Homily for All Saints' Sunday - Created in the image and likeness of God

Daniel 7:1-3,15-18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

In one of the “proper prefaces” for a saints’ day (the short prayer indicating the particular occasion for our eucharist is celebrated), we thank God:

For the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all your saints, who have been the chosen vessels of your grace, and the lights of the world in their generations. (BCP 380)

But we recall that in John’s gospel Jesus declares, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (8.12). 

So these saints are the lights of the world not because they have their own light, some secret illumination unique to them, but because in the midst of whatever circumstance they find themselves however dark, they shine forth with the piercing light of Jesus Christ.

Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthian church, speaks about his own ministry underscoring that Jesus is the focus:

We do not proclaim ourselves but we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord. . . .  For it is God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (4.5-6)

Paul goes on to say that “we have this treasure [this ministry] in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that . . . power belongs to God and does not come from us” (4.7). 

These lights, these blesséd saints of God, get that.

They firmly grasp that it really is not about them or their gifts (or just as often their lack thereof) whereby they have power but that they are and remain fragile clay jars, their true value found in radical openness to being formed and reformed by the Potter’s own hand.  In that openness (and in that brokenness), the grace of the Potter flows freely through them to others.

This image of Potter with open and broken pots gives insight to how God’s grace pours through the saints even to us.

But there is another image—and it as valuable—regarding the lives of the saints, and that is to speak of them as “windows into heaven.” 

This phrase, windows into heaven, was first used to speak about the icons that often serve as the cover of our worship bulletins.  Iconography in the Eastern tradition of Christianity has a venerable history, but to our Western eyes the perspective in icons may seem odd and take some getting used to.

Perhaps like most churchy things, icons have provoked considerable controversy through the centuries, with those who are for ‘em and those “agin” ‘em.   Those opposed have claimed justification in the proscription against grave images found in the Second Commandment, while those supporting the use of icons have argued that the Second Commandment forbids making an image of an unseen God but that in the face of Jesus Christ we have seen God’s glory, for the Son is the perfect image of the Father.

That after Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, to forbid the use of images is tantamount to denying the incarnation was upheld by the Second Council of Nicaea in the eighth century.  That council declared

As the sacred and life-giving image of the cross is everywhere set up as a symbol, so also should the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints . . . be embodied in the manufacture of sacred vessels, tapestries, vestments . . . and exhibited on the walls of church, the homes, and in all conspicuous places, by the roadside and everywhere, to be revered by all who might see them.  For the more they are contemplated, the more they move to the fervent memory of their prototypes. (Nicaea II, Wikipedia)

The Council clearly stated that while veneration of images is to be encouraged as the honor passes through to the prototype, worship is forbidden, as worship is due God alone.

So in their life and witness, which testifies to Jesus Christ, saints give us “windows into heaven.”

Stamped as they are in baptism with the image of Jesus Christ and sealed by the Spirit, we remember that these saints who form “a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12.1) are windows to heaven.

But so too, we must remember that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God, and that though through sin the image be muted, the likeness obscured, all persons, for those with eyes to see, can be windows to heaven.  In seeking and serving Christ in all persons—without regard to any distinction of color, class, creed—we are given a window through which we see not only God but so too ourselves in right perspective as being a new creature in Christ, the old having passed away, the new even now coming to reality.

On this All Saints’ Sunday, let us remember with gladness and thanksgiving those marvelous saints of God who have been the lights of the world in their generations and windows into heaven.

On this All Saints’ Sunday, let us also remember those, maybe known to us who have in varying degrees but with great significance for us been a window through which we have discovered something important about love of God for us.

But on this All Saints’ Sunday, let us not forget that in each person, having been created in the image and likeness of God, may be a window into heaven through which we can catch a glimpse of God and better see ourselves as pots formed and reformed by the Potter who loves us.

And in dealing with others, should we have difficulty perceiving them as windows into heaven, let us pause, let us pause and consider if it is not so much the window that is the problem as the lens through which we look at the window. 

Perhaps we could use some industrial-strength soul cleanser to help us to see others as God sees, so that in seeking and serving Christ in all persons we can run with endurance the race set before us, so that together with all the saints we can receive the crown of glory that never fades away. 

Amen.