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During my time serving at St. Peter’s in Montana, I helped out with the Youth Group. Sometimes I would teach, sometimes it would be my mentor Heidi. Many times our method of teaching would involve asking questions. We had one person in the group who would take a little bit of time, particularly before a hard question before responding with “Jesus.”
Admittedly, Jesus is generally the right answer. For those particularly hard questions there was usually a bit more to it, so I would typically respond by saying “Yes, but could you be more specific?” I will say, though, as all Sunday School teachers and leaders of Christian Formation know, it’s always great when people get the underlining point of what you’re teaching, and that underlining point is certainly always Jesus.
Today we celebrate All Saints’. It’s the day we celebrate all the saints, also known, as we hear in Ephesians, as the Body of Christ. Another name would use is the church.
In other words, we are part of the saints. This day is meant to help us recognize that fact. It’s one of the reasons that today is a particularly appropriate day for a baptism, the way we enter the Communion of Saints. All this makes it easy to make this day about all about us when it’s really not.
The Communion of Saints, the church, the Body of Christ is about just that: Christ Jesus. Everything we do, all that we are, is about Jesus. At least, that’s what it should be about.
Everything in Ephesians this morning, a reading, by the way, that covers the Communion of Saints, is about Jesus. It’s about our hope in Jesus, specifically our hope in the power of the Resurrection. Our role as saints is to be part of His body, the body for which Christ Jesus is the head.
Even our reading from the Gospel according to Luke is all about bringing us back to Jesus. On the surface, the Lucan Beatitudes seem to be about us and how we, as saints, should be and behave. But really they are all about showing us that we need to empty ourselves, just as Jesus emptied Himself on the Cross. When we empty ourselves, we become an example emulating Christ Jesus and pointing others back to Him.
Back in Lent, we learned more about our national church’s program called “The Way of Love”. On The Episcopal Church website, it calls the way “a commitment to follow Jesus”. On the surface, this program seems like a pathway that’s about us and helping us in our own lives. In reality it’s a way to help make Jesus Christ our center and to make our lives all about Him and not just ourselves.
There’s a reason The Way of Love has been so emphasized in our church and why it is being used by our national church as a tool for evangelism. Would that we all made Jesus our focus, and not ourselves. If we made Jesus our sole focus, I believe our churches would be a little fuller and our world a little brighter.
On this All Saints’ Day celebration, I want you to remember two things. This day is about you because you are part of the great Communion of Saints. But, and here’s the second point, in a much more real sense, this day is not about you at all because the whole point of the saints is to lead others back to God through Jesus Christ.
The answer is, in fact, always Jesus. When you go out to do whatever it is you do in the world, whether specifically for the church or for some other reason, make Jesus Christ your center. Empty yourselves to be an example to others and to let Jesus in. By making Jesus your center, you are doing the work of God and of the church. When you make Christ your center, you are really being a saint and thus you are really being who you are truly supposed to be.