we always used to have Baptisms on All Saints’ Day! Right again! Folks on the Altar Guild will tell you that on All Saints’, they have to flip everything from green to white for a week and then back to green again… patient souls that they are. Others of you may have a tradition of setting aside some time on All Saints’ (which always falls on the day after All Hallows’ Eve… or Halloween) to say a special prayer for the souls of the faithful departed. And that’s a good tradition. But, what else can you tell me about the Feast of All Saints? What is its significance? Why and how do we observe it?

I’m glad you asked.

All Saints’ Day celebrates all the saints of God—those whose names we remember… and those whose names we do not know—whose lives have given witness, great or small, to the resurrection of Jesus Messiah. The day has been observed, in one form or another since (at least) the sixth century AD. It was originally celebrated in the Spring of the year, after Pentecost, and especially commemorated the lives of martyrs who had lost their lives for the cause of Christ. Within a couple of hundred years, however, the date had shifted to November 1st and the focus of the feast had shifted from all martyrs… to all saints. 

During the liturgy on All Saints’ Sunday, at the end of the Prayers of the People, it is my habit to invite worshippers to speak aloud the names of loved ones who have departed life during the past year: friends and family we will not see again… not on this side of life, at any rate. Why do we do that? Why on this day? So, here’s a little more history: Back in the middle ages, the Feast of All Saints was understood as a celebration of the saints and martyrs of the church of ages past who were spending eternity in the more immediate presence of God. In other words, they’d died and gone to heaven. And it was also at about this time that the Doctrine of Purgatory was introduced by the Roman Catholic Church to accommodate those souls who had, perhaps, lived somewhat less-exemplary lives. Now, I’m not talking about real bad eggs like Attila the Hun or Vlad the Impaler, there was really no hope for them… they were going down… literally. I’m talking about folks like… well… us. Folks who went about their daily lives working… raising families… doing the best they could… but who could sometimes be a little too proud… or jealous or envious… folks who sometimes let their anger get the best of them… or who couldn’t always bring themselves to “buckle down” and do the things they needed to do. Maybe they were a little bit greedy… or ate or drank too much on occasion… or overindulged their fantasies and passions.

Hey, wait a minute… “Aren’t those the seven deadly sins? some of you might ask. Right you are… THANKS for studying! And they are, indeed… deadly. But never fear… some time in Purgatory might be just the thing for these imperiled souls. That was the doctrine of the Roman Church, in any case. Purgatory certainly wasn’t a place you wanted to spend eternity… it was a place of pain and penance… where you would be purged of your sins. But it was still better than that other place… you know the one I’m talking about: a place way out in the “outer darkness where there’s much weeping and gnashing of teeth” (cf. Matthew 22:13). Purgatory wasn’t that place… and there was always the chance that folks in Purgatory could still work their way up the ladder into heaven… if they played their cards right. And, of course, the Church was there to help. All you needed was a little money to pay “indulgences” (bribes) to a clergy person with a willing ear… and a grasping hand. And it was at the stipendiary mass (meaning a mass you paid for) on All Souls’ Day, which is the day after All Saints’, that you hoped to be able to spring your dearly departed family members and loved ones from the grinding agony of Purgatory… and into the more immediate presence of God and the saints. Pretty slick business plan, huh? And it worked for centuries! Everything was going so well for the medieval Church: attendance was booming… profits were soaring… until the Protestant Reformation rolled across Europe in the mid-sixteenth century. If you want to know more about the Reformation, see me after class. For our purposes today, however, let’s just say that this whole “pay to play” scheme of indulgences and stipendiary masses promoted by the Medieval church was one of the primary “causes for action” that led Martin Luther and other reform-minded Protestants to schism with the Roman Catholic Church.

Not surprisingly, post-Reformation, other non-Roman Catholics, including Anglicans and all the other Protestant traditions rejected All Souls’ Day as incompatible with their doctrine of salvation. According to J. Neil Alexander, the Ninth Bishop of Atlanta and author of Celebrating Liturgical Time: Days, Weeks and Seasons:

“The suppression of [All Souls’] day . . . had more to do with [Protestant] discomfort with the concept of purgatory and the practice of indulgences… than with the more pastoral concern of praying for the dead and holding their life and witness in remembrance before God. As a result, in most non-Roman catholic traditions, the prayers in memory of those who have died were moved to the Feast of All Saints. This also aligned more comfortably with the Reformation understanding that all the baptized—all those who had been set apart by water and the Holy Spirit—were, according to the New Testament, saints.”[1]

Perhaps this notion jangles in the minds of some: how are we to properly commemorate and celebrate the biblical and historical saints in the life of the church when we, ourselves, are also the supposed inheritors of such a legacy? Sounds pretty cheeky… even self-serving… doesn’t it? Let’s celebrate… US… right? But it helps to remember that you and I are saved by grace and washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb. And that one day, we will become part of that great cloud of witnesses, saints of old and saints yet unborn, standing before the throne of God in heaven singing, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb! Amen!” (Revelation 7:9-12) I don’t know about you, but this understanding of what is required of us as “saints” gives me a whole new outlook on Jesus’ commandment that we love one another (John 13:34)… and refrain from judging each other (Matthew 7:1). We are all called to same table… the same feast. Everything is prepared. But it’s up to us to show up… in good faith… and greet one another in the name of Christ.

Some of those among us who’ve studied military history might remember Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who once famously said, “War is the continuation of politics… by other means.” Stick with me here… I ***wonder*** if the same might be said about death… and redemption. How many of you have known someone whose life on Earth was such hot mess that it was hard to imagine them in the Paradise of God? I’m reminded of a woman named Lynn, whose death I attended a number of years ago. She’d been placed into an induced coma as a last-ditch effort to save her life… to give her body one last chance to regain its equilibrium after it had finally crashed due to decades of alcohol and drug abuse. There was nothing more the doctors could do… and Lynn was only in her mid-forties. That it had finally come to this was no surprise to folks who knew Lynn… only the sudden onset of the endgame. She’d been in a downward spiral for years… and had seemed intent on alienating, and doing as much damage to the people who loved her as she possibly could on the way down. Lynn had caused enormous hurt to a lot of the people who were now standing around her bed in the ICU, awaiting her passing. And yet… they loved her… and continued to wait and watch and weep… wondering what they might have done differently to help Lynn overcome her demons… and wondering also about the state of her soul when she breathed her last. These were good, intelligent, faithful people—believers—and yet the enormity of the moment was overwhelming. Lynn was so compromised… there’s no way she could be “fit for heaven.” And of course, she wasn’t. None of us is, or ever will be. Not in this life. Not on our own. But we are saved by grace alone, unearned and undeserved, purged of our sins, not through anything we could ever be or do or say, but through our Savior Jesus Christ who said, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6:39 NIV). Where does the Doctrine of Purgatory fit into that? 

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus tells us how we can be happy and blessed, and put ourselves on the path to redemption… in this life. Some manage better at this than others. But I wonder… to paraphrase Clausewitz… could temporal death be the continuation of redemption… by other means? Jesus said he will stop at nothing to bring that last, lost sheep home… to bring us all home (Luke 15:3-7). I remember standing over Lynn, watching her body wind down, and I suddenly knew in my heart and soul—beyond the shadow of a doubt—that she was in the process of being redeemed… transformed… inexplicably changed from glory into glory (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV) …into a saint. All her impurities were being burned away in front of my eyes. I didn’t understand how it all worked, and I still don’t, but I saw it and felt it happening in the moment. What a gift… for Lynn and for me. 

When you say your prayers today, I hope you’ll take a few moments to reflect on recently-departed souls who’ve impacted your life. Maybe they were dear to you… or perhaps disappointment, hurt and anger had somehow tainted your relationship with them. Whether you speak their names aloud, or in the silence of your heart. And make no mistake… God and the saints will be listening.  

[1] Alexander, J. Neil.  Celebrating Liturgical Time: Days, Weeks and Seasons (New York: Church Publishing, Inc., 2014), 28.