Make Way for the Image of God
Today we celebrate All Saints Day, and we consider the hope that God’s promise of eternal life holds for us. The theologian Ronald Rolheiser describes it like this:
“As Christians, we believe that the dead are still alive, still themselves, and very importantly, still in a living, conscious, and loving relationship with us and with each other. After death, we live on, in communication with others who have died before us, in communication with those we left behind on earth, and in communion with the Divine itself. This is the Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints”.
The Celtic tradition teaches that the veil between heaven and earth is actually very thin and those of us that have seen our beloveds pass from this life into the next understand this intuitively. Heaven begins here on earth, here and now in whatever blessed and challenging circumstances we find ourselves. We who are still on our earthly pilgrimage struggle because we know the incompleteness, the flawed nature of this reality, while we find hope in the unearned joys that are also part of our journey: our relationships, the wonder and joy of nature, the blessings of the arts, and the diversity of culture and humanity that this planet holds. We who are Christians experience it intimately in our common life of prayer and service to others.
The theme of a gathering of hope runs through all three of today’s readings, pointing to a life after death that is very different from life before death and gives us hope for the future.
During this time of turbulence in the world, our collective consciousness is being raised about injustices in the world, the urgent need to address climate change, and in here Canada, the reality of our colonial history, particularly as it has impacted Canada's Indigenous people. Our church is changing too, in ways that we didn’t anticipate, ask for, or perhaps even want. For the first time in its history, the Church of England has a female Archbishop of Canterbury, and not all members of the Anglican Communion are happy about this. It’s complicated and as a church, we continue our attempt to balance Scripture, tradition and reason. We don’t always agree but continue to hold the tension of our differences in understanding.
We are reminded in these days that we are pilgrims on our way to our eternal home: the home that is being prepared for us by the God who loves us beyond anything we can imagine. Sometimes, life can continue uninterrupted until something changes it dramatically, and then we are brought back to that pilgrim path and the reminder that we are on a journey of faith, we have not yet reached our final destination which is union with God. In the meantime, death is a reality, and it touches us all.
Here at St. Matthias, we continue to consider our future as a faith community and to explore the possibilities of where the Spirit of God is leading us. The one constant in life is change and the impetus to keep moving. At a workshop this week, the Indigenous facilitator, Cathy quoted the Honorable Murray Sinclair, former Canadian Senator and Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission who when asked how he could remain positive about the future replied ”I look at my feet, and they are always pointing forwards”. He also said “The road we travel is equal in importance to the destination we seek. There are no shortcuts”.
Today we focus our attention on that great cloud of witnesses: the Communion of Saints. We all know saintly people: people who have already crossed over into eternal life, and many here in our own parish community that we see to be saintly people. We are all called to sainthood, though not all are called to great achievement. Sainthood is mostly lived out in daily, ordinary ways: in small acts of love and kindness, in generosity, forgiveness and patience. In being attentive to the needs of those around us. In doing what we can, however small our efforts seem.
Today’s gospel spells out what it takes to be a saint: to live fully as a human being with all of its complexity. Sainthood is not just for the chosen or the perfect. In fact, it is well known that many of the saints were not that easy to get along with, so intent were they on living the mission of Jesus as described by the Beatitudes, and most saints are anonymous, quietly living out their lives in faith without any notoriety. Our patron, St. Matthias had an interesting role. Chosen by God through the apostles to replace Judas Iscariot. His calling as an apostle is unique in that it was not given by Jesus himself, but came after the death of Jesus, and there is no mention of him among the lists of disciples or followers of Jesus in the three synoptic Gospels. The tradition of the Greeks says that Matthias was what we would call a “church planter”, developing faith communities around Cappadocia and on the coast of the Caspian Sea.
The good news for today is that we are intended for sainthood, and this is where the path is taking us. I always like to quote Rabbi Joshua Ben Levi on this wonderful feast day who said, “As we go about our daily lives, we should imagine a procession of angels going before us proclaiming “Make Way for the Image of God”. This is who we are, this is who we all are: souls still on the journey, everyday saints living among us, and saints already enjoying eternal life with God.