The Only Way to Travel

A Sermon for All Saints Day

Readings: Daniel vii.1-3, 15-18: Ephesians i.11-23: Luke vi.20-31

Tonight we have heard Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, with the obvious comparison that they speak not only of blessing, but of woe – in contrast to the account in Matthew. The Beatitudes show to us nothing less that the loving face of Jesus Christ. They speak of the calling of faithful people to the life of Crucifixion and Resurrection; they point to characteristics of the Christian life; they grant and sustain hope; they proclaim the things already gained, through Jesus, for us; especially tonight, on this great Solemnity of All Saints, they point to the great cloud of witnesses who are our contemporaries and companions in eternity.

The Beatitudes reveal the goal of our existence – namely, the call of God to his own beatitude. We receive this as individuals, but also as a community of faith, This call is addressed to each of us personally, but also to the Church as a whole, made up of those who have accepted the promise and live from it in faith.

And because this is Luke’s version, and not Matthew’s, I am bound to start with a timorous glance over my shoulder – not at the blessings, but at the woes. I can’t quite shake the notion that in speaking of these woes Jesus might just have me in mind. I am certainly rich, by any standards, and I don’t become poorer merely by thinking of people who are richer than I am. I am certainly full, quite a bit of the time, and I do laugh quite a bit and sometimes people are kind enough to speak well of me, and so perhaps I should be on my guard.

But, you may say, Jesus isn’t necessarily thinking of the things you are thinking of (and that’s true to a degree). Jesus speaks of the rich, contrasting us with the poor – but what does poverty mean in this connection? Does it not really refer, as some have suggested, to that characteristic found in those in Israel who are faithful, who wait hopefully upon the Lord, who wait for salvation? And that salvation has economic and political consequence, whilst being underpinned by an immense spiritual longing. The poor know they are dependant upon God, something unrealised by the rich, who, in the gloriously topsy-turvy world of the kingdom, are the truly impoverished. You might say all that, and you would be right. So does this mean that I can simply go on, sighing with relief, that I am, in the eyes of Jesus, poor after all?

By no means – and it certainly shouldn’t stop me from being on my guard. One of the most pernicious sins going is the sin of presumption – of presuming upon God’s mercy so that I can continue to live in displeasing ways in the belief that God will forgive me, sinner as I am, and so that there is no incentive to turn away from sinful, selfish and greedy habits. And anyway, I can’t use sophistry or theology to spiritualise away the social and the political implications of the Beatitudes any more than I can with the Magnificat, as if there were no implications for social justice in the Kingdom of God.

The church is called to a particular vulnerability. Indeed, Jesus depicts a community who are vulnerable from many angles, but who are, in that very vulnerability, blessed by God – in such a community God is enabled to act among those whose emptiness and destitution provide scope for God’s generosity – a canvas upon which God can paint. As Brendan Byrne puts it, ‘a vulnerable community can become for the afflicted an instrument of the hospitality of God…and make the world safe for humanity’.

The Saints who we celebrate tonight are aware of this. They know fully what we only know dimly – the way that leads to Heaven itself. We seek to tread the same paths as they, moment by moment, day by day in the largest and smallest of moments. And they surround our steps as we journey on, as in the course of that journeying we try to bear fruit in the Church.

For some, the renunciation of the material was part of the journey towards beatitude, St Francis being perhaps the most famous example. Others sought different ways of clearing the decks so that they too might be vulnerable, and therefore exposed to the transforming grace of God. With this costly beatitude, the saints have become “partakers of the divine nature” and of eternal life. They – and, please God, we in our turn, enter into the glory of Christ and into the fullest joy of the Trinitarian life.

The witness of the saints – those we know, and those we do not – remind us that turning to this beatitude, this blessing, means making choices and decisions, as the saints themselves have also had to do.

It means decisively placing God at the centre of our lives – which means that no other choice or priority is to be preferred to God.

It means being on our guard against the temptation to delude ourselves with regard to our riches, and with regard to our real (or imagined) poverty. We are reminded that to be rich in anything that does not come from God is vain distraction, whether that be couched in terms of material wealth, or fame, or celebrity or notoriety, or power, or even gift. We have received from God, and that gift must ‘trembling, to its source return, with humble prayer and fervent praise.’ In the end, all is God’s – all things come from him, and of his own do we give him. We are reminded of the awkward truth that the best good is invariably done by stealth, and that it’s amazing what can be accomplished when you stop caring who gets the credit.

The case studies for this way of living are offered in the final part of tonight’s gospel reading. I must love my enemies, whoever I perceive them to be – in other words, the ones I find hardest to love. I must do good when there is absolutely no chance of the good being returned. I must bless, and pray for, those who seem committed to making my life miserable. I must react to all confrontation with dignity, returning love for hatred. I must be generous, whether in the face of unreasonable demand or not. I must hold my possessions lightly, sharing gift and grace, and knowing that these possessions are not the things that will have the last word in my life.

In other words, I must tread the path that is narrow because it is the least followed – the one which the saints have trodden, and still tread with me. And by their prayers, and their example, may we all come to the joyful realisation that this really is the only way to travel.

Preached at the Church of St John the Evangelist, Oxford, on 1 November 2013