For All the Saints - That's Us!

All Saints Sunday + November 7, 2010

Let’s begin today by talking about mirrors. “What do mirrors have to do with all the saints?” you ask. We’ll get to that in a moment.

The first mirrors were actually pools of water. Early human beings learned that if they leaned over a quiet pool or puddle, they could see their own reflections. It may have been a frightening experience the first time it happened, but the ability to see themselves as others see them undoubtedly had an impact on the development of human understanding and philosophy.

But a pool of water is not a perfect reflector. The slightest breeze or tremor in the ground creates ripples which destroy the image. Water is often not perfectly clear – it is filled with particles, it is cloudy, it is moving. It was not until the Iron Age that mankind developed an alternative.

Metal could be pounded flat and smooth, then abraded with sand or gravel, creating a shiny surface. Of course, there were still problems. Sheets of metal were never perfectly flat or without dents, and abrasion often left scratches, so the images seen in them could be distorted or dim. Metal mirrors were the only ones available in St Paul’s day, when he wrote, “For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.” [I Cor 13:12 NIV] or more traditionally, “For now we see through a [looking] glass, darkly; but then face to face.” [KJV]

Shortly after St Paul lived, glass mirrors were invented – probably in modern-day Lebanon. A thin sheet of glass was coated with a molten metal, often silver or gold, creating a reflective surface that was protected but still not perfect. If you’ve ever seen the windows in colonial or civil-war era buildings, you have noticed that the glass is rippled and often contains tiny bubbles.

It was not until the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s that machines were able to roll out perfectly flat sheets of glass, making mirrors more accessible to everyone. Today, my car has three mirrors, there are five or six in my home, and my wife has two or three of them in her pocketbook! You can buy a mirror at Wal-Mart for a dollar or thereabouts.

And what about saints? First of all, we have to realize that we are all saints. I just returned from a conference in Salt Lake City, home of the institution that calls itself the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. That’s right – Mormons recognize what we sometimes miss: that we are all saints, although we are also sinners at the same time. Being a saint doesn’t mean you’re perfect, just that God has claimed you and will receive your spirit when you die.

There are two kinds of saints – those who are alive and those who have gone on to glory. Theologians call these “the Church Militant” and “the Church Triumphant.” “Militant” does not mean the “militaristic” here. The Latin word, militans, means “struggling to overcome obstacles.” As long as we live, we struggle to do God’s will, and we face obstacles to achieving that. When we die, our struggle is over. We are not triumphant because we have accomplished anything on our own – it is God who has triumphed by redeeming us and welcoming us into the Kingdom. Ralph Vaughn Williams’ beautiful hymn for today, For all the saints, reminds us of this: “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine.” [Hymnal 1982, #287, verse 4]

Which brings us back to mirrors. The number-one task of all the saints still struggling is to be good mirrors. I mean that our job is to reflect God’s love for us back into the world. When we look into the face of another person, we need to see God there, and when others look at us, they ought to be able to see God in us.

Just like all those mirrors throughout history, some of us reflect God well, others less so. I was privileged to hear Mother Teresa of Calcutta speak in a small group. In her presence, I saw God shining through in her words and deeds. She reflected God with crystal clarity. She was clearly what Time magazine called her: a living saint.

Most of us do not reflect God quite so well. All of us have some distortion, some imperfection, something that dims the light of God’s love as we reflect it out of ourselves. In fact, some people make it so hard to see God that they might even appear to provide no reflection at all. That doesn’t give us the right to stop looking for God, though.

One of my favorite hymns for today is that English school-child’s song that we find in our Hymnals at number 293:

I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green.

The song goes on to list the others who are known as saints today: a soldier, a priest, and one who was slain by a fierce wild beast. It reminds us that we can see saints everywhere: in school, in lanes, at sea, in church, in trains, in shops, or at tea.

And then the writer concludes with a firm declaration: “they were all of them saints of God, and I mean, God willing, to be one too.” Well, there the writer goes off the deep end theologically (or perhaps it’s just British modesty). We don’t have to wait until we die to find out whether we are saints of God – we are the Church Militant, we are saints today, we are mirrors, reflecting God's love to the world around us.

You and I are the Church Militant. We struggle every day to overcome the obstacles that keep us from fully reflecting the love that we have received from God, but we never stop trying. Some of us shine brightly, while others may offer a dimmer view, but God is within each of us and always eager to shine forth in our lives.

Our task, as the saints of God today, is simply… to polish our mirrors and reflect all the love of God that we can, until that time when we find ourselves in the triumphant light of God’s glory and our work is ended. Amen.