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Sermon for All Saints Day – November 1, 2009
It’s comforting to know that, no matter what circumstances we may find ourselves in, there is always someone who knows what we are going through; someone who can not only sympathize with us but can also assist us. We may never see them or even know who they are, but they surround us, like a cloud. They are available any time; all we need to do is ask.
Afraid you might oversleep and miss church or be late for work? Send up a shout to St. Vitus. The story goes that Vitus was a Sicilian who was converted from paganism to Christianity by his tutor and his nurse at the age of 12. Because of this, Vitus’s father had the three arrested and whipped at the stake.
Angels freed them from prison and they fled to Rome where Vitus exorcised the devil from the emperor’s son. Because Vitus refused to give thanks to the pagan gods for the devil’s departure, Vitus was tortured and condemned to death and thrown to the lions.
The lions refused to touch Vitus so he and a rooster – part of the pagan ritual - were thrown into boiling oil. Because of the rooster’s early morning crowing, Vitus became known as the patron saint against oversleeping. His feast day, by the way, is June 15. Make sure you’re up in time.
Worried that bad weather might ruin your Sunday afternoon outing? There’s always St. Medard. Born into French nobility in the 5th century, Medard was known as a pious and excellent student. Ordained at 33, he became a missionary bishop and, using his personal wealth, established a scholarship fund.
While still a youth, Medard gave one of his father’s finest horses to a peasant who had lost his. Immediately afterward, rain started to downpour and while everyone else got drenched, an eagle spread its wings over Medard and he remained dry. Ever afterwards, he has been known as the patron saint against bad weather.
The list goes on and on; patron saints for dogs, for difficult marriages, for misbehaving children, for lost keys, for waitresses; for everything you can think of and some things you can’t.
Everywhere we look, the cloud coverage is thick with heavenly assistants of all kinds. Got a stomach ache? St. Erasmus can help you there. Another martyr, Erasmus reportedly at one time had hot iron hooks stuck into his intestines by the Romans and managed, for a while to survive. Ever since then he has been known as the patron saint against stomach pain and colic.
Interestingly, sailors in distress also turn to Erasmus, whom they know as St. Elmo. According to legend, when a blue light appears at a masthead before or after a storm, it is known as “St. Elmo’s Fire,” and the electrical current is seen as a sign of his protection.
Again, there are scores and scores of recognized saints in the Western and Eastern Christian Churches, over 10,000 by last count; nobody can say for sure because there is some dispute about whether some of these people really existed or, if they did, if the stories about them can be credited.
Legends of the saints abound, some obscure, as in the case of Vitus and Medard, while others have become part of a peoples’ consciousness, as in the case of St. Patrick and St. George. What Patrick is to the Irish, George is to the English, national patrons. In folklore one is credited with driving out snakes, the other with slaying a dragon, both symbols of evil.
Here is one version, among many, of the story of St. George and the dragon. Despite their differences in detail, the tales all center on a knight, a monster and a maiden.
A terrible dragon had ravaged all the country around the city of Selena in Libya, making its home in a marshy swamp. Its breath caused pestilence whenever it approached the town, so the people gave the monster two sheep every day to satisfy its hunger, but, when the sheep failed, a human victim was necessary and lots were drawn to determine the next victim. On one occasion the lot fell to the king’s daughter. The king offered all his wealth to purchase a substitute, but the people had pledged themselves that no substitutes were allowed, so the maiden, dressed as a bride was led to the marsh.
There St. George happened to be riding by and, ignoring the young lady’s pleas that he should leave her “lest he also might perish,” he stayed where he was. When the dragon appeared, the good knight, making the sign of the cross, bravely attacked it and transfixed it with his lance. Then, asking the maiden for her girdle, he wrapped it around the neck of the monster and the princess was able to lead it like a lamb back into the city.
There, St. George told the people to have no fear but only be baptized, after which he cut off the dragon’s head and the townsfolk were all converted. The grateful king offered to give George half his kingdom but the saint replied that he must ride on, telling the king to take good care of God’s churches, honor the clergy, and have pity on the poor.
Early in the eighth century the deeds of St. George were made known in Britain, although the story of the dragon cannot be traced any further back than the 12th century. His acts were recounted in the old Anglo-Saxon language and English churches were dedicated to him before the Norman Conquest. The Crusades boosted his popularity and stories were told of him assisting the knights in battle. Over time his sign – a red cross on a white field – became part of the uniform for English soldiers and sailors.
King Richard II, who ruled from 1367 to 1400, ordered his invading army of Scotland to wear “a sign of the arms of St. George” both before and behind, while the pain of death was threatened against any of the enemy’s soldiers “who do bear the same cross of St. George, even if they be prisoners.” Besides, the Scots had their own protector: St. Andrew. Today, of course, both St. George’s and St. Andrew’s crosses are part of the Union Jack.
Now, hearing all these tales of brave knights, fierce monsters, damsels in distress, natural miracles and people suffering all sorts of unpleasant bodily injuries, we may justly wonder what we have to do to be considered a saint. In the old days – and I mean the real old days, the first 300 years of the church’s history – it was easy; a saint was anyone who was killed for the sake of Christ. These were the martyrs of the church, typically done in by lions or burning at the stake or being boiled in oil.
Over time, some say partly in an effort to cut down on the number of people eagerly seeking martyrdom, the Church developed the process of canonization, officially declaring some people especially holy and especially close to God. In medieval Catholicism, praying to the saints who would intercede for you was an important part of the religious life.
With the Protestant Reformation the idea that no intermediaries were required between God and human kind was born. Luther said that you don’t need to get some saint to pray for you; you can petition God all by yourself. He also said that, “all believers in Jesus Christ, both those living on earth and those living in heaven” are to be deemed saints. The Church, Luther wrote, “is the congregation of the saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.” Luther also regarded Christians in heaven as saints and was even willing to honor those that the Roman Catholic Church regarded as saints but in a qualified way.
Deriving his teachings from Scripture, Luther’s ideas inform ours today. “Just as we should not deny that we are baptized and are Christians,” he wrote, “so we should not deny or doubt that we are holy.” In other words, that we are saints, holy in God’s sight.
Luther uses the term “we” deliberately, I think. In the Bible the word translated “saint” is always in the plural, never in the singular, as in this from Psalm 16: “As for the saints in the land, they are excellent in God’s sight. God’s greatest pleasure is to be with them.” Or this from Psalm 30: “Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.”
St. Paul addressed his letter to the Ephesians this way: “To the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus,” and he asks in nearly all his letters that greetings be conveyed to the saints; that is to his fellow believers.
In Greek the word Paul uses is “hagios,” which means holy, and the word “holy” means to set apart. That would be us; not through our own doing, but through God’s. Saints, you see, are not just those who have led virtuous lives; saints are anyone who has come into contact with God as we do when we hear the word and take the sacraments; as we do when we care for the poor and the brokenhearted. God’s holiness becomes our holiness.
St. Peter told the early believers: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Mighty acts like the calling of Lazarus, whose name means “God helps.” Dead four days – long enough for his soul to have left the body in the ancient teachings – Jesus brings him from the darkness of the tomb to the light of a brand new day. Dead, Lazarus could do nothing for himself; only receive the new life God gave him. Our life, our holiness, indeed our sainthood all comes from God.
There is a St. Lazarus, too, regarded as the patron of the poor and the sick. Like most of the other saints, legends about him abound but the historical record is thin to say the least. Perhaps that’s as it should be; perhaps Lazarus is meant to be all of us, touched by God; called out of darkness into marvelous light.
Not all of us oversleep, not all of us worry about the weather, and not all of us are plagued by stomach aches - at least not all the time. And no one here, to my knowledge anyway, has slain a dragon and rescued a maiden, although some of you could be holding out on me.
But I venture to say that at one time or another all of us have felt like Lazarus - separated from God - cut off – consigned to a psychic or spiritual tomb seems to bear our name. All of us have had times in which we know God has grieved over us, as Jesus does today in what is not, as is popularly believed, the shortest verse in the Bible. Sometimes translated as “Jesus wept,” this phrase, in Greek, contains three words and 14 letters. I Thessalonians 5:16 has only two words and 14 letters. Do you know what that verse says? It says, “Rejoice always.”
We go from “Jesus wept” to “rejoice always;” from grief to glory; that’s the story of the saints, that’s the story of our lives, only we tend to go back and forth. Yes, we remember and we weep for and pray for all those saints dear to us who have gone before us and become part of that great cloud of witnesses; Jesus wept for them; we can too. And after we do that, we can rejoice that the same Jesus who weeps for us also calls to us in the solitary darkness that we may rise and walk with him among all the saints in light.