November 2, 2025
I speak to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we celebrate All Saints’ Day. When we hear the word “saint”, there are things that almost automatically come to mind. We often think of figures from church history who achieved great things. Or maybe we think of people whose lives were models for our own. There are no shortage of such folks. The Episcopal Church calendar, for example, provides for 261 saint-related feast days – for everyone from St. Peter and King Alfred the Great to 20th century luminaries like the author of the Chronicles of Narnia series and theologian C.S. Lewis and former Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.
Or maybe we think of those who have gone before us. Those who stand upon another shore and in a greater light. We have no shortage of those saints to remember this morning, too.
And those people are all saints. But there’s more to sainthood than living an admirable Christian life or passing away. Each of us – you and me – is a saint. Let me say that again. All of us are saints.
In our reading from Ephesians this morning, Saint Paul teaches that two qualities are inseparably linked to sainthood: unity and hope. So this morning, I want us to be thinking about the kind of unity that we saints have in Jesus – and how that unity is a necessity for hope.
In his letter, Paul writes “we were destined by the plan of God, who accomplishes everything according to his design.” The plan of God. A cosmic plan in which God is relentlessly moving across all of time itself to reconcile all of creation to its original harmony. To restore creation to what God has always intended for it to be. To mend the damage caused by sin and evil. Over and over again, Scripture shows us this plan in action – as human beings turn their backs on God, and God responds by reaching out the hand of reconciliation and forgiveness. We see it in the Exodus when God liberates the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. We see it when God free the Jewish exiles from their captivity in Babylon. We see it in the ministry of Jesus that was rooted in healing, forgiveness, and love of neighbor.
And this plan comes to its fulfillment in Jesus’ death and resurrection, through which – somehow – our sins are forgiven. But not just mine. And not just yours. Everyone’s sins. In this forgiveness for everyone’s sins, Jesus has broken down the walls that divide us from each other. The cross of Christ creates a new way to be human – one that doesn’t privilege one national or ethnic group above another. Through Christ, we are reconciled to God and each of us is equal before God. Through Christ, we begin – however imperfectly – to be reconciled to each other.
As our Prayer Book puts it “The communion of saints is the whole family of God, the living and the dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together in Christ by sacrament, prayer, and praise.”
Living into the Cross-centered unity Christ brings us into is massively important for our hope. In his letter, Paul prays that God will enlighten the eyes of the Ephesians’ hearts – of our hearts – to see what is the hope of God’s call. To see with the eyes of our hearts.
That’s a funny old phrase, isn’t it? And yet, such an important one. To see with the heart is to imagine the future God is preparing. To see with the heart is to see with confidence the hope that springs forth from God’s promises for a coming kingdom. A kingdom where God’s people enjoy God’s rule and blessing as we live in peace and harmony. A kingdom founded on the promise of the reconciliation promised at the Cross. This hope – the capital H “Hope” that comes from God – can only be perceived with the eyes of the heart. We practice hope by seeing with the eyes of the heart.
But to practice hope, we must cultivate communities of hope. Communities of hope that are rooted in our unity in Jesus – our unity through sainthood. An old Hasidic tale tells of a disciple who asked his rabbi the meaning of community one evening, when they were all sitting around a fire. The rabbi sat in silence while the fire died down to a pile of burning coals. Then he got up and took one coal out from the pile and set it apart on the stone hearth. Its fire and warmth soon died out. The lesson is clear – just as one coal can’t continue to maintain its fire and warmth – it’s very life – we cannot expect to maintain our life-giving hope – if we strike out on our own.
Hope cannot be a solo enterprise.
God’s plan to reconcile the world to God’s self hasn’t been fully realized yet. There are still oppressive forces in the world that hold us captive. That seek to divide us from one another. But on All Saints Day, we rejoice. We rejoice that we are in the company of a great cloud of witnesses who have been freed from sin by Jesus’ death and resurrection, and made new people through life in him. We rejoice that our common bond through Jesus knits us together in a company where we find comfort in our losses and courage for our daily struggles. We rejoice as we find life and vitality from the hope that comes from being in the communion of saints. As we are inspired by the examples of the St. Peters and the C.S. Lewis-es. As we are encouraged by the lives and the memories of those who have gone before us.
We rejoice as our prayer and worship of the Crucified One and the acts of justice and love we carry out in his name help us to see the coming kingdom with the hopeful eyes of our hearts.
Amen.