In the second act of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods, the four remaining lead characters – the Baker, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack – come together to sing the show’s penultimate number called No One Is Alone. After the long, arduous journey they’ve been on, each one having experienced tremendous heartache, they try to understand the consequences of the things for which they have wished throughout the show, and they begin to decide to place community wishes over their own. The song itself serves a dual purpose: first, to show that each of the characters’ actions – and by extension our own – are not made in a bubble and that no one is guaranteed to be the protagonist of their own story. And second, and I would say most importantly, the song demonstrates that even when life throws its greatest challenges at us, we do not have to face them alone, that there are still people who love us, believe in us, and are cheering for us.
I would add, even when we cannot see them. For that is what the Feast of All Saints is about, the companions we have had along our journey through the woods of our own lives, those who showed us the way, who may have gone on to glory, but whose lessons, whose love, whose spirits live on and inspire us to keep going and remember, to borrow the last line of that song: things will come out right now/we can make it so/someone is on your side/no one is alone.
All Saints Day may have actually been this past Tuesday, November 1, but this feast day is one of the few in the Church that can be moved and take precedent over the principle celebration of a Sunday morning, which is how we celebrated it in the context of my parish. Think of it this way: each Sunday is kind of a mini-Easter, and even when a feast day falls on a Sunday – for example the feast day of one of the apostles or Mother Mary – those celebrations take a back seat to Sunday itself and get moved to the next available day. But All Saints gets special treatment, perhaps because of its significance in celebrating the lives of all those who have gone before us. There really is something special about this day.
In my own life this day is special because I am reminded of the parish in which I grew up, All Saints in Norton, VA, where I was blessed this week to share the preaching duties with my Dad when we celebrated All Saints Day and remembered the life of The Rev. Fran McCoy, my priest for 19 years and one of the most important people in my life – a true saint if there ever was one.
For Good Shepherd, the parish where I serve now, All Saints Day holds a lot of meaning. In 2015, 2016, and 2018 we had baptisms on that day. In 2019 it was the day we returned to the sanctuary after a 6-week exile to the outdoor chapel and Pugh Funeral Home due to mold remediation. And in 2020 after much planning and prep, it was to be the day we came back to public worship after COVID-19 brought everything to a standstill in March, but a new wave that fall kept us apart for several more months. And now, in 2022 we marked the day with another celebration, the golden anniversary of the first public worship in our sanctuary.
We took time during our worship this Sunday to recognize the folks who were there in 1972 and gave thanks for the saints who had helped make the space possible. I couldn't help but believe deep in my heart that those beloved brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers of our faith were with us that day, and are truthfully, with us at all times and in all places. The commitment of those folks at Good Shepherd to the Gospel, to breaking bread and praying together made our sanctuary possible when they began to outgrow their original sanctuary, which became our chapel. A lot has changed about the space since 1972 – the altar, choir, and baptistry have all been moved, and it is now a lot easier to take Communion sine the rail was moved down closer to the congregation, instead of being up not one, but two sets of steps. But our eyes are still drawn to the Christus Rex when we enter, as Christ the King draws our hearts and spirits into his very presence and brings us closer to each other, closer to him, and closer to our dear companions – the saints.
And that is what the saints truly are to us, our companions. The word is taken from the Latin com, meaning “together or with,” and pan, meaning “bread.” Our companions are literally the ones with whom we share bread. And just as your closest companions are the ones you invite to share bread at your dinner table, here at this holy Table, Christ brings us together – he who himself is the bread of life, the bread of heaven, the bread that feeds and sustains us . And it is this Bread that we share with each other, yes, but when we come to this rail we do not do it alone. None of us is alone. The heavenly banquet that we know our loved ones are sharing right now is nothing less than the Eucharist itself. This banquet is happening at all times in the Kingdom of Heaven, and when we share it together on this side of the Kingdom, we step out of our own time and place and receive that foretaste of glory divine, and right next to those we love but see no longer. They may not have universities or churches named for them, but they matter to us. We know who they are - and so does God - those companions, those saints. And at the Table of the Lord we share with them in what Saint Ignatius of Antioch called “the medicine of immortality.”
There are many things that make Christianity so special, but one is the emphasis that it places on community. Salvation is not something we achieve on our own – contrary to popular opinion, we do not go out and “get saved” by ourselves. We pray, we break bread, we study, we grow, we fail, we fall, and we keep moving closer and closer to salvation together. The lives of the saints remind us of that fact. They remind us that no one is alone. Because they were never alone, even when the world rejected them. Jesus never did. Even the world rejects us, Jesus never does, and the saints, whose prayers from heaven sustain and strengthen and inspire us, never do either. No one is alone.
The last few years have been really lonely, but one of the things for which I am most proud of my parish - and many church communities, for that matter - is how they made sure that everyone remembered that though there may have been lonely moments, no one was alone. Their calls, especially to our most vulnerable folks who have been shut in, cards to those of us who were ill and could not interact with others, and all the other ways that they reinforced the importance of this Christian community, helped so many get through some tough days until they could at last return to the sacred space for which we gave thanks on Sunday. And even for those who have not returned, just knowing that the church is here, that the work begun before our chapel was ever even built, continued when the sanctuary was dedicated 50 years ago, and ongoing now, is enough. All Saints is the day that unites us to our forebears who laid the physical cornerstone of our church building, so that it may be a place of worship for the One who is the very cornerstone of all things, Jesus our Lord. We share in the Communion of Jesus’ own Body and Blood with one another and with the saints, so that we may recall our own place in the Communion of saints, and go from the Holy Table united as one Body in a common mission to seek and serve and love all persons as Jesus has sought, served, and loved us. For as Saint Augustine of Hippo once put it, “We eat the Body of Christ, so that we may be the Body of Christ.”
Thanks be to God for the blessed Feast of All Saints! For in it we have the assurance that we are not alone. No one is alone. The saints who have gone on to glory are praying for us and are with us. And the saints on this side of the Kingdom, still striving, continue to pray and work together for the glory of God and the Good News that the Kingdom of God is in our midst. 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! Glorious feast!
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