All Saints

In 2003, St. Teresa of Lisieux’s bones were dragged to Halifax. The first stop in her cross country tour. Hundreds of people stood in line for hours to venerate the skeleton of a dead French peasant woman, known in Catholic circles as ‘The Little Flower.” She was very popular among maritime Catholics. A church was named in her honour.

I have to admit, I was tempted to stand in line with my Catholic friends to share a moment with St. Teresa. As one of the pastors of the only Lutheran church in the city, I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. A temptation and curiosity I shared with my council president, who spit out his coffee when I told him.

“Y’know, there was a Reformation for a reason!” he snarked as he refilled his mug.

But I was more sociologically intrigued by those who would wait in line to see her, than spiritually compelled by her presence. I knew Teresa’s bones had no divine power. I knew standing in front of Teresa’s remains would be more like visiting an open grave than opening a gateway to heaven. But I wanted to see why so many other Christians would stand in line for so long simply to gape at a pile of bones.


They are called “relics.” A relic could be a chunk of cloth from the Saint’s shirt, a book the Saint kept on the bedside with his or her scribblings in the margins, even a body part that the Saint left behind. Anything connected with the life of someone the church has identified as a “Saint” – capital S. These objects were venerated as if they had some special power, from which the Christian could claim for his or her own.

When some Saints died, their followers often hid the body so that mobs wouldn’t snatch the remains, hack it into pieces, and run off either to sell for a sturdy sum, or keep for their own personal devotion. Relics were popular. And big business.

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, he didn’t do it on a whim. 


Luther chose October 31st 1517 as the day to nail his ideas to the city bulletin board because he knew the church was going to be filled the next day – the Festival of All Saints. He knew that the Elector of Saxony, Fredrick the Wise, was going to pull out all his relics to put on display for worshippers to venerate. And he charged a heavy entrance fee to get through the church door.

This was nothing new. Fredrick did this every year. In fact, it was VERY popular. When you think about it, it was a win-win for everyone. The money collected at the door didn’t go to Fredrick. The money went to Rome to keep the ecclesiastical machine running smoothly, and to pay off church debts.

And the church authorities, in turn, promised that paying the fee and venerating the relics shaved127, 800 years off of purgatory. 

Since the average Christian was terrified of where they were going to end up after they died, they gladly paid a hefty charge to gawk at St. Cyprian’s nose hair if it meant a better shot at leap frogging over purgatory and entering eternal bliss the moment their eyes closed in death.

From a 500 year distance you can see why Luther was so angry. The church was turning salvation into a financial transaction. Bodies were desecrated to keep the religious economy humming along. Objects were worshiped rather than God. The cross was nowhere to be seen. Certainly, this wasn’t what God wanted for Christians.

I used to find the whole idea of relics creepy. Something left to those Christians whose faith is stuck in the mud of the medieval ages. Relics are dangerous to the faith, and we 21st century Christians, of course, wouldn’t touch them with our bare hands. 

But then I realized that we’re not so far off from our friends from 500 years ago. It just looks a little different.

I was 10 years old or so when my parents took my brother and me to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. Looking at all that hockey memorabilia, jerseys, masks, pucks, and skates, I ground to a halt when I saw, on display behind glass, Bobby Clarke’s well worn hockey stick. The stick he used to record his 119th point, establishing a team record for the Philadelphia Flyers.

Bobby Clarke was one of my favourite players and I remembered that game, even though I was five years old at the time. Standing there ogling at the glass, I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I was staring at Bobby Clarke’s ACTUAL stick from THAT particular game!

I stared at that stick like a Wittenberg peasant venerating St. Jerome’s big toe. I ran my hand across the glass wishing it wasn’t there. I wanted to caress the wood, grab it with my two tiny hands, as if tactile experience would give me some divine hockey power, connecting me to Bobby Clarke’s greatness.

Of course, that’s silly. Bobby Clarke’s hockey stick has no more power than any other dead tree branch. But it had power to me - and over me. And I wonder over 30 years later, that if Luther were living today, if he would nail his 95 theses to the door of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

If not the Hockey Hall of Fame, then maybe the movie theatre, or the Internet. Or the ball yard. Look at the way people scramble to grab a fly ball that’s been hit into the stands. Or the frenzy at the red carpet at the Academy Awards. The way Justin Bieber gets mobbed when he makes an appearance at the mall.



Look at anywhere celebrities are venerated. After all, Saints were really the celebrities of their time. If there were a National Enquirer 500 years ago, St. Dominic’s face would have been on the cover. E-Talk daily with Ben Mulroney would have interviewed St. Clare, probing her as to what was going on between her and St. Francis.


I think the council president at my church in Halifax bristled at my thinking of going to visit St. Teresa’s bones because he understood in HIS bones, that as Lutherans, we know that there is no such thing as a “capital S” Saint (despite the name of our church).

 As Lutherans, we confess that all Christians are made equal. As Lutherans, we know that we aren’t made holy by anything we’ve done, but we are made holy by what God has done for us in Jesus.

He knew that there are no first class Christians, and other Christians pining way in the back. He knew that any miracles Teresa might have performed were from God and not by the power of any human being. He knew that God worked through all people, not just a few select Christian superheroes.

This means that God can work through YOU. God not only can, God DOES work through you. Not because you have achieved some moral purity. Not because you have prayed great prayers or read the bible from cover to cover. And not because you have gone to church.

God works through you because God has chosen to work through you, whether you like it or not. God works through you because you are baptized, joined to Jesus’ cross and resurrection, set free from the tyranny of sin and death, and called to be God’s hands of healing to those who are hurting, and voice of freedom to those held captive to their past.

We know that its not our WORK that joins us to the great cloud of witnesses, but our FAITH, our faith unites us to those who’ve gone before us, stewards of God’s mysteries who passed down God’s message of life and salvation through the centuries until we find it in our hands, passing it to the generations that are to come, in hope that, one day, all the world may, with all the saints of every time and every place, the saints below and the saints above, the baptized of every generation proclaim “Salvation belongs to our God!”

May this be so among us. Amen.

All Saints Sunday

First. Class. Doormat. That’s what I said to myself as a little boy and heard this passage from Matthew for the first time.

And I’m not alone. American civil rights activist, Malcolm X once noted that oppressed people will continue to be oppressed if they follow this teaching. And US comedian Bill Maher likes to make fun of this “crazy” teaching that sets people up for abuse.

Those of us who’ve been around the church for a while might find Malcolm’s and Bill’s comments offensive. After all, they’re the words of Jesus, and their sharp edge might have dulled in our ears from years of hearing them.

But to fresh ears, Jesus’ words can sound astonishingly naive. Or even dangerous to our well being.

Blessed our the poor in spirit....blessed are those who mourn...blessed are the meek, the merciful, the peacemaker, and the persecuted.

Most of these are parts of ourselves that we’d rather keep hidden, aren’t they? These are human attributes that we’re trying to avoid. We don’t want to be on the same city block of mourning, or of meekness, or even of peacemaking.

We spend more time and energy trying to look strong. We put on brave faces to share with others, so we won’t look weak.

And this week, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out why these readings have been assigned to All Saints Sunday.

To me it seems that we’re being asked to celebrate those who’ve lived according to Jesus’ impossible standard in this passage if finding blessing in tragedy. We’re supposed to remember with thanks those who have succeeded in the Christian life and are now gathered around the throne singing praises to God. We’re supposed to want to emulate the heroic faith of Saints past, who joyfully divested themselves of worldly pain and now reap the rewards of heavenly peace.

But that’s not something I want to do. Because if we spend our time looking at other peoples’ spiritual “successes,” our faith lives can look small. And we learn the wrong lessons.

I think the Christian life isn’t measured by our successes, but by our scars. It’s our weaknesses and failures that make us strong. It’s in our crosses that we find resurrection.

I stopped regularly wearing a clerical collar because I found that it ceased doing what it was supposed to do. I found that the clerical collar wasn’t a way INTO peoples’ lives, but was keeping me out. I noticed that people were talking to the ring around my neck rather than to me. And they were parsing their words.

And because of that, I saw that people were hiding information from me. They were afraid that I’d judge them for their mistakes and hurts. They were afraid that my uniform meant that I was in the business of condemning them for their failures rather than being an agent of God’s mercy and forgiveness. My job was getting in the way of doing my job.

The phone rang and I recognized the number on the call display and wasn’t going to answer it. But the guilt-ridden sucker in me wouldn’t let me ignore someone who I knew needed my help.

“Hi pastor, I need you to pick up my daughter’s prescription and take it to her apartment...” said the voice on the other end of the line.

I sighed.

What was I, a delivery service? Why does she assume that I have time to drop everything to pick up some pills, then drive across town to drop them off?

But rather than get into a heated argument with this particular person, like I so often did before, I decided I’d help her and her daughter.

“Where can I pick them up?” I asked.

I was still grumbling when I drove across the city to the outskirts where she lived. I put my “Clergy Parking -Emergency” sign on my windshield hoping that it might discourage vandals or thieves, since she was living in a drug-addled neighbourhood.

She buzzed me in and I and made my way through the haze of marijuana smoke that loitered in the air. I was worried about the smell sticking to my clothes and having to answer some uncomfortable questions when I got home.

I knocked on her door. When she opened it and saw me in my work clothes, it looked like her eyes were going to pop out of her sockets. She wasn’t expecting - for what she knew - a priest to deliver her medication.

She invited me in and told me her story. She’d been arrested for stealing a car. She had a history of drug abuse, and so the judge put her under house arrest.

She sat up straight in her chair with her hands folded on her lap as we talked. She was choosing her words carefully. It was clear that she didn’t trust me.

“Thank you for picking up my pills, pastor” she said. “They keep the demons in their cages.”

“What demons?” I asked.

“Depression,” she said, examining my face for a reaction.

“How are you finding the medicine? Is it helping?” I asked.

“Sort of,” she answered. “They keep me functioning. But they make me feel like I’m just going through the motions. I have no highs or lows. They steal the flavour from life.”

“Yeah,” I noticed the same thing when I was on them.

Her eyes widened.

“YOU!?” she shouted? “Why would a pastor need pills for depression!?”

“We all need help from time to time,” I said.

Her shoulders relaxed and the muscles on her face softened. Then the REAL conversation began. She talked about her bully of an ex-husband, the impossible expectations of a perfectionist mom, and the life she dreamed of having.

I realized that she was sharing so openly with me, NOT because I had a collar around my neck and the word “reverend” in front of my name. In fact those things kept us at a distance.

She shared so openly because I shared her brokenness. I wasn’t preaching from a mountain top as one with all the spiritual answers.

But we communed as two children of God bound by our frail humanity. And I think that could be the blessing that Jesus talked about when he said, “Blessed are you who are poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.”

That phrase, “Kingdom of heaven” isn’t describing a disembodied existence of heavenly bliss far away from the dirt and pain of earthly life.

But the kingdom of heaven is wherever God is healing the sick and raising the dead. The kingdom of heaven is wherever God is working within our lives and the world that God so loves. The kingdom of heaven is wherever two or more people gather to share their common frail humanity, trusting that God can use them for God’s resurrection purposes.

As we begin our ministry together, it is my greatest hope and most heartfelt prayer that this community will be marked with God’s healing power in the brokenness of our lives. That our mission is to serve each other and the world God loves through our common human frailty rather than worldly strength and power. Because it’s in the midst of weakness and pain - the crosses of our lives - that God’s resurrection work is done.

It is your wounds that give you power. It is your scars that give you strength. It is your tears that give you wisdom. It is your weakness that gives you authority to minister to others in Jesus’ name.

And together, as we join the saints of every time and every place, joined together in our common need for a saviour, we will sing with one voice, Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!

May this be so among us! Amen!