SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR

CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

ALL SAINTS DAY 2009

“Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?

And who can stand in his holy place?”  (Psalm 24:3)

              Forty years ago, when I was a young and impressionable seminarian (as opposed to an old and impressionable priest) I found myself amidst a sea of other pilgrims in the vast nave of St. Peter’s Basilica.  Paul VI occupied the Throne of St. Peter at that time, and although Vatican II, with all its liturgical reforms, had taken place under his predecessor John XXIII, the Holy See seemed to be the most reluctant in implementing them, so we worshippers were treated to a pontifical mass with all the old trappings --- ecclesiastical triumphalism at its best (or worst, depending on one’s point of view).  How well I remember seeing the Holy Father, not six feet from me, borne aloft on his portable throne (known as a sedia gestatoria) by a dozen colorfully-clad Swiss guards, blessing the faithful as he made his way to the High Altar.  The occasion, as it turned out, was the canonization of a saint, an 18th century French nun. The present day members of her order had come to Rome for the occasion, and suitably wimpled and habited, occupied an entire gallery of the church.  The homily was in French, but the mass was in Latin, as was the solemn declaration which officially conferred sainthood on this woman, pointing out that it had been ascertained that the requisite number of miracles had been ascribed to her intercession; that she had been accorded a day on the church’s calendar; and that churches could now be named in her honor.  At the end of all this, the Pope declared, Sit sancta, which means “That she may be a saint,” or “That she may be called holy.” 

              There is no canonization process as such in the Episcopal Church.  By contrast, the General Convention last summer declared, by voice vote in the House of Deputies, that about a hundred folk, including Calvary’s 12th rector Sam Shoemaker, are to be known as “holy women and holy men.”  But regardless of the route to sainthood, it is usually of such people, set apart by some official act and venerated through the centuries, that we think of when sainthood comes to mind.  But if we do so, we are barking up the wrong tree.  We do well to look --- if I may make a radical suggestion --- to the Bible.  When Paul writes to the saints (the hagioi) at Rome or Ephesus or Corinth, he is not addressing people with halos over their heads. His words are intended for the rank and file, the ordinary folk who live, and move and breathe and have their being in those cities. For today, All Saints Day, we remember those, who in the words of Miss Scott’s lovely hymn, “lived not only in ages past.”  We remember “the saints of God who are just folk like me,” as we resolve “And I want to be one, too!”

              That said, however, all of us, as we take seriously our Christian pilgrimage, strive to achieve sanctity of sorts, a holiness of life.  This is why we ask with the Psalmist today, “Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?  Who can stand in his holy place?”  And we listen to God’s answer: “Those who have clean hands and a pure heart, who have not pledged themselves to falsehood nor sworn by what is a fraud.”  These two verses grab us because they speak to such things as conduct, motivation, attitude, and the prioritizing of one’s life. How should we as Christians act and why?  What feelings and emotions do we bring to what we do?  What is ultimately important for the Christian life?  We seek to answer these questions and to strive for holiness of life in different ways --- through prayer, through the Sacraments, by doing good works.  In recent years, it seems, people are doing all these things and more as they attempt to become more in touch with their spirituality. 

              In this connection, I read with horror the account of three people who died in a sweat lodge in Arizona a few weeks ago.  As I read the article, I had a fleeting thought that the whole thing cold be seen as an indictment on the church.  I imagined that the participants in this exercise were people who had dismissed or found inadequate what they would describe as “organized religion.” The fact that 50 ordinary, hard-working and reasonably intelligent people willingly entered a very cramped and oxygen-deprived space into which hot coals were introduced every few minutes, at risk to life and limb, is, all things being equal, not so shocking.  It pales, for example, compared to what Jim Jones convinced people to do in Jonestown, Guyana thirty years ago. That the sweat lodge was the culmination of an experience called a “Spiritual Warrior Retreat” that also included a 36-hour fast in the desert followed by a meal and a series of motivational talks is not surprising either.  People who think Lenten fasting is some archaic holdover from the Middle Ages and that sermons are a) boring and b) presumptuous pronouncements from the lips of hypocrites are nevertheless willing to go without food under the blazing desert sun and submit themselves to pep talks that purport to tell them how to achieve spiritual nirvana and financial success! And I guess we shouldn’t even be surprised that the participants were willing to fork over between $9,000 and $10,000 for the privilege.  And, as Calvary has just launched its Annual Appeal, (an English teacher of mine once said that every class is an English class --- well, every sermon is a stewardship sermon!) I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the spiritual warriors in the Arizona sweat lodge, having paid $9,000 for a weekend would laugh in our face if we suggested that they support their parish to the tune of nine thousand dollars a year?

              Some twenty years ago or more, I appeared, incognito, at a party in a bowtie, and a twenty-something woman asked me what I was into.  Before I could answer, she said she was into crystals.  When I finally explained that I was a priest, and therefore into the Christian religion, she asked, incredulously, “You believe all that stuff?”  My friends, we live in a spiritually-deprived world in which people are willing to cast their spiritual lot with almost anything.  Indeed, if you don’t stand for something, you most assuredly will fall for anything.  Have you noticed that even horoscope columns nowadays carry a disclaimer that they are intended for entertainment purposes only?  Newspapers, I suppose, did not want to take responsibility for people who stayed in bed all day waiting for Saturn and Neptune to converge, or realign, or whatever they do!

              Many people who claim to want to deepen their spirituality are not looking to spirituality to provide a compass, a guide through the vicissitudes of life; they really are looking for simple definite answers to life’s complex questions.   Or they are seeking a religion to conform to their already well-defined belief systems.  Yesterday’s Times carried an article called “Paganism, Slowly, Triumphs over Stereotypes,” which contain this insight: “Paganism was waiting for modernity to catch up with it. The emphasis on the worship of nature in virtually all variations of Pagan faith, and the embrace of a female divinity in many, situated the religion to mesh with the environmental and feminist movements that swept through the U.S. in the 1970s.”  How convenient! 

              We might add that Benedict XVI’s seemingly magnanimous overture to disaffected Anglicans, apart from threatening to undo four decades of serious ecumenical dialogue between our churches, basically says: “If you believe Anglicanism has watered down the faith with such things as women priests and gay bishops, come to us” ---- a church, (he might have added) to borrow a phrase from Ephesians, “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.”

              Today, we gather to add to the roll of saints six beautiful young ladies ---- Aila, Gabriella, Sonia, Lila, Devon and Rowan, .  Today we may well be baptizing a future President of the Untied States, a Justice of the Supreme Court or the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.  And since one of the candidates is already named Rowan, perhaps a future Archbishop of Canterbury! Their parents and godparents will, on their behalf, make some serious and quite unambiguous promises, promises, which if kept, make no room for horoscopes, crystals or bogus spiritual quests.  We will pray that the Holy Spirit will guide them, and that they will be kept in the faith and communion of Christ’s Church.  Above all, we pray, if we may paraphrase Miss Scott’s hymn, that “they love their Lord, so dear, so dear, That his love make them strong; That they follow the right, for Jesus’ sake, the whole of their good lives long.”

Amen.