November is the month of remembrance. On the first day of the month
we remember all the saints of the Christian Church, known and unknown.
And there's the first odd thing about all this. How can we remember
those who are unknown? Does that make any sense? Well, it makes at
least as much sense as the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. We remember
him, a victim of war, even though we do not know his name. We
remember our fellow saints, even though we know very few of them by
name.
And there's the second odd thing about all this. Even on All Saints
Day, or All Saints Sunday, when we are remembering all the saints
known and unknown, we still seem to need reminding each year that we
are included in their number. We are ourselves saints, in the
Biblical sense. Because in the Biblical sense "saints" simply means
"believers" – followers of Christ – or, more simply, Christians. It
was never intended to mark out the great giants of the faith, in the
way the term seems to be understood today. After all, even if we
think of saints as martyrs, we only know a very few by name –
thousands, perhaps even millions, of people whose names will never be
known to us have been martyred for the faith we share with them.
Today we remember them all.
So November, the month of remembrance, gets off to that important
step. Then, the very next day, we come to All Souls' Day, when we
remember the departed, those who, in the words of our Liturgy, "have
died in the faith of Christ". And those are wonderful words, aren't
they? People die in all sorts of circumstances, from the ghastly to
the peaceful. They die in infancy, they die in old age, they die at
every age in between. They die in hospital, hospice, home, or
wherever, surrounded by their family, or all alone. Some die by
accident, some are killed, some kill themselves. whatever the
particular circumstances may be, what should matter most to us is that
we die in the faith of Christ. All those who have done so, we
remember with thanksgiving on All Souls' Day.
There is another special day of remembrance in this month of
remembrance; on the second Sunday of the month, called Remembrance
Sunday, we commemorate the end of the First World War. It's an
opportunity for us to reflect on the evil of war, as well as to
remember the terrible wastage of young lives. Every Anzac Day we hear
that solemn promise, "We shall remember them". Those words are just
as apposite on Remembrance Sunday.
So this month has three special days of remembrance. But it also
shares with every other month a number of individual saints deemed by
the Church to be particularly worthy of being remembered. Every week
on the back of the pewsheet you will see the names to be remembered in
this way in the coming week. I wonder if you give them much thought;
perhaps you wonder why I bother. Isn't that all a bit too Anglican
(or, horror of horrors, Catholic!), too fuddy-duddy for today's taste?
Why do we remember the dead saints of the past? Isn't it enough to
pray for one another, to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ
around the world? Didn't Jesus himself say 'Let the dead bury the
dead?" Yes, he did; but aren't we shocked every time we're reminded
of that? Anyone who needs to be persuaded of the human desire to
remember the dead has never lost anyone dear to them. Ask a Jew why
it is important to remember the victims of the Holocaust; ask an
American why it is important to remember the victims of 9/11. We are
surrounded by evidence of that human need to remember the dead. Look
at our cenotaphs and our Honour Boards; look at our tombstones and our
In Memoriam notices. Over and over again we see the promise never to
forget.
In many cases, of course, these are family affairs, or the offerings
of close friends. Of course we will remember our own family members
and dearest friends, how could we not? But why do the Jews remember
all six million victims of the Holocaust; why do the Russians remember
the 20 million they lost in the war? Why do the Americans remember
the three thousand lost on 9/11? Because in each case those who
remember, and those they remember, are one people. They belong
together.
And there we have precisely the reason why we in the Church remember
the saints, past and present, great and small, known and unknown. We
remember them because they are our people, they belong to us and we to
them, we belong together. Together we are the Communion of Saints,
the believers of every age including the present, living and departed.
And there is the extra reason we have for remembering our own. They
are with us yet and ever more shall be. Though they have died, yet
they are alive in Christ, as we are alive in Christ. That is what we
mean when, in the Apostles Creed, we affirm that we believe "in the
communion of saints". The living and the departed held together in
God's single loving embrace. That's the wonderful vision of the
future that our Christian faith holds before us.
And more wonderful still, it is the vision that God has had from the
very beginning, indeed, even before time began. Surely one of the
most mesmerising passages in the whole of Scripture is the first
chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians, from which our second lesson
is taken this morning. Many scholars insist that St Paul did not
write this letter; but whoever wrote it we see that same extraordinary
breadth of vision that St Paul displayed in some of the other letters,
In a nutshell the author summarises God's purpose in creating and
sustaining and guiding all things to the end he has always had in
mind. God created all things out of nothing to be his Significant
Other, to love and to be loved by. But the essential element of love
is freedom; love cannot be compelled, it must be freely given. And so
God created humankind free to love him or reject him, and ever since
has been wooing us with his love for us. The path of true love has
not run smooth, but it is still running. Through the ages men and
women have heard that loving call and have responded; and as they have
done so they have come to share in the very life of God, the life that
St John has taught us to call eternal life. The life that death
cannot overcome.
And so all those who, over the millennia, have entered into that life,
even though they have died, yet are they living still, and we with
them in the great communion of saints. That is the gist of this
glorious first chapter of the epistle. Just listen to some of those
phrases again: blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual
blessing…chose us in him before the creation of the world…predestined
us to be adopted as his children through Jesus Christ……the riches of
God's grace that he lavished on us…to bring all things in heaven and
on earth together under one head, even Christ…the riches of the
glorious inheritance in the saints…far above all rule and authority,
power and dominion…On and on it flows to this great climax: And God
placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be the head over
everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who
fills everything in every way.
That's the Christian vision of the new age, which began to break in
with the resurrection of Christ. Compared to that vision all else
falls away. Daniel saw four great fierce kingdoms, but what are they
compared to the Kingdom of God? Even stranger visions are to be found
in our In Memoriam columns sometimes. Visions of Grandma twinkling as
a new star in the night sky; or good old Rex riding his Harley
Davidson around the heavens, or catching trout, or having a beer. But
what are they compared to the vision set before us by the teaching of
our faith?
Today, All Saints' Sunday, we remember with thanksgiving our fellow
saints, living and departed, as we pray for a strengthening of our
confidence in the vision we share, summed up in the last verse of our
great opening hymn:
From earth's wide bounds,
from ocean's farthest coast,
through gates of pearl
streams in the countless host,
singing to the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost.
Alleluia, alleluia! Amen.
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