All Saints Sunday November 6, 2011
This will be brief because we have had reports from Diocesan Convention. This year, our Convention theme was, “I Love to Tell the Story.” We have a great story to tell, a story of God’s love for us and how that love is shown in the life and ministry of Jesus.
All Saints is a great feast, a time when we celebrate our Capital S Saints, such as St. Paul and St. Michael the Archangel, and St. Mary, the mother of Jesus and St. Hilda of Whitby, an abbess who ran a monastery for moth men and women and advised kings and prelates.
Last week, we shared some of the story of Austin Schildwachter, Priscilla’s Dad, who touched the lives of so many. He is what I call a small s saint. These are the people we meet in shops or in trains or in homes for troubled kids or helping people to gain accessibility to buildings, doing community organizing to help folks to avoid the suffering of addiction, providing health care, helping people recover from addiction, painting beautiful pictures , building things, playing the organ, the list goes on and on.
The Communion of Saints is a living and active organism composed of those who have gone before us, those who are here on earth, and those yet to come. It’s the Body of Christ extended over all time. Those who have gone before are cheering us on, encouraging us to run the race with the vigor provided by God’s grace. And we prepare the way for those who will follow us in living the Christ-life.
The collect and prayers and hymns say it all. We are part of a glorious company of wonderful, faithful people. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Christ is alive, and we are all alive in him.
May we rejoice in the fellowship of the saints; may we run the race with great endurance; may we, together with them, receive the crown of glory that never fades away.
Amen.
Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: All Saints Sunday |
Grace Episcopal Church (Sheldon, VT) 