This time of year is what some call a thin place – a thin space or a thin time. You may or may not have heard that term before.
Eric Weiner calls it that place “where heaven and earth come closer.” Jocelyn Sidecar calls it “the space between, where I end and you begin, where day ends and night begins, where we end and God begins.”
George MacLeod, who founded the Iona Community, describes it as “where only tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual.”
And Irvin Boudreaux calls it – “any place of transition” is a thin space – “a doorway, a gate, the sea shore.”
Perhaps the space between the tolling of the bells.
The Feast of All Saints, which is officially November 1, but often celebrated the Sunday following, many might consider to be a thin space in time and physical space. We commemorate those saints whose names have been etched in our memories and in our histories and in our churches – St. Paul, St. Joan of Arc, Julian of Norwich, Elizabeth of Hungary. We remember the ways they dedicated their lives to their faith, to God, to the work of God in the world – their bravery, their sacrifice, their selflessness – and also to remember that we are all part of the same family of God. Listen again to the collect for the day:
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; [through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.]
But also on All Saints, while we remember and are inspired by the lives of the famous saints of history, we also remember the saints who are lesser known, those whose names are etched in our memories because we have known them, we have loved them, and for a while they were very real, very immediate parts of our lives – family members, friends, teachers, those who shaped and inspired our lives through their own.
And while it may seem strange at first glance to celebrate St. Paul and Joan of Arc and Julian of Norwich and St. Augustine in the same day as we celebrate our great-grandmothers and our great-grandfathers, our grumpy uncles, our first-grade teachers, it is absolutely meet and right that we do. All Saints is also the day to remember that we are in one communion and fellowship together, that the seemingly perfect saints of centuries past were human just as we are human, and that we, despite our humanness, are just as much the beloved children and saints of the creator. And we are to take inspiration from each other and also to live so as to inspire each other in return.
Of today’s readings, the Beatitudes perhaps hold all of it together.
Jesus didn’t say blessed are the rich and famous, the CEOs, and the heroes…but blessed are the poor.
Jesus didn’t say blessed are the social media influencers and the celebrity chefs…but blessed are the hungry.
Jesus didn’t say blessed are the ones who have perfect homes and jobs and lives…but blessed are those who weep.
And blessed are they who love their enemies, who do good to those who hate them, who do unto others as they would have done unto them. In loving and doing good, they and we do the work of the saints, and we, imperfect, broken, sinful as we are, become saints to those whose lives we touch.
In a space like this, I think in some ways we celebrate All Saints year round. We are literally surrounded by our saints – in graves marked and unmarked, in the names inscribed in stone or written in stained glass, and in those names that have been forgotten over the last few centuries. Today, we will add to those names – and you might be wondering why you received a clothes pin when you walked in.
Earlier this week, and if you’ve been in the church, you may have an inkling why on Tuesday we hosted an All Saints service for the community of Stuart Hall, and during AJ’s sermon we all spent some quiet time remembering our saints, writing about them on pieces of paper and pinning them to string like that you see on the far sides of the aisles.
Over the next few minutes, we’ll contribute the names of our own saints and our memories of them to today’s sermon.
Baskets with pens, markers, crayons, and small stacks of colored paper are placed at the ends of the pews, baskets with pens and markers and things. I invite you to take a piece of paper and a pen or marker. You’ll need to move around a little bit, help each other out.
I would invite you to take a few minutes and add to this sermon with your own names and your own memories. Write one or more saints that you have known and loved and seen go on before. You might include a memory – a memory that makes you laugh, a memory that makes you smile, perhaps a memory that makes you cry, and then using those clothes pins we’re going to add them to the strings that are attached to the outside of the pews so that we will be surrounded by those saints.
Thank you.
— The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett, Curate, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
All Saints’ Sunday, Year C, November 6, 2022
Luke 6:20-31
