All Saints Sunday (The Sunday Before Election Day)

November 5, 2024

Showing Up as The Saints of God

O may thy soldiers faithful, true, and bold, fight as the saints who nobly fought of old. And win with them the victor’s crown of God, Alleluia, Alleluia. 

Today is All Saints Sunday, a day when we remember the Saints of the faith. This leads to the obvious question: What makes someone a Saint, in case you were wondering? 

That’s a good question; it depends greatly on your location. 

In the Roman Catholic Church, there is a detailed and lengthy process for making someone a Saint, which includes proving that the faithful dead have caused miracles to occur—unless the person is a martyr and died for the faith, then you get right in. 

In the Episcopal Church, we don’t really make Saints anymore in the traditional sense. We recognize the historic Saints of the church, St. Peter, St. Paul, etc., but we don’t make new Saints as you likely think. Several Protestant denominations still recognize these historic saints. For example, it’s not totally uncommon to find a St. John’s Baptist Church. 

We do have a book in the Episcopal Church—a book of people whose lives are worthy of the calling of Christ. We tend to call these people Saints, but we don’t mean it in the traditional sense. It wasn't until this summer, at the Church’s General Convention, that some guidelines for being in the book were established. There are roughly 300 people in this book. Some generally accepted aspects of the type of character make one a saint: self-sacrifice, witness to the Gospel, virtuous living, and accomplishments. 

But perhaps this is the message of today: you don’t need to be in the book to be a Saint. 

I mean, if you’re going to have a book, I suppose there ought to be some criteria for what gets you into the book, but the truth is found in that old hymn that most Episcopalians learned in Sunday school, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.” You remember how it goes right: 

You can meet them 

in school, 

or in lanes, 

or at sea, 

in church, 

or in trains 

or in shops 

or at tea. 

The Saints of God 

are just folk like me, 

and I mean to be one too.” 

I just happened across two books recently—two books with similar themes. 

“The Small and the Mighty” by a history professor and prolific writer, Sharon McMahon. She tells the story of 12 unsung heroes of America whose lives made a profound difference but are not in any popular books. 

Did you know, for example, that it wasn’t Jefferson, Adam, Madison, or any of the recognizable names that wrote the famous preamble: "We the People, in order to form a more perfect union…." No! It was a man by the name of Governor Morris. 

How about Virginia Randolph, an African American woman who, in the early 1900s, started a school in Henrico County, VA? She saved her own money, bought the school, bought all the land around it, and gave it back to the county even though the county leaders wouldn’t pay her for services. Her fellow African Americans chastised her for teaching the students skills perceived to only further their servitude, farming, sewing, and cleaning. And she was questioned by the white community, who didn’t even believe that black kids needed schooling. She put aside all the criticisms and moved forward with her goal of educating students because she knew that if she could get all children to read, write, and settle their own accounts, they would be set up not merely for success but for opportunity their forbearers never knew. Her school still exists today, and she is responsible for the education of thousands upon thousands. 

You don’t need to be in the book. 

Then, kind of at the same time, I was introduced to the work of St. Theresa of Liseaux. I’m not particularly studied in the life of the Saints, but St. Theresa of Liseaux sticks out because her claim to fame, if you will, is how God is in the small things of life and how the small actions of life make a difference. 

Here’s some of what she says:

”You know well enough that our lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their ridicules, but at the love with thrice we do them.” 

“If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.”

”Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, a smile here, a kind word there, always doing the smallest right, and doing it all for love.” 

Theresa sincerely believed that small acts are as powerful and Saintly as large and public ones. 

I guess Theresa is in the book but not the most popular one. 

If you’re wondering why this kind of “Sunday School” All Saints homily today, I’m not sure, except maybe because I feel the weight of Tuesday being election day—no small matter. 

I do believe that our small part in any election makes a difference. But even more, I guess I believe that God is interested in how we show up in life, including how we will show up after the election. 

Will you show up as a follower of Jesus?

If your candidate wins, will you show up with pride and arrogance or with humility? 

If your candidate loses, will you show up with anger and disdain, or will you take a deep breath and realize that there is still work to do, that all your acts for good are still needed, and that they still make a difference? 

If you have been a bit “ho-hum” about the candidates, will you check out, or will you resolve to engage and make a difference for good with the gifts you have been given?

Saints—and that is how the scripture addresses the people, Saints. The truth is that in our reformed tradition, our understanding of sainthood is that in Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have already been made saints.

We are the saints of God.

The only question is if we will show up as God’s saints and remember that you don’t have to make it into the book to make a difference.