And if there is one particular thing that All Saints Sunday says to us, I think it is this: the celebration of the saints is a reminder that we are part of something larger than ourselves: it's a reminder that we live a life, and draw on a strength, and serve a purpose, that goes beyond what we can see and hear and feel and understand in our own immediate context; it's a reminder that our lives and our ministries and our mission are taken up and made part of Christ's own work for the working-out of God's will in the world. We are part of something larger than ourselves--the Letter to the Hebrews calls it a great "cloud of witnesses"; the Apostles' Creed calls it "the communion of saints"--we are part of something larger than ourselves, and that makes us able to do more in Christ than any of us could ever expect to do alone.

That's certainly what Jesus is talking about in this Gospel lesson from Luke this morning. In some ways, these words of Jesus that describe the blessed life have become so familiar to us that we don't always hear them in their depth, we don't always hear them as a real challenge to do real things in our real lives. They're nice ideas--but we don't always see them as calls to particular actions. Listen again to what Jesus calls us to do: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you."

And then Jesus sums it all up with a phrase that is almost frightening in its direct simplicity: "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." Be like God, Jesus says, in mercy and generosity and love.

But there is a problem with Jesus' description of the blessed life, and that is that it is clearly impossible. Most of us have a hard enough time acting genuinely human, let alone acting like God. Most of us have a hard enough time being genuinely loving, genuinely compassionate, genuinely generous, genuinely good, with those who love us, those who are like us, those who are closest to us--let alone loving and caring and doing good for those who are different, those who are antagonistic, those who actively wish us harm, those who lob bombs at us and say they are out to destroy our way of life. If it were just up to us, this image of the blessed life that Jesus gives to us, this calling to saintliness that Jesus puts before us, would be clearly and totally and completely beyond our reach.

But the Good News is that it is not just up to us. The Good News is that we are part of something larger than ourselves; and, in that larger life we share in Christ, the call to the blessed life is not beyond our reach. Jesus says, "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful"--and the deeper meaning there is not just that we have to act like God, but that God will act in us, so that God's mercy informs and empowers our mercy, God's justice informs and empowers our justice, God's love informs and empowers our love. St Paul puts it this way in our Epistle lesson today: he prays that we may have "the eyes of our hearts enlightened, so that we may know what is the hope to which God has called us, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe." For Paul, what makes us saints is not that we do glorious acts of witness or powerful works of service to impress God, but what makes us saints is that we believe in God's saving love, and through our believing God is able to work in us, to manifest in us the glorious inheritance of the saints, to be powerful in us for justice and for peace. We are saints not because of what we do for God, but because of what God does in us. God takes us up into the larger life of Christ, God invites us to be part of something larger than ourselves, God fills us with the strength to love and do good and bless and pray and give in a way we could never do on our own.

And that invitation to be part of something larger than ourselves seems to me to be especially important for us here and now, at this moment in our church and our history and our society.

Today is the ingathering of our pledges for our fall "So What?" pledge drive. Over the past several Sundays we have been reflecting together on the questions "So what difference does St George's make to you?" and "So what difference can you make to St George's?" Today we are lifting up the difference we can make through our money, the difference we make by pledging our financial support to the work of the church. But of course pledging is just one small part of stewardship--a very important part!--but just one part. The discipline of stewardship within the whole of the saintly life means using our time and our talent and our treasure to be part of something larger than ourselves. The discipline of giving is more than just a material means to make sure the church keeps running; the discipline of giving is a spiritual practice that keeps us mindful of the fact that we all live within a network of relationships, that none of us is all alone, that our very life is based on receiving from others what we need to receive and giving to others what we have to give. The discipline of giving is an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual truth that God creates us in such a way that we need each other to be alive. That makes us an image of the Trinity, where three Persons give and receive one Life, one Being, in everlasting love. The discipline of giving is a spiritual practice that keeps us in touch with the truth that we are part of something larger than ourselves, that we are living members of the Body of Christ given for the healing of the world.

But I think the discipline of stewardship goes even deeper than that. The Good News for us today is that we are saints not because of what we do for God, but because of what God does in us. And that's true of our stewardship: when we give, when we pledge to the church, when we make donations to Compassion International or Episcopal Relief and Development, when we volunteer in service in our neighborhood, when we do our jobs well for the sake of a job well done--when we give, it is not just us giving, but it is God giving in us. So often in our stewardship talk we say things like "God has given so much to me; I feel like in gratitude I ought to give something back." And there is truth to that: being grateful for God's generosity is a good thing. We do it in every Eucharist. But I think it goes deeper than that: I think that when we give, it is God's Spirit moving within our spirits, God giving us the impulse, the motivation to generosity. I think giving is one single act--not two acts, God giving to us and then us giving back to God--but one act, God giving in and through and by means of our giving. God yearns, God longs to give justice and peace and compassion and abundance to this world--and we, you and I, and everyone in the church, are among God's chosen instruments to do that giving. God is the giver; and when we practice the spiritual discipline to attune ourselves to God, then we get to participate in God's giving.

And when we give in that way--give not just our money, but give ourselves--when we serve in that way--not just to keep the church going, but to participate in God's mission for the world--when we live a spiritual discipline of stewardship in all we do with all we have all the time, then I think we truly do live into something larger than ourselves, then we truly take our place as living members of the Body of Christ, the we truly become what we are: Christ's saints, sent out for the justice and the peace and the well-being of the world Christ died and rose to save.

That is how we celebrate All Saints Sunday today. Amen.