From Many, One
Gracious God, help us always to seek the truth—come whence it may, cost what it will. Amen.
All Saints is one of my very favorite feast days of the entire Christian calendar. It invites you and me to take a pause to remember, to reflect, and to give thanks for the saints who’ve gone before—that great cloud of witnesses over all the generations who lived lives of meaning that mattered and made a difference. They weren’t perfect. But they left an indelible impression in their day, in their time, and they continue to teach us and inspire us to this very day. And of course, in this wonderful cathedral, we’re surrounded by glass and stone with images to help remind us of those saints. You can’t miss, as you approach the cathedral, Saint Peter and Saint Paul— our patron saints, for whom the cathedral is named. Coming in a little bit further to the Human Rights Porch, you encounter Oscar Romero, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bishop John Walker, Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, John Myrick Daniels, and Elie Wiesel. And if that’s not enough, continue in and beyond the reredos behind me, behind the high altar, where we have over 110 carvings of saints of all sorts. I don’t know about you, but it inspires me to try and do better and be better as a follower of Christ.
Another aspect of this service that I find so incredibly meaningful and helpful immediately follows this sermon, when we will renew our baptismal vows, reminding us of who we are at our core and to whom we belong and who we strive to be as followers of Christ. For this particular time in our country’s history, I want to lift up two of the petitions, two of the questions that you and I will answer shortly.
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?
We will respond, I will, with God’s help.
Notice that those vows are entirely inclusive: all persons, all people, every human being. There aren’t any exceptions made for gender or race or sexual orientation or country of origin. All means all. That’s what we strive to do as followers of Christ.
We all know that we have a consequential election two days away. You don’t need me to tell you that. It’s important that we remember those who’ve gone before, those who served and sacrificed so much for the rights that we enjoy today. In two years, our country will celebrate 250 years since our founding. Also recall that it took about one hundred years after our founding for the 15th Amendment to the Constitution to be passed—whereby no discrimination would impede the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. But we all know that despite that amendment, obstacles and roadblocks were put up to prevent truly living into that right.
Saints who’ve gone before—the likes of Martin Luther King Jr,, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, and so many others—fought to make that amendment a reality. And in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed that helped secure the amendment as a basic, fundamental right. In 1957, when he was then the Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson said this: “The right to vote is a basic right, without which all others are meaningless. It gives people—people as individuals—control over their own destinies.”1 And as a woman, I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that women didn’t have the right to vote until 1920. That too was hard fought by the likes of Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, and so many others. You see, one of the ways that we honor those who’ve gone before is to live fully into the rights that are yours and mine—hard fought, hard won, incredibly important.
I believe that context in history is a great teacher. I invite you to think back to four years ago, when all the media and everyone else talked about what a consequential election it was. This notion is not new. Consequential elections come around every four years, and sometimes even sooner. Four years ago, then Presiding Bishop Michael Curry was scheduled to preach from this pulpit, but he couldn’t come here because of Covid. Remember, it was November 1st, 2020. He had to record his sermon, and it was shown on that day. On All Saints’ Day 2020, vaccines weren’t available to the general public. Over 350,000 Americans died of Covid in 2020 alone. People worked so hard to make those vaccines available to you and me. I don’t take the right of access to vaccines for granted. Neither do I take the right to vote for granted.
We’re very divided. You don’t need me to tell you that. And foreign bad actors in Russia, China, and Iran, we know, are sowing divisive seeds and unfortunately, their efforts are working entirely too well. So, in this time when so many of us are fearful not knowing what tomorrow, Tuesday, or the days following will bring, where do we find our hope? Where do we find our way forward? As we heard in the gospel lesson, we follow Jesus, who’s always prepared to call us out of death and darkness into new life, new possibility, unbound, free.
Michael Curry spoke about this four years ago, and I want to lift up his wisdom and his hope from that day.
“I believe with all my heart that the way of love that Jesus has taught us is the way to heal our nation, the way to bring about true justice, the way to set us all free—all of us. The choice is ours: chaos or community. I believe that Jesus and his way of love has shown us the way to community—beyond the chaos to community that reflects something akin to the beloved community. Something akin to what Jesus called the kingdom of God. Something akin to what John in the Revelation saw as a new heaven and a new earth…I’m a Christian. I’m a follower of Jesus because I believe that Jesus has shown us the way, the way to become the beloved community of God. That is the way for us, America, with all of our divisions, with all of the injustices, that way of love is the way of life…”2
Bishop Curry went on to say:
“On the great seal of the United States [E pluribus Unum, from many one] is the hope and the vision that many diverse people, all of God’s children, might come together and become one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all—that this American experiment might actually be a reflection of God’s dream of a beloved community whereas the old slaves used to say, ‘there’s plenty, good room, plenty, good room, plenty good room for all God’s children.’ And that the key to becoming E pluribus Unum is love. When I love you as much as I love myself, when we love each other, E pluribus Unum America becomes possible. I’m a follower of Jesus because I believe he was right.”3
I too am a follower of Jesus because I believe he was right. How about you?
Amen.
1 Quotations of Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJ Presidential Library (Carlisle, Massachusetts: Applewood Books, 2017), 7.
2 Jan Naylor Cope, editor, Reconciliation, Healing, and Hope, Michael B. Curry, “The Solid Rock” (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2022), 104-10
3 Ibid.