Homily     “For All The Saints” The Rev. Rali Weaver

This day after Halloween in the Catholic Church serves as a time of solemn remembrance of the canonized dead who are considered holy and virtuous.

The celebration of All Saints Day takes on different shape within various cultures.
In Portugal offerings are made to the church and children go door-to-door to collect cakes, nuts and pomegranates. In Spain the religious play Don Juan Torino has become the longest running play ever, having been performed on All Saints Day for over a century. In most European Countries it is the tradition to put flowers or candles on graves. In the United States in most Protestant and Catholic Churches the hymn we are about to sing “For all the Saints” is traditionally sung. We leave out the lyrics about Apostles and Evangelists and Martyrs but otherwise it is the same song.

Despite the fact that often saints and sinners are celebrated together on All Saints Day the Catholic Church designates All Soul’s Day (on November 2^nd) as the day for remembering the faithful but not sainted departed.

Within the Catholic context Saints are considered by the church to be individuals of exceptional holiness who serve as an exemplary model, extraordinary teacher, miracle worker, intercessor and a possessor of God’s message.

On this day after our Halloween Celebrations, a night full of mischief and merriment, ghosts and goblins, we might be in need of some reflection on what it would take us UU’s to be saintly.

But from our UU perspective it might be more appropriate to talk about All Souls because we do not generally hold people out as more or less holy than the one another. And we do not believe we need an intercessor to speak to God on our behalf. In fact countless UU Churches are named All Souls and not one of them is called All Saints.

We hold to a belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

The name All Souls comes from the Universalist part of our heritage which originally held to the idea that all souls were already saved - which is the foundation for our understanding of the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

The belief that all people have worth is somewhat at odds with revering a Saint or holding up that some people are closer to God than others.

It’s not as though we don’t recognize great ones among us but we acknowledge them in both their greatness and their humanness. This is important because we know that we all carry a piece of the truth and we all are given different resources and abilities to perform at different times in history. Doing the best we can is good enough for a loving god and for our neighbors.

I remember the first time I heard our familiar Responsive Reading by Mary Oliver: The words “You do not have to be good.” seemed to contradict every religious teaching I had learned before entering a Unitarian Universalist Church.

You do not have to be good.

Recognizing the human condition in all its glory and imperfectness is a real and honest part of our faith tradition.

When we UU’s celebrate Saints and Souls we recognize that all of those who have come before us for good or for ill have shaped our world.

As some of you know October 31^st is not only Halloween but recognized as Reformation Day in many Protestant churches because it marks the anniversary of the date (October 31, 1517) when Martin Luther nailed is 95 Thesis to the door of the Wittenburg Castle, protesting the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church and beginning the Protestant Reformation. In memory of this transformative event that would allow heretics like us to worship together, it seems good that we should include a reflection upon our church governance in any discussion of sainthood.

In 1648 the founding minister of our Church, John Allen, helped to write a Doctrinal Statement titled the Cambridge Platform.

This statement was mostly an affirmation of the Westminster Confession (written by the Calvinists in 1643) the only difference being that the Cambridge Platform declared that there is no greater authority than the gathered church and defined the gathered church as: "a company of saints”.

Our current Church Governance continues to rest on ground founded by the Cambridge Platform, which defines saints not as some unattainable perfect individual, but instead as the worshipping community who have gathered. You are the saints.

Today we bring forward our remembrances of those who have come before us these people, friends, lovers and relatives who have shaped our lives.

I bring a picture of my Mother to share each year.

My mother passed away 19 years ago and yet every year I bring forward her picture as one to remember because she was my saint.

Holding her in my memory as I do, helps to keep her alive within my life.

She is not so good that the Catholic Church could saint her, but she was my exemplary model, my extraordinary teacher, and my miracle worker. And even though I do talk to the divine directly in my own meditations and prayers there are times when I am the saddest when it brings me comfort to use her as an intercessor by praying directly to her.

When I officiate at a memorial service I often close with the words similar to those I closed our All Saints remembrance with today.

“for as long as any of us are alive their spirits live as well.”

It is our remembrance that keeps our saints alive.

In acknowledging the human experience we know that even in their perfect imperfectness those we love and those who die are truly our saints. Not canonized or acknowledged for their greatness but loved and adored just the same.

May we go forward from this place today holding all of these remembrances in our hearts.

Knowing that they in their time and we in ours only need to love what we love.