For All the Saints

**This entry is taken from my sermon on the solemn Feast of All Saints at Church of the Good Shepherd, Asheboro, NC on November 1, 2015.**

For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one, too.  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The nave of All Saints Episcopal Church, Norton, VA.

Nestled in the coalfields of Southwestern Virginia, in the town of Norton, is little All Saints Episcopal Church.  It is the last Episcopal Church you’ll find in Virginia before you reach the Kentucky state line.  It can seat up to 70, maybe 80 folks—depending on how comfortable you want to be.  Down through the years this little church has lived up to its name.  The saints who have worshipped there have included Joe Straughn and his booming bass voice sitting in the back of the choir.  Joyce Winston, the wife of a local judge, who faithfully sat in the second pew on this side.  Seated next to her for so many years was her good friend Frances Herndon, dedicated head of the altar guild, who always panicked whenever the acolytes walked around carrying fire.  You'd find Dr. Ernie Ingram, a tiny lady with a huge heart who introduced my mother to Cursillo and changed her life. Way in the back, still to this day, is Leola Wooten, the last known children’s Sunday School teacher at the church (because there hasn't been children's Sunday School there since 1995!).  And for years, in the second pew on the left,  you’d see a father tracing the words of the closing hymn for his son to follow along and sing at the top of his lungs, even though neither could read music; little did anyone know that that son would be the first All Saints parishioner to get ordained in that little church, and that the father would be the second.  All Saints, Norton has always embodied—at least for me—what this day is all about.  A collection of people, broken and flawed, but beautiful and redeemed, all brought together to worship the Lord Jesus Christ and to work together to heal the world in his name.  The saints of All Saints were not perfect by any stretch, but they were faithful.  And that’s all any saint can ever hope to be. 

(Left) The first All Saints parishioner to be ordained.  (Right) The second.

It’s easy to think of the saints as the exemplars, as those folks who are higher than us, better than we could ever be.  They’re the ones who have stained glass windows and icons and statues made in their likeness.  But they weren’t perfect, either.  James and John, the sons of Thunder were pretty self-centered and arrogant, demanding that Jesus let them sit on his right and his left in the Kingdom.  Not exactly saintly behavior, in my opinion.  Peter denied ever even knowing Jesus when push came to shove, and he didn't even believe Mary Magdalene and the other women when they came and told the apostles that the Lord had been raised.  Even Paul--the first theologian, without whom it can be argued that we do not have a church--was a strong persecutor of the faith and was likely responsible for the death of Steven, the first martyr.  No, saints aren’t perfect, they’re faithful.

To be faithful is to listen to the voice of Jesus, to listen to who it is it that Jesus is calling us to be and to respond to Jesus’ call.  To be faithful is to share the light of Christ with those around us—through our words and especially through our actions.  The people of All Saints, Norton, certainly did that, otherwise I wouldn’t be standing in this pulpit today.  To be faithful is to promise to live into the very vows that we will all renew today—striving for justice and peace, loving our neighbor as ourselves, respecting the dignity of every human being.  Will we fall short of those vows?  Absolutely!  Heaven knows I fall short all the time.  But we keep trying.  We keep coming back. That’s also why, when we make those vows, we say, ‘I will, with God’s help.’  Because being faithful means realizing that we can’t do it alone, that everything we do is with the help of Almighty God, as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit and seeking to follow the example of Jesus Christ. 

It is is to this pantheon of the faithful that we welcome Vincent Blackwell and William Marks.  As we renew those solemn vows, Vincent and William will be washed in the waters of baptism, their old selves gone, giving way to new lives in Jesus.  They will be sealed and marked as Christ’s own, marked as saints, forever.  And all of us will promise to uphold them, to encourage them, to be there for them when they stumble, and to love them as Jesus loves them.  Vincent and William will make mistakes, as all the saints have.  They need not be perfect.  Merely faithful. 

So on this solemn feast of All Saints let us bring to the forefront of our hearts and minds those who have shown us what it means to be faithful.  Take a moment and picture them.  And let us pray that we may have the grace to be saints ourselves.  Not to be perfect.  But to be faithful.  May all the saints, who from their labors rest, pray for us.