All Saints
1 November 2015
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
Over the centuries Jews and Christians have wrestled with
the following question: What is the fate
of righteous people who do not know or who do not affirm our religious
beliefs? Some Jews and Christians have
simply expressed ignorance and left everything to God. Others have taught that there is no salvation
outside the community of faith, whether Jewish or Christian.
Some Jewish teachers, unsatisfied with either of these
positions, have taught that God made three covenants with humanity: the covenant with Noah, the covenant with
Abraham and the covenant with Moses.
While Jews are obliged to keep the covenant God made with Moses,
non-Jews may be considered righteous if they are faithful to God’s covenant to
Noah.
- Do not deny God.
- Do not blaspheme against God.
- Do not murder.
- Do not engage in sexual immorality.
- Do not steal.
- Do not eat a live animal.
- Establish courts of law to establish justice.
Anyone who follows these
commandments has a place in the world to come.
For Christians the question about the place of
non-Christians in the world to come was already front and centre in apostolic
times. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he
writes, “When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the
law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is
written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and
their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when,
according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret
thoughts of all.” [i]
In more recent years, as Christians have become more engaged
in inter-faith dialogue, many contemporary theologians have tried to flesh out
Paul’s thoughts. Our own retired bishop,
Michael Ingham, wrote a book, Mansions of the Spirit, in which he described
three ways of understanding the relationship between different faiths: exclusivist, inclusivist and pluralist. But my favourite is a phrase from the
writings of Karl Rahner, a German Roman Catholic theologian. He wrote about ‘anonymous Christians’, people
who follow the way of Christ, whether they know it or not, whose lives manifest
the love and compassion of God and who are signs of God’s saving grace.
‘Anonymous Christians’. What a good way to describe the people whom we celebrate today on this feast
of All Saints. On this day the Christian
community throughout the world remember those who have followed the way of
Christ, whose lives have shone with the love and compassion of God and who have
embodied God’s saving grace. Some are
‘anonymous’ because we do not know their names.
Others are ‘anonymous’ because they did not make a name for themselves
that brought them to the attention of Christians beyond the limits of their own
communities.
For example, I do not think that any of you here knew
Eulalia Macy, a saint of Christ Episcopal Church, in Denver. But I knew her and I know her to be one of
God’s saints whose life transformed my own.
When you look to the west wall of the parish and see the plaques that
enshrine the names of those who are buried in our Memorial Garden, I know that
you will see the names of some saints who made you who you are. As we offer our intercessions, petitions and
thanksgivings in a few minutes, no doubt all of us will be remembering the
names and lives of people who were icons of Christ, beacons of the Spirit, the
embracing arms of our God.
In this place and in those like it all over the world, there
are ‘anonymous Christians’, not because their names are unknown, but because
their names are only known to a few. But
that anonymity does not mean they are unimportant nor that they have no influence. I am convinced that the work of God is most
probably undertaken by the ‘anonymous’.
Although we live in a ‘celebrity’ culture, where everyone is urged to
become someone else, preferably rich or beautiful by our culture’s standards or
just famous for being outrageous, I am convinced that the greatest influence on
human lives is exercised by the many quiet and unassuming people of faith who
will never be seen on Youtube or Twitter or any other media. And that, to me, is actually good news.
The good news of our celebration of All Saints is that the
work of God in creating, restoring and renewing the creation is not dependent
upon fame or fortune. God’s work is most
powerfully accomplished by teachers who care for their students, by parents,
relatives and significant adults who care for children, by employers who are
committed to bringing out the best in those who work under their
supervision. The good news of God in
Christ finds its voice not in the celebrity who draws attention to herself or
himself. That voice is found in the work
of volunteers who give of their time, their talents and their treasure to care
for those in any need or trouble.
Anonymity is a gift; it allows us to focus on what is most important
while avoiding the distractions of maintaining our ‘image’, our ‘brand’, our status.
On this day let us also remember all those who do not
identify themselves as members of our community of faith, but whose lives
embody the good news we know in Christ.
While some of our Christian sisters and brothers would not name them as
being one with us in the work of God, we who gather today in this place number
these righteous ones among those who are working for the world that is to come,
a day when all God’s people, all people, will be free.
So let’s hear it for the gift of anonymity, a gift that sets
us free to be God’s saints, God’s holy ones, for those among whom we work and
live. Let’s hear for all the
‘anonymous’, Christian and non-Christian, believers and non-believers, in whom
the good news of God in Christ has been lived.
For through them, the day is coming when “ . . . the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a
feast of rich food, a feast of well- aged wines, of rich food filled with
marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear [and] will destroy . . . the shroud
that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations [and]
swallow up death for ever.” [ii]
