All Saints Day

Today’s title has me thinking. Aside from its celebrations and connotations, I’ve been thinking about what “all saints” means. On this day, the Roman Catholic Church traditionally celebrates the lives and remembrances of all of the saints, who have been carefully made saints by the Church. Many Protestants, on the other hand, define “saint” as anyone who believes in Christ. Right there is an interesting paradox within those who call themselves Christian.

In the conversations with my own church-with-a-little-“c,” The Open Door, we have been discussing the Church as a whole—Protestant denominations and Catholic included—and what our attitude is toward it. The Open Door is an emergent church coming out of the Presbyterian denomination, and the emergent movement on the whole is often seen as a reactionary movement against recent traditional ways of “doing church.” Worship services at emergent churches usually draw from the greater Christian tradition in innovative and unique and hopefully God-glorifying ways. In our discussions at The Open Door, we always return to the idea of the Church as Christ’s body, and we are only one small member.

While I’ve been getting to know the people at The Open Door, I’ve also been taking a history/literature class about the Middle Ages where I’m studying church history from a perspective I don’t remember receiving in any doctrines classes. We’ve been studying the recordings of the lives of the saints—before the Reformation. Without getting into tons of boring details about French monasteries and English kings who aren’t actually dead, I’ll summarize by saying that through this class I’ve realized that my view of history has been colored by denominational boundaries/prejudices.

Within these contexts of thought, yesterday I ran into a related verse in Psalm 119 that stopped me short: “I am a companion of all who fear you and of those who keep your commandments” (119:63). A companion of all who fear you… all… including, but not limited to, all these different denominations that I’ve been studying for the past year: Wesleyans, Baptists, Christian Reformed, Reformed, Emergent, Community Church, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Methodist, Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, etc. Am I a companion to all of these?

Sometimes I find it easier to have compassion for and extend grace to people outside the faith rather than to people inside. Somehow, paradoxically, it is possible to become more accepting of other religions while becoming more judgmental of your own religion. Oops. A companion of all who fear you…

“For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:4-5).

“But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. […] So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way” (Romans 14:10,12-13).

So, today, I celebrate All Saints Day—with both definitions—celebrating the faiths of all those who have lived and still live with Him, and those who are living here, now.