St Margaret's Church Prestwich

This sermon was preached by Rev Helen on Wednesday 1 November 2023. Here it is again for you:

Today is All Saints Day, when we remember all those people, our ancestors in the faith who have gone before us and are recognised or remembered by the church. We remember them today as we are told they set for us a good example of how to be a good christian and what it means to follow Jesus and his example. You then get this very beautiful and idyllic vision of the saints in Revelation 7 of them clothed in White and as Holy People. At my sending Church in Oldham there is a painting at the east end of the church with an enthroned Jesus and the saints around him, the only thing I find a bit disconcerting about it is they have with them what they were martyred with, Stephen has a pile of rocks, Lawrence has a grill and Catherine is holding a Catherine wheel. This is my problem with this is some of the Saints, especially the very early ones tend to come to quite unpleasant or gruesome endings. You hear the stories and see some of the paintings or images that ingrain on your mind like Sebastian full of arrows, Agetha, the child martyr, tortured before she died and Dennis head cut off, he picked it up and walked for 6 miles preaching a sermon, you’d sit up and take note of that! There were all those other Christians who were killed by the Lions or in other ways through persecution, like Perpetua, Felicity and their companions and the many others who are unnamed. It’s not just from the first few hundred years of Christianity, we have more modern heroes who might not be called saints but the stories of their faith and actions are amazing. Oscar Romero was assassinated in 1980 for speaking for the poor in Latin America, Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was tortured before being hung by the SS in 1945 for going against the Nazis, you can read his diaries and letters from prison they are extraordinary and Manche Masemola, who was killed by her parents aged 15 in 1928 when she expressed a wish to be baptised as a Christian, there is a statue of her on the outside of Westminster Abbey. When you look at some of these examples it doesn’t completely appeal to me if I’m completely honest with you, I don’t know if I fancy ending up like that. That is the example we are given, those people who have proclaimed their faith to the extent that they have died for it.

But I suppose I am looking at being a Christian from a very privileged position, we can meet here without any issues or fear. There are places in the world where people of faith are persecuted, just look at what’s happening in Israel Palestine currently and the repercussion being felt around the world. Christians are still persecuted in some parts of the world. The Charity Open Doors UK estimates 5,621 Christians were killed last year through persecution and 2,110 churches were attacked. They also carry a list of the 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian going from extreme to very high risk. These are the people and places where new saints are being recognised and remembered. Not just those who die but also but also those who are trying to help them, like Brother Andrew. Brother Andrew, a Dutch missionary who smuggled bibles into communist countries at the height of the cold war as Christians didn’t have access to them and he was given the nickname of ‘God Smuggler’. He took a great personal risk doing this. He is reported to have prayed while having his car searched at the boarder of a communist country ‘Lord, in my luggage I have Scripture I want to take to Your children, make seeing eyes be blind’ you don’t pray that unless you’re in serious trouble. He wrote a book about his work God’s Smuggler which is worth a read if you want to engage with his story more. We live in a world where Christians are persecuted so what do they ask of us?  That we pray for them and be in solidarity with our siblings in Christ and know that we are with them in their struggles. Even if things are bad in this world, they will get better as it says at the end of Revelation, there will be no more death, no more crying, pain hated and suffering. Pray for a better future.

So can we follow the example of the Saints, even those who we think are really beyond our capabilities. Well yes we can, because when you look at what it all comes down to, and that is following Jesus example and spreading the message that he brough with him. Their bravery and willingness to proclaim their faith against the odds and not worry about the risks or consequences. They live and breathe their faith in everything the say and do and pray for a better world. They live Jesus’ example and care for those who are most in need, we hear that in the Beatitudes from today’s gospel, Jesus says at the end ‘ Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, in the same way they persecute the prophets who were before you’. We show that we are Jesus followers by being his word and love in action. We take Jesus’ message out of this building and into the world and we be with those he told us to be with, those who society doesn’t care about or even notice. Jesus tells us who are blessed so we make sure we show them his love and blessing. See what they need and give it to them. We have the saints who are there with us and we follow their example and how they showed their faith in Jesus and be the saints of today and you never know it might be you we’ll are talking about in the future. Amen.

 

Some resources used

 Celebrating the Saints (paperback): Daily spiritual readings for the calendars of the Church of England, the Church of Ireland, the Scottish Episcopal Church & the Church in Wales