Ecclesiasticus 2:1-11

Psalm 149:1-4

Ephesians 1:11-23

LUKE 6:20-36

“AIM HIGH”

Most of the year, we reflect on the implications of the Bible and especially of Christ’s life and teaching on how we are to live our lives here and now. Part of the year – especially the three weeks just ahead of us – we focus on the ultimate event of history, the return of Christ in glory to judge the living and the dead and to usher in the Kingdom of God.

But on All Saints’ Sunday we think about Heaven and the new life after this life granted by God to all those who are saved by God by grace through faith.

Death is humanity’s oldest and most compelling mystery. For thousands of years, human beings have ritually buried their dead in ways that convey their belief in some sort of after-life, though there are some people who deny that and people who espouse a wide spectrum of beliefs about What Comes Next.

First, let’s be clear about what Christians do not believe. Christianity teaches that all people are made in the image of God and that all are unique, and that if they are granted life after death by God they exist as themselves. Christianity does not, in other words, believe in reincarnation or that when people die they “merge with the ultimate” the way a drop of water joins the ocean. No, people are unique and distinct and are known by God as unique and distinct individuals.

Second, God is in charge of life. There is nothing in us which is invulnerable, immortal, indestructible. We are indeed fragile as well as vital creatures. I have been at the side of enough people as they take their last breaths to be forever aware of our mortality as human beings. If someone is granted new life in Heaven it is by God’s grace and loving gift, not because human beings are, in essence, immortal. Only God is immortal. And it was Christ who proclaimed to Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus, “I am resurrection and I am life.”

Those wonderful words, which start every Episcopal funeral, are words of glorious hope, for we, as Christians, have hope. The most depressing worship service I have ever been to was a Unitarian funeral, done for the husband of a parishioner at my previous church. The minister eulogized the man as a loving family man who had served his community and that now he was dead and that’s it. Story over. Time to read some poetry and then adjourn for tea and cookies in the parish house, after inviting anyone to say the Lord’s Prayer and the 23^rd Psalm who happened to know them (at the request of the Episcopalian widow).

That’s not all there is to anyone’s story, the Christian faith proclaims. God’s love and power go beyond this life, opening a chance for new life which is wonderful, literally beyond our imaginings.

Let me also mention how the Episcopal Church’s teaching differs from that of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. Jesus talked about Heaven and Hell; he never said a word about “Purgatory” or “Limbo.” Therefore, neither of the latter medieval ideas are part of the Episcopal faith.

Heaven, “defined” in our Catechism as “eternal life in our enjoyment of God,” and Hell, defined as “eternal death in our rejection of God,” are part of Episcopal faith. We are not, therefore, “Universalists,” people who think that God will save absolutely everybody. No. Bliss is not compulsory. There are some people who seem to have been determined to resist receiving or spreading God’s love at all costs. Some of them, indeed, seem to have been determined to make life “hellish” for others. We do not know definitively who God has sent or will send to Hell, so no mortal should presume to know for sure, but we do know Hell exists.

As does Heaven. It is, as our magnificent final hymn [at the 10:30 service] reminds us, not the ultimate “glorious day,” which will be the resurrection of all the saved when Christ returns to transform the entire Creation into the Kingdom of God, but Heaven is the place those saved by God experience God’s love between the times of their individual deaths and the time of the return of Christ in glory.

We remember the dead in our prayers, then, not (as people in the middle ages did) because we think we need to pray for them but, as the Catechism says, “because we still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God’s presence those who have chosen to serve him will grow in his love, until they see him as he is.”

Heaven, then, is not a static existence, nor (despite Hollywood’s best efforts to portray it thus) is it a boring existence. Is God’s love static? Is inexpressible joy boring? Come on!

So if this hope for rank-and-file Christians is what we’re thinking about today, what exactly is “All Saints’ Day,” and how should today’s Scriptures impact our lives here and now?

All Saints’ Day is the day we remember all the “Saints” in the sense the word is used in today’s Epistle, the passage from the Letter to the Ephesians: all the faithful in Christ. Not just the “Hall of Famers” like the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Barnabas and all the rest, who are famous and have their individual Saints’ Days in the church’s calendar. On All Saints’ Day we remember “the vast multitude which no one can number” stretching back from our own lifetimes to those who sat at the feet of Christ himself who, in ways large and small, well known and unknown, expressed and lived out their faith as Christians.

It is likely that people none of us have ever heard of are highly honored in Heaven, because the greatest and most noble deeds are not necessarily the most famous, and the only “scorecard” which ultimately counts is God’s. But simply to the there is honor enough. My point is that it’s not just those famous to us who are honored: God recognized all persons of faith and love, flawed though we all are, who seek and receive God’s mercy and experience his glorious grace.

How then shall we live now? That is the question. And the answer is found in the Gospel passages assigned for All Saints’ Day, the Beatitudes and excerpt from the “Sermon on the Mount” from St. Matthew or, what we read today, the Beatitudes and similar excerpt from St. Luke.

The minimum response expected of Christians is embodied in the Golden Rule, included in these Gospels: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Short, simple, easy to memorize, and often hard. Especially when we think of the people we’d like to do something to before they get a chance to do something to us. But – the Golden Rule is just for starters, just for “Rookie League” Christians, hard as it is.

The Sermon on the Mount contains some of the hardest and most “wildly impractical” commandments ever put on paper. “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you”? “Rejoice when you are persecuted for Christ’s sake”? “Be merciful, just as your father is merciful”? Wow.

What, are we supposed to act as though we’re living in Heaven while still mired in this sinful earth? Bingo. Our opportunity and challenge – and I do mean challenge – as Christians “here below” is to make this world a little more heavenly by our own words and deeds.

“Practical” advice? Of course not. “Pragmatic”? Not in the least. Behavior which will advance our careers and enhance our wealth and power? Hardly.

People trying to make the world a little more heavenly don’t much worry about enhancing their own prestige, wealth and power, or about choosing the most hard-nosed, practical course of action. They focus on the best course of action.

People who are trying to make the world a little more heavenly don’t try to emulate this week’s prominent tycoon, rock star or politician. They try to emulate Jesus Christ, who always had time for people – especially the unpopular, the outcast, the troubled, the crippled, the powerless, and sinners – and who shared abundantly of his love and power with them, and who even forgave those who crucified him.

Tough act to follow? Of course. But following Christ is what being one of his saints is all about – even when we stumble, get lost, get “full of ourselves,” go backwards, get confused, and then pick ourselves up and go forward, keeping our eyes on Jesus.

So do we have a two-word motto for those who seek to follow Christ and make the world more heavenly, while looking ahead hopefully to Heaven? Certainly.

“AIM HIGH.”

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church