Archbishop Johnson's Homily for All Saints' Day

In the next few days we will see (we hope!) the results in one of the most polarised elections in American history; angry, bitter, tendentious, shocking. The mood of the country is electric, as it is in the rest of the world, and we hold our breath.

The US elections, though, are only a sign of an increasing pattern in our world: deep and alienating polarisation that favours hard boundaries and stark differences over welcoming a spectrum of opinion and recognising mutual interests even in the face of diversity. We have witnessed increasingly shrill voices dominating conversations – indeed these are not conversations or even debates, but tribal sloganeering and propaganda – the divisions so entrenched that there is no recognisable common ground for civil discourse, moderate voices are silenced, the “other” is demonised and anathematised. There are only two factions: us or them; the righteous or the unrighteous; our truth or their lies. If “they” win, we “lose” everything. Those who work across those divisions, who work for mutual understanding, for reconciliation, are often branded as traitorous by the holders of the pure and undefiled truth. Alternative narratives must be excluded because diversity is deemed a threat. It is the politics of anger and the underlying fear that drives it.

The church is not immune. The fractures that threaten the life of our Anglican Communion over equal marriage, for instance, are only the most current manifestation of a neat and structured polarity that tries to define those who are “in” and acceptable, and those who are “out” and impure. Such forces have marred our life as Christians from the very beginning of the Church. “See how these Christians love one another” was not meant to be sarcastic!

The Feast of All Saints could easily be used to support that model – a celebration of the virtuous ones who have triumphed, the good over the evil, the saint over the sinner.

But if we allow that interpretation, we have missed the point of this day. It stands as a correction of such simple tribal dichotomies and a quiet counter-narrative challenging what is being wrought in our world.

Both St. John and St. Paul write that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and “If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us and we are liars.” Yet in writing to his fledgling local churches, St. Paul also insists on addressing his letters “to all the saints”– the ordinary people of God he has also called sinners. They are saints, too. In their conflicts and in their charity, in their doubts and in their hope, they are cherished by God.

I am not sure what you think of so-called “cancel culture” where statues of the famous, now infamous, have recently been torn down, or the names of buildings and streets rebranded because of historic offenses. I suspect there are varying sympathies in this parish to this that depend on the very different experiences that shape our perspectives. We need to listen carefully and openly to each other to discover from each other what we have yet to learn and unlearn, embrace and discard.

So when we come to All Saints Day, we need to be clear: There are no saints enrolled in the church’s calendar who are perfect, who are without shortcomings – sometimes quite grievous ones.

So do we pull down all our statues? Do we strike out of remembrance those we have revered when we discover their clay feet?

Or perhaps do we give up our call to aspire to a holy life as hopeless because we, like them, will surely fail?

I wonder if the point of All Saints is to remind us that the Christian life is dynamic – a determination in God’s grace to grow toward the life of virtue to which we are called – slow and stumbling as that growth might be, marked with plateaux and chasms as well as mountain top vistas. God is entirely capable of taking the ordinary stuff of our lives and transforming them by Christ’s redeeming work into vessels - vectors, more dynamically, of his glory.

I wonder if the point of All Saints is to remind us, modelled on the lives of the Saints, to trust ourselves, to the healing, reconciling, transfiguring power of God’s love that works deep within us to redeem us. Not only forming us into full maturity as an individual followers of Jesus but drawing us ever more deeply into relationship with others. And it is a vast company of which we are part, a company of God’s choosing not ours, which no one can number, of all races, tribes, nations and peoples united and gathered in a banquet where all find a place and all are fed. Oh dear! We are given a place at the table in the Kingdom by God’s invitation not our merit, and with those who might have viewed as “other”.

I wonder if the point of All Saints is about reclaiming the victory of that love and creative power over division and discord, over fear and hatred, over sin and death, so that we can proclaim with Paul, “I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, not depth, nor things present, nor things to come, nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8)

I wonder if All Saints might stir us to the cultivation of daily habits of thought and action – those habits of the heart and mind and body that we promise with God’s grace to practise when we make our baptismal vows: prayer, study, corporate worship, repentance, engagement with neighbour, care for creation, fostering a disposition of awe and wonder toward the world we encounter, so that slowly, in company with one another on the journey, we, too, are transformed into saints.

At the back of this church is a quote from Dom Gregory Dix’s magisterial treatise, The Shape of the Liturgy. The book is dated and recent scholarship has developed new understandings but there is deep truth at the heart of his text. Immediately following on that the quotation, he writes this:

“To those who know a little of Christian history probably the most moving of all reflections it brings is not the thought of the great events and the well-remembered saints, but of those innumerable millions of entirely obscure faithful men and women, every one with his or her own individual hopes and fears and joys and sorrows and loves – and sins and temptations and prayers ...They have left no slightest trace in this world, not even a name, but have passed to God utterly forgotten by men. Yet each once believed and prayed as I believe and pray, and found it hard and grew slack and sinned and repented and fell again. Each of them worshipped at the eucharist and found their thoughts wandering and tried again, and felt heavy and unresponsive and yet knew [God’s love]. There is a little ill-spelled ill-carved rustic epitaph of the fourth century from Asia Minor: “Here sleeps the blessed Chione, who has found Jerusalem for she prayed much’. Not another word is known of Chione... But how lovely if all that should survive after sixteen centuries were that one had prayed much, so that the neighbours who saw all one’s life were sure one must have found Jerusalem.” (The Shape of the Liturgy, pp. 744f.)

All Saints.

It is not by specific, individual name or extraordinary deed that we set apart All Saints for memorial but the ordinary, everyday, run-of-the -mill, still slightly flawed saints, the holy people of God, and yes including the ones sitting beside you or watching on another screen – whom we remember with thanksgiving and joy today – and we give thanks for them even as we make our commitment to be numbered in their blessed company.

Amen.

Homily, All Saints’, November 1, 2020

Church of St Mary Magdalene, Toronto

The Most Rev’d Colin R. Johnson