May I speak in the Name of God who is: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
For those of you who have ever had an indoor-outdoor cat or dog, it can sometimes be a challenge in the morning, or any other time of day for that matter, giving your animal friend the opportunity to go out or to stay in. There is the sniffing of the air, the tentative testing of the temperature or precipitation, and having to make up one’s mind if going outside was really the desire, after all. Over the years with our feline companions, Bob and I came to recognize this routine.
In these indecisive feline moments, depending on the kind of mood we were in, or if it was a winter morning with cold air blowing on our bare feet, and if we were unsuccessful in verbal coaxing, we had to make the decision for them: they were either nudged out the door or pulled back in to stay inside. Thus, Bob and I were not only primary care-givers: providers of meals and treats, and attention, affection, and love; but we were our cats’ doorkeepers. We ultimately determined when they would go out and when they would come in.
In a similar way, some of us are regularly going to the door and pushing some people out and inviting others in. We determine that certain people belong inside with us and others don’t. We do it as individuals; we do it as churches; we do it as communities. We divide people into friends or foes, saints or sinners, attractive or unappealing. We are doorkeepers, not only for our animal companions, but for people as well.
Yet in order to follow Jesus and hearken to His words specifically conveyed in the Beatitudes from today’s Gospel lesson, we must be willing to give up our self-appointed role as doorkeepers. What He is basically saying is that everyone who is in will be out and everyone who is out will be in. Jesus has taken the door off its hinges. The two distinct groups, the “haves” and the have-nots,” will be constantly changing places with each other until they become indistinguishable.
If the question is asked, “What is it exactly that you want out of life?” most people in our society would probably respond that they want to be rich, they want to have plenty to eat, they want to be happy, and they want others to admire them (usually because they are better looking, have a better body, or are more charming, talented, intelligent, or successful). If those are the things you also want out of life, then today’s Gospel should come as a terrible shock to you! Jesus says in no uncertain terms that it is the poor, the hungry, the sad, the rejected who are blessed. So, what you want out of life makes a difference when it comes to whether you are blessed or not.
In the original Greek of the New Testament, the word we translate as “blessed” is makarios. It had a variety of connotations, but in all its meanings, the blessed ones clearly existed on a higher plane the rest of the people: they were either gods, or they were humans who had gone to that other world of the gods; or they were the “upper crust” of society; or they were those whose supposed righteousness brought them many possessions. But Jesus uses makarios in a totally different way. It is not the elite, the rich and powerful, the high and mighty, the beautiful and buff, the possessors of many things who are blessed, though it may appear so by the world’s standards… Rather, it is the lowly, the poor, the hungry, the sobbing, the unattractive ones looked down on… who are the truly blessed.
Sadly, many really don’t want to hear this, because they’ve created a set of values which command their energies and desires, like insatiable addictions. Admittedly, it’s hard to contradict the values of the society and culture in which we live; where our role models are those celebrities and pro-athletes who seem to have attained all the “blessedness” one would ever hope to have in life; no matter how transitory or how many of the famous, mighty, and wealthy constantly fall off their pedestals. But the fact is, Jesus so strongly declares, that when you let the world call the shots for you, offering you the final word about the meaning and significance in life, you will not be blessed and will instead be relegated to hopelessness and despair.
Today is All Saints’ Sunday, when we as Christians celebrate a different set of celebrities and role-models, who lived by a different set of standards than those promoted by common notions of popularity and success. In the New Testament “saint” (small “s”) is a term used for all faithful believers. In many languages the word for saint and for holy are the same, or very similar (like in Spanish, for instance – “santo”); clearly indicating that all Christians are holy by virtue of their baptism.
The marvel is that we imperfect, deeply flawed human beings can be called by God, who alone is holy. And given the fact that in Jesus the world’s values are turned topsy-turvy; the role models we are given as His followers don’t drive the fastest most expensive cars, live in lavish homes, have the biggest bust or biceps, and command the most prestige. Confronting this “all about me” lifestyle are those new role models, the makarios, the blessed ones Jesus refers to; they are our new role models, the Saints. They exemplify the perfect stewardship to which God calls all of us.
The late noted Episcopal theologian, William Stringfellow described the Saints as “those men and women who relish the event of life as a gift and who realize that the only way to honor such a gift is to give it away.” The Church Catholic has declared these wonderful folk as bright examples for us in something that is really quite simple: namely, a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ, a faith that issued forth in actions, more often than not leading to their deaths, frequently under painful circumstances.
These are not remote inapproachable people; these are people like you and me who chose to do the right thing at the right time in a multitude of situations and cultures across the globe spanning the ages… they did not choose the easy way, they chose the right way… They are the ones recognized through their example by the Church on the date of their death (which is really their date of birth to the glorious life in heaven), a specially dedicated annual remembrance to them, their Feast Day, a practice going back to the Christian victims of the pagan Roman persecutions in the earliest days of Church.
On All Saint’s, we remember all of them collectively as that great company of saints which surrounds us like a cloud of witnesses, so beautifully portrayed in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown LA, on the tapestries which line the nave, with Saints from the ages facing in procession toward the high altar. Because we Christians believe in the eternal life offered us by our Lord’s Resurrection, we know that the Saints continue to live and exercise even more compassion and care in their new heavenly existence. Just as we freely ask for prayers from our close friends, parish, and loved ones, so too we ask the prayers of the Saints…the intercessions of the Holy Ones is nothing different than asking someone you love and who loves you, to pray for you.
And so we celebrate the Blessed Ones today… all the Saints on earth and all the Saints in heaven, with all the Saints who have gone before us and all the Saints who will come after us. We rejoice this day in the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. We rejoice that the “doorkeeper” of souls is Jesus Christ our Lord, who pronounces true “blessedness.” We rejoice in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for having called us into God’s blessing and for having given us a totally new way of looking at life… a way which turns out, to be the only way there truly is.
Amen.
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