31st October - Reverend Jo Jones
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Bearing in mind our beautiful church is dedicated to All the Saints, and many of you have been worshipping here for a long time, I was wondering if there was anything new I could share with you on our patronal festival. Perhaps over the years, various people have preached on virtually every angle of what scripture and the church understand by saints. During my browsing and mulling over I came across a prayer that I found really helpful in shaping my thoughts, and I’ll share it with you first of all: For all the saints who went before us, who have spoken to our hearts and touched us with your fire, we praise you, O God.
For all the saints who live beside us, whose weaknesses and strengths are woven with our own, we praise you, O God.
For all the saints who live beyond us, who challenge us to change the world with them, we praise you, O God. The communion of saints is the company of all people, those who’ve gone to glory before us, those walking beside us and those living beyond us – all men and women who have allowed their lives to be shaped by the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The community of saints is called by God to witness to His presence and purposes in the world for the sake of all humanity. Amongst this community are people from the ancient or more recent past whom the church has officially recognised as worthy of commemoration, women and men who weren’t perfect, who had failings as all of us do, but whose lives and deeds the church celebrates, because God’s mercy and love, his peace and justice have been seen in and through them in ways which mark them out as role models of Christian discipleship and holiness. Their openness to God’s grace has enabled these men and women to be Christ’s hands and feet, continuing his work while they lived and prayed on earth as they now continue the work of prayer in heaven. There are lots of biographies, paintings, hymns about these saints down through the ages – and next year we’ll see some of their lives represented in flowers. I think the church can still learn from these role models and be inspired by those it has chosen to remember day by day through the Christian year. These particular saints remind us that we live out our faith by building on the foundation of others, for we too in this time and place have the riches of our glorious inheritance in the saints. Then there are the people who are alongside us her and now, who are sharing the journey of faith with us week by week, year on year. Imperfect people, people with faults and worries, people we might fall out with or people who we are our best friends for ever, all of us saints blessed with gift of God’s Holy Spirit, all of us men and women and children relying on God’s grace to help us live a live as disciples in a community of faith. All people we might want to give thanks for just as Paul gave thanks for the Christians at Ephesus because of their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for each other. All Saints like us, living the way of love as fully as we can. Then there are those saints in the wider world, men and women living out their discipleship in ways which can challenge and disturb. Maybe people living difficult lives alongside the poor and the marginalised people who Luke has in mind in his gospel. Someone like Andrew White, the vicar of St George’s in Bagdad, risking death daily in his efforts to live out the gospel of peace and reconciliation in Iraq. People whom the Spirit of God has empowered to go far beyond what most of us think we are capable of, women and men witnessing powerfully to the crucified and risen Christ, fully alive to God’s grace. These are Christians who challenge us to examine our own ways of witnessing to God’s love in our context and give us inspiration to work together to transform where we are. I started with the prayer which has shaped these thoughts – and after yesterday, prayer seems even more significant. The feast of All Saints acknowledges that both the living and the departed share in prayer which is at the heart of the vocation of every Christian. Prayer is the way in which God nourishes our relationship with him in Christ. Christ’s disciples throughout eternity are our companions in faith, we’re all called to commend one another to the mercy of God. Through prayer, especially when we are united in prayer at the Eucharist, we experience not just fellowship of an earthly nature but communion within the life of the Trinity – Jesus makes it possible for us all, in heaven and on earth, seen and unseen, to participate in the mutual self-giving relationship of the Trinity which is eternal. Through prayer, the whole communion of saints is part of the body of Christ, sharing in heaven and on earth in the great thanksgiving for our salvation. When we celebrate the feast of All Saints we bring into sharp focus what is always true at every Eucharistic feast – we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Together, united as one in the body of our Lord, we anticipate the coming of the kingdom where every human person can be reconciled to God in Christ and the redemption of all creation is finally and fully realised. So let’s return then, to the prayer I prayed at the beginning – and give thanks and praise for those saints we know, seen and unseen, who are working with us to make God’s love in Christ known through all eternity. For all the saints who went before us, who have spoken to our hearts and touched us with your fire, we praise you, O God.
For all the saints who live beside us, whose weaknesses and strengths are woven with our own, we praise you, O God.
For all the saints who live beyond us, who challenge us to change the world with them, we praise you, O God. Amen
Janet Morley (in Bread of Tomorrow, Christian Aid and SPCK, 1992, 2004) |
