Fr. Bill Carroll – All Saints’ Day, November 3, 2024
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Whenever we read this lesson, it reminds me of one of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” It also reminds me of a verse from “Love divine, all loves excelling,” the great Charles Wesley hymn:
Finish then thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee.
Beloved, these words teach us that Christianity is not about escaping reality. It is about God’s sure and certain hope for the world.
Today, as we offer up our pledge cards to God, as a sign of our commitment of our life and labor to the Lord, I want to pray about that. What does it mean for us to welcome this hope? And how do we say “thank you” for God’s many blessings? What does it mean to put God’s Kingdom first in our lives? Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness.” The saints are those among us who take these words to heart.
Jesus came to save us from our bad choices. As Martin Luther King once said, we must choose between “chaos and community.” We must choose to “live together as brothers and sisters, or we will perish together as fools.”
And yet, Jesus never gives up on us. He comes to us in the flesh. He suffers and dies in the flesh. He rises again in the flesh. For “God so loved the world.”
We gather today on the Sunday before a historic election. In any given year, we don’t necessarily agree about who to vote for. But our faith does encourage us to participate. It tells us to get out and vote. It tells us to make good choices–like people who really love God and really love our neighbors.
And so, we listen to God as we consider our choices. In a good year, the candidates are imperfect. In a bad year, we may wonder whether it’s even worth it. But we listen and we pray, and we make the best choices we can. We remember those who died for the right to vote.
We show up and vote on the basis of our values, striving to support those who will best promote the common good. We discuss our choices with our neighbors. We listen to what they have to say. We drive them to the polls and fight for their right to vote–even if we think they are mistaken or misguided. In all things, we ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” and “Will our actions today help or hurt other people?”
Lots of anxiety surrounds this election. I think that’s been true for most elections over at least the last twenty years or so. Once again, half the country thinks the other half has lost their mind. Once again, we hear vile and sinful words, and the threat of armed violence hangs over us.
But this I know: Whatever happens this Tuesday (and it may take a while to figure that out), we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work. For the world needs Jesus more than ever. And the world needs communities like Trinity, where Jesus is preached, our neighbors are served, and we actually follow his example.
The Book of Revelation, from which today’s Epistle is taken, was written to comfort and strengthen the saints in anxious times. Its main theme is that the slain Lamb, Jesus Christ, is victorious. In the end, no matter what, Jesus is our only King. And so, elections are important (they really are), but they are not ultimate. God remains on the throne, even when we make bad mistakes.
Christians have always turned to Revelation in times of violence and fear. Monks consulted it during the Great Plague. Bonhoeffer took comfort from it in a Nazi prison.
Revelation prophesies the fall of empires and the judgment of our wicked ways. Rome is “Babylon the Great,” who sits on seven hills and corrupts the world with her lust and greed and violence.
Seen in this light, the arrival of the New Jerusalem promises us a better, more neighborly world. As Paul once wrote to the Galatians, “the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” As Paul once wrote in another place, God has “rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And so, no matter what happens on Tuesday, we belong to Jesus, and we will still follow him.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega (says the Lord), the beginning and the end.” All history takes place under my Lordship. I am coming “with righteousness to judge the world.” I am coming to judge “the peoples with my truth.”
Today, we remember the saints who have gone before us. We rejoice that Jesus has brought them to himself–that nothing can separate them from his love. And we ask that we too, like them, might become citizens of the New Jerusalem. Our only passport to that city is our love for God and neighbor.
And so today, we ask God to strengthen our faith. We recommit ourselves to loving our neighbors. For that is what Jesus Christ commands us to do
He is here with us this morning. Have you met him? Do you love him? He is about to feed us with his own Body and Blood. He is our Lord and Savior. He is risen from the dead. And even now, he is leading the Church victorious in unending songs of praise.
O blest communion,
Fellowship divine.
We feebly struggle,
They in glory shine.
Yet all are one in thee,
For all are thine.
Alleluia!