Lesbia Scott’s “I sing a song of the saints of God” probably is being sung this morning in more Episcopal churches than any other All Saints hymn—well, maybe “For all the saints” would give it a run for its money. And that popularity runs beyond All Saints’ Day! In a 2003 survey of ‘desert island’ hymns run by the website Anglicans Online, the hymn was voted number 14! (Full transparency: “For all the saints” was #6!) But there are some good reasons for “I sing a song’s” popularity.

1. It has a catchy melody. (John Henry Hopkins, also composed the tune for “We Three Kings!”)

2. It has fun, while oh-so British, references: “You can meet them in the lanes or at tea”. (By the way, I would hope we would never “update” that verse, as has another hymnal: “You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, in church, by the sea, in the house next door” [The United Methodist Hymnal, 712]).

3. Singing about a “fierce wild beast" makes most of us smile—the more so when some jokester’s changes in word order linger in the backs of our minds: “And one was a soldier, and one was a beast, and one was killed by a fierce wild priest”.

“I sing a song” is also a good teaching hymn. Ms. Scott thought her children could learn about some of our notable forerunners in the faith. In the first two verses we sang of a “doctor” (St. Luke the Physician), a “queen” (St. Margaret of Scotland), a “shepherdess on the green” (St. Joan of Arc), a “soldier” (St. Martin of Tours), a “priest” (the poet—and Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London—John Donne), and that poor fellow “killed by a fierce wild beast” (St. Ignatius of Antioch). “And I mean to be one too”. Really? I’m not sure that I’m up to that “fierce wild beast” thing.

But the hymn’s most important teaching, it seems to me, is found in that third verse which, in some ways, runs counter to the idea that “being

slain by a fierce wild priest/beast” is the entry-ritual to the club of sainthood. “They lived not only in ages past; there are hundreds of thousands still . . . for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too”. We’ve gotten so used to the idea that “to be a saint is do something remarkable, or die horribly” that, I think, we’ve lost something critical. We’ve lost much of what it means to be a saint.

In a few minutes, we will join together to renew our baptismal covenant. Our baptism—and what we promise, or what is promised on our behalf—is our entry-ritual into sainthood; we are baptized into the household of God. (And to those of you have not been baptized, you will get a sneak-peak into what sainthood is really all about). “Sainthood”—at least in the broader biblical understanding—is not primarily about what we do. It is about Whose we are; it is about our relationship to the One who grants us the status of being a “saint” and how we live out that relationship. So what does it mean that God declares us “saints”?

“Saints” translates two different words in the Hebrew Bible (I’ll try not to get too geeky, but bear with me—you know I’m a teacher at heart!). The first is “chasidim”—a phrase, today, associated primarily with an extremely orthodox/observant group of Jews. But the word—in general—has to do with faithfulness to the Covenant. The“chasids”—the “saints”—then and now— are those who are bound closely to God in love. The second word translated “saints” is “kadoshim”. Kadosh is the Hebrew word we translate as “holy”. “Holiness” has to do with being set apart and dedicated to the service of God; the kadoshim are those individuals with that mission. In the Hebrew Bible, then, the “saints” are the faithful of Israel; their “sainthood consists in the relationship they bear to the God who has destined them for righteousness and salvation” (Harper’s Bible Dictionary, 892).

The same idea carries over, of course, into the New Testament (e.g., Ac 9.13, 32; Rm 15.25-31; 1 Co 1.20; Hb 6.10; and Jd 3), where “saints” translates the Greek word for “holy ones” (hagioi). But in the New Testament, “saints” simply refers to Christians, as distinct from non-believers. That is, those who have bound themselves to—or, who have a relationship with—Christ—they are the hagioi, the saints. That central

importance of relationship is what we heard in our reading from 1 John,: “Dear friends, now we are God’s children . . . .and all who have this hope in him purify themselves even as he is pure” (1.1, 3). (And just to point out, it isn’t until we reach the last book of the New Testament—Revelation—that we find “saint” referring to martyrs [Rv 5.8, 8.3, 13.10]).

“Sainthood”, therefore, is based on our relationship to God. That has to do with baptism. A declaration of relationship was central at Jesus’ baptism. All of the Gospels report God declaring that Jesus is God’s Son (Mt 3.17, Mk 1.11; Lk 3.22). We, who are baptized, are brought into a similar relationship through adoption (Rm 8.15, 23, Ga 4.5, Ep 1.5). As Jesus was bound closely to God in love, so are we. As Jesus was set apart and dedicated to God’s service, so are we. It is that entry into the household of God and that mission— that is, the description of who we are—being one of God’s “saints”. And that has implications.

Those implications are suggested in the “Beatitudes” we just heard. (I’ll save the translation of the Greek word makarios . . . is it “Blessed”? “Happy”? “Fortunate”? . . . for another time.) The Beatitudes are not addressed to the crowds “from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from the areas beyond the Jordan River” . . . to those who came to Jesus, because he “[taught] in their synagogues . . . [announced] the good news of the kingdom . . . [healed] . . . every disease and sickness among the people . . . [demon possession, epilepsy, and paralysis]” (Mt 4.23-25). The crowds flocked to Jesus because of what he promised them, and what he did for them—especially those in dire straits. The Beatitudes are addressed to those who had chosen to answer Jesus’ bidding to follow him—to be Jesus’ first “saints-in-training”.

The Beatitudes help define our relationship to the Kingdom; they don’t establish the relationship. Saints are not called to be hopeless, grieving, doormats, or only longing for right to prevail. Saints—by virtue of being saints—are merciful, exhibit pure hearts, make peace—we hear echoes of that in our baptismal covenant. In Matthew’s recounting of the Beatitudes, there is a distinct future cast to each one: “Happy are the people who . . . for they will . . . “ “Blessedness” or “happiness” is not “happy-clappy”, though it may be. It is a state of being fortunate, of peace,

of being rooted in God at the deepest level, in the most challenging situations. The Beatitudes describe an on-going, living, relationship that begins at baptism and continues through the remainder of the saints’ life.

Sainthood, bestowed by our baptism, really defines the ideal for all of us. I’m reminded of something we learned a few weeks ago in our discussion of hymns . . . in particular the contribution of Martin Luther. Luther firmly believed in the “priesthood of all believers” (I Pt 2.9): "The priest is not made. He must be born a priest; must inherit his office. I refer to the new birth-the birth of water and the Spirit. Thus all Christians must became priests, children of God and co-heirs with Christ the Most High Priest” (“First Sunday after Epiphany" from Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. IV [Grand Rapids, MI: BakerBooks, 2007] p. 9). Because of that conviction, he believed that all church attendees ought to sing the hymns; not just the “professional musicians”. All members of the “household of God” have a role to play as singers, priests, and as saints.

The Feast of All Saints reminds us of some Christians who, through the particular graces given to them, were able to bear witness to their relationship to God in notable ways. But I believe that the Feast of All Saints also ought remind us—normal folks—of who we are, and then invite us into a living out of that relationship—through everyday acts of service, generosity, hospitality, mercy, peace-making and more.

“There’s not any reason, no not the least, why I shouldn’t be one too” concludes that beastly/priestly second verse. All Saints is not asking us to become who we aren’t yet, but to claim who we are now. At our baptism, we are added to the “countless host” that “goes marching in” “through gates of pearl”. March on!

Amen.

Why are our kids (and maybe some of our adults) dressing up like Taylor Swift or Barbie or Spiderman or Harry Potter? “Well,” you may say, “because they’re popular-culture icons.” But why right now? I mean, unless folks were attending a concert, convention, or a movie, no one was wearing costumes last month? “Well,” you will probably say, “because it’s Halloween!” And I will ask, “So what do costumes and Halloween have to do with each other?” Or, to cut to the chase, “What is Halloween all about, anyway?” And what, if anything, does it have to do with the church/Christianity?

Good question! And when we were thinking about our “Family Sunday” observance, I blithely said to our staff, “Let’s make it all about Halloween—in advance. Folks will love seeing kids in costumes . . . and they might like coming in costume!” Then, as fate would have it, in poking around, I learned there was a lot more to it than I thought. I It is about costumes. But it’s also about food. It’s about fear. It’s about death. Like most things in life, it’s . . . complicated. So . . . bear with me; I’m going to get historical.

Our kids dressing up in costumes all starts with the Celts—well before “Celtic Christianity” became a “thing.” The Celts were those peoples who lived in Ireland, much of Great Britain, and a goodly portion of Europe. For them, November 1st was New Year’s Day, NOT January 1. November first marked the end of the summer—the end of the harvest—and, therefore the beginning of winter. Herds came back from pasture; land contracts were renewed. And, so, on the day and night before, on October 31st, the Celts believed that the boundary between the living and the dead became blurred . . . the spirits of the long dead returned to earth, and those recently dead moved to the other world. For them, winter became associated—perhaps not surprisingly—with death. To use the language

coming out of Celtic Christianity, October 31-to-November 1 was a “thin space”—a time or place where this world and the next . . . touched.

Enter the festival of Samhain—the main “ancestor” of our Halloween. At this time, for centuries, the religious leaders of the Celts—the Druids— built huge bonfires, around which the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices. The bonfires and the animal-head and skin costumes worn by many were meant to ward off the ghosts. The Celts re-lit their hearth fires from the sacred bonfires—again, marking the change from the old year to the new. And the Druids took advantage of this “thin time” to make predictions about the future, about health, marriage, and death.

The Celts were mostly conquered in the first century of our era by the Roman legionaries . And, over the next several hundred years, the Romans combined two of their own festivals with Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October commemorating the passing of their dead loved ones. The other was Pomona—a celebration of the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, whose symbol was the apple. The Roman legionaries also brought Christianity to the formerly Celtic lands. Pre-Christian and Christian practices began to overlap. And, traditions passed back and forth across geographical and religious boundaries.

This marriage of Roman and Celtic traditions is seen in another of our Halloween traditions: bobbing for apples! During an annual celebration, young unmarried people would try to bite into an apple floating in water. According to some traditions, the first person to bite into an apple would be the next one to be allowed to marry. In other, perhaps, later traditions, each apple was “assigned” to a particular suitor. Whichever apple the “bobber” snagged would suggest who she or he would marry. And so, apple-bobbing was appropriated into Samhain, with apples a sign of fertility and abundance— good ol’ Pomona—another Halloween custom was born!

At the same time that all of this was going on in Britain, back in more southerly Europe and Asia Minor, Christians had been celebrating, and venerating, the early martyrs who had died for their faith. The anniversaries of their deaths were commemorated; their graves and burial

sites became the focus of veneration and pilgrimage. And soon, the practice spread beyond martyrs who’d died during the pre-Constantinian persecutions to include individuals who had led particular righteous and holy lives.

These hallowed dead received a special boost when, in the early 7th century, the Emperor gave the Pantheon—that Roman temple dedicated to the gods—to the Church. On May 13, 609, Pope Boniface had the statues of Jupiter and the others taken out, and he dedicated the building to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs. Why May 13th? That corresponded with a Roman—i.e., pagan—festival called Lemuria—a time when Romans performed rituals to exorcise ghosts of the restless dead from homes! As has happened throughout history, one religion co-opts the festivals and rites of another to make conversion to the newer religion .

About a hundred years later, another Pope, Gregory III, dedicated a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica to all the saints on November 1. By 800, the Christians in Ireland (!), Northumbria and Bavaria were celebrating All Saints Day on November 1st. And in 835, it became Holy Day of Obligation in the Frankish Empire—that is, a day when very Christian ought go to Mass. Within 300 years, the association of All Saints with May 13th was gone; November 1—along with all of its religious and secular trappings having to with the dead—officially became All Saints’ Day.

All Saints’ Day celebrated those individuals who had died fully in a “state of grace”—individuals like martyrs and perpetual virgins. But what of the rest of us—faithful Christians who live ordinary lives? According to medieval Catholic theology, our destination was . . . Purgatory . . . where we could be cleansed of our sins/faults so that we might receive the beatific vision, and enter heaven.

This ignoring of the “rest of us” didn’t go un-noticed. And, in the 11th century Odilo, the Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Cluny, declared that on November 2nd, all the Faithful Departed be recognized. And, within a couple of hundred years, the feast of All Souls had become practically universal.

I’m sure you’re asking by now (if you’re still awake), “What does that have to do with us, our kids in costumes, and Barbie and Harry

Potter?” All of these traditions came to America with the colonists, And, despite the best efforts of our Puritan ancestors, the traditions of Halloween were hard to root out. And, later, with significant Scottish and Irish immigration, many other practices arrived as well, such as trick-or-treating (having developed from a practice of requesting prayers in exchange for a “soul-cake) and Jack o’ Lanterns (originally a carved turnip—either to ward off evil spirits, or to resemble them).

All of these traditions reflect how we deal with some of our basic human questions, our hopes and fears about death and dying . . . and the state of those who’ve gone on. Certainly, I could spend a lot of time on other cultures’ traditions/beliefs about this. Many of us, for example, are aware of Dia de los muertos—the Day of the Dead: a joy-filled Mexican celebration combining pre-Christian with Christian beliefs about the “thin space” between now and the afterlife. But for us—especially in the Episcopal Church, with our particular heritage, we have these three days this-coming week—all dedicated in one way or another to the dead. Halloween, All Saints’, and All Souls’. We mark them in various ways, from fun to solemn. But together they all testify to the ongoing spiritual bond between the church triumphant—that is, those who have died, and the church militant—those of us here. That bond is what we confess in both the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed: the“thin space” or “thin time” that is the “communion of the saints”.

Amen.