1st Sunday after Pentecost; All Saints

With the feast! Tomorrow starts the Apostles fast and lasts until June 29, 4 weeks this year, so do enjoy some feasting today. Look around at all the saints on the Icons around us. This is All Saints Sunday. We have been celebrating All Saints Sunday since it was first instituted in 731 by Gregory 3rd; pope of Rome as a reaction to the Iconoclastic decree issued by Emperor Leo 3. What a comfort to be joined to our Church with such true eternally established stability and continuity.

Through much suffering and struggle, the Church has passed the fullness of the Orthodox faith on to every succeeding generation, until today when it has been passed down to us to guard and keep intact and pass on to the next generation. This is our sacred duty and it is important that we understand the faith, so we can pass it on unaltered. When I was ordained I asked Bishop Irénée what advice he would give me. He immediately replied, “Don’t make stuff up.” As we celebrate All saints Sunday, let us pray that we would be faithful to preserve and pass along the fullness and undefiled faith that all the saints held and continue to hold in common.

Today we remember and ask for help from those saints gone before us, those who have successfully travelled the road leading to Christ and the kingdom of God and are calling out for us to join them There are millions of these saints – a great cloud of witnesses, as Paul says in his epistle today. I read a fraction of the complete list we commemorate each day at the dismissal at the end of our Liturgy, asking for their prayers, so you get a small idea of just how much support we have available to us. Every century has their champions, wonderworkers and martyrs. The Apostles and most blessed Theotokos, and the millions of saints who have followed. Polycarp, Ignatius, Melito, Clement, Irenaeus, Anthony, Athanasius, Nicolas, Basil, John Chrysostom and all the other Johns, Gregory the great and all the other  Gregory’s – the illuminator, Palmas, the Cappadocian… Katherine, Barbara, Pareskeva, the Celtic saints, our own Aidan, Cuthbert, Columba, Bridget, Brenden, Patrick, Symeon, Cyril and Methodius, Vladimir, Anthony and Theodosius, Sergius of Radonezh, Seraphim of Sarov, Nectarios, Silouan, Sophrony, Porphyrios, Elizabeth, Xenia and Matrona, all the North American saints, Herman of Alaska, Peter the Aleut, Tikhon, Innocent, John of San Francisco, Nikolai Velimirovic, Blessed Olga, and I have probably left off most of your patron saints.

We often tend to look at the saints in awe, like we are spectators in the stands watching professional athletes who have trained and performed and are at the top of their game. The saints are greatly varied in their talents and giftings but they all have one thing in common – they intensely focused on the object of their quest – being united with Christ – “the author and finisher of our faith.” They understood why they were here for their short tour of duty on this planet and let nothing distract them from their purpose. We look on in admiration and are inspired.

But notice that we have this completely reversed. We are the ones in the arena. They the saints are the spectators, cheering us on. In today’s epistle Paul says “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race which is set before us.” We are running the race, they have finished their race. Now is our time! It is up to us to take seriously this race we run in front of God and all of heaven, with the huge crowd of angels and saints cheering us on, doing all they can to help and encourage us; and with the devil and the demons who are booing and cursing and doing all they can to discourage us, attempting to cause us to lose heart and abandon the race. It is our race we run. No-one else can run it for us. The effort we put in now will pay rewards that multiply beyond all time. The prize we run towards, that awaits us at our death, at the finish line is life abundant, eternal, beyond our most glorious imagining; communing with the Creator of all that exists and taking our place with our true and loving family for all of eternity. We run and fight until we die.

Yes, death brings life; and living for our pleasures and passions – getting the most out of life as the world puts it, brings death. (Matt. 16:25) “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Paul says (Phil. 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Orthodoxy is paradoxy. We don’t get to graduate, to truly live, to see clearly face to face until we die. This is why we hear St. Paul repeating the scripture from the book of Hosea and saying, (1 Cor. 15:55) “O death, where is your sting? O Hades where is your victory?” Through Christ’s passion, for us who are sealed in Christ in the Church, death has been transformed from that which we dread and fear into our birth into the kingdom of God and our becoming truly and fully human. It is graduation day. This is why we venerate the saints on their real birthday’s –  the day of their death.

We have a very early and most precious martyred saint, Ignatius of Antioch. He left us several letters, written to seven different Churches as he awaited his martyrdom in the colosseum in Rome around 110 AD. In the letter to the Romans, to those who were in the city of Rome with him, he begs them not to interfere or give him bad advice regarding his upcoming martyrdom for his beloved Christ. Listen to the paradoxical way he reverses our understanding of the terms death and life. (Ignatius to the Romans 6) “…The birth pangs are upon me. Forgive me brethren; do not obstruct my coming to life – do not wish me to die; (in other words do not try to keep him alive in the body) do not make a gift to the world of one who want’s to be God’s. Beware of seducing me with matter; suffer me to receive pure light. Once arrived there, I shall be a man.” You see he sees his death as his birth and the completion of him becoming truly human.

What is the great chore, the huge sacrifice we must make, in order to receive such a precious and wonderous treasure? What is it we must do to join with the millions of saints who have gone before us, who have finished their race and reached the blessed kingdom and claimed the priceless prize? We must reach out to (Heb. 12:2) “Jesus, the author, the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” We must give to Him our entire life, always being willing to follow Him in all. In other words, we must first wake up to our true broken condition and then repent and be filled with God’s love for all; crying out to our Saviour, His Mother and all the saints for help in seeing where life dwells, and where death lurks; asking for the strength and sanity to choose life, not death through being filled with the love of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

We really don’t know very much about pure love. Self emptying, dying to self, real love that isn’t a fleeting feeling, but a continuous ever present sacrificial reality. Christ demonstrated true love for us on the cross as He laid down His life, for the life of the world. He then tells us we too must take up our cross if we wish to follow Him. We too must die to live. This started, and in an eternal sense was sealed at our baptism. When we were submerged in the waters of baptism it was unto death and when we arose from the waters it was unto eternal life. We are born into this world to die – every one of us, and we die in this world to live. In an instant in the twinkling of an eye we are changed.

True love is demonstrated in our actions, not our feelings. Once we allow Christ to start to penetrate our stony hearts, by throwing ourselves into His arms, His love can start to flow through us. To our spouses, and children and parents, our brothers and sisters, and even to those who are so lost and wounded that they despise and use us – our enemies – as the scripture calls them. Of course, our real enemies are really only the demons, who truly despise all of us pathetic, frail, human creatures, because God has placed the very spark of His divinity within us and enabled us to become sons of God. They feel He made a ridiculously poor decision in doing this and have rebelled ever since. They are constantly trying to show God what a mistake He made, by attempting to influence us to behave quite contrary to the potential for divinity that God has given each one of us. They then point and tattle “look what he did” with great satisfaction. This is why they are called “the accuser of the brethren.”

Rather than trying to fight and struggle and argue with these enemies when they attempt to try to influence us, we are far better off to simply turn and run to Christ. Don’t engage the attacking thoughts, don’t mentally debate with them, just turn your back to them and flee to Christ. As soon as we realize we have once again allowed ourselves to get sucked in to listening and considering their suggestions, run to Christ, come to confession, and start again fresh. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

This is the easy road. This is the training, and the measure of our performance in the race we are running – this is what enables us to join with the saints – learning in all things to quickly turn to Christ. Are you in danger? Run to Christ. Have you been wounded in body or soul or spirit? Run to Christ. Are you being attacked or ignored, criticized or cheated, being taken advantage of, suffering loss or humiliation? Run to Christ.

Reality is to think neither higher or lower than who we are created to be, gods through union with God our Creator. It is not humility to think we are not able to aspire to be joined with the saints – this is delusion, and a lie of the evil one. The very purpose of our life is to be enrolled with the company of the saints and commune with God. It is humility to realize we can never be deserving of this great and awesome privilege, and yet through the grace of God, this is His gift and will for us. The root word for humility is “humus” – soil. Humility is being aware of the nothingness we are without Christ, and yet being also aware that in Christ, we are the Children of God Himself. Through the prayers of all the saints Lord Jesus Christ have mercy and save us.     With the feast!