SERMON: ALL SAINTS (1ST NOVEMBER) 2026 : THIRD ORDER CONVOCATION
Revelation 7:9-17
You can hear Ted preach this sermon by clicking here:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited Perth in the 1990s. What I remember about his visit was the reception after the Eucharist in the Cathedral. There were about 80 people in Burt Hall standing in a circle. The archbishop went around the circle greeting each person. He shook my hand, looked me in the eye, held my gaze, and thanked me for all the support I had given South Africa.
I felt seen. I felt as though Tutu had seen the letters to politicians that I had written, the articles, the poem, the marches I had joined (and some of you had marched too). And then I thought how pathetic. How pathetic was my little effort, and how pathetic to think that the archbishop had any idea who I was. After all, he probably – most likely – said the same to everyone else in the room.
But I felt really seen when Archbishop Tutu shook my hand. I felt as though he had seen who I really am, the best ‘me’ that God is making. It felt good. I felt he was looking at me and seeing Christ. He was looking for the Christ in me and saw it.
In addition, I felt disturbed. Disturbed in a good way, because I felt that being in the presence of the great man was changing things around in my soul, in my being, to nurture the growth that God is working in me.
To be in the presence of a saint is to meet a holy person, and feel seen and affirmed, and to be disturbed – and equipped – to journey further on with Jesus.
Did Archbishop Tutu understand Saint Clare and her gazing into Christ? It’s quite likely: he was a Tertiary until the demands of being Archbishop of Cape Town made him decide to withdraw.
Saint Clare teaches us to gaze into the mirror of eternity, to gaze into one’s own face, or the face of another, and see reflected in that face the face of Christ.
And it’s powerful. Another visitor to Perth ten years before Tutu was Murray Rogers, a priest who headed up a community in Jerusalem. We thought he was intriguing because he celebrated the Eucharist with bare feet and an Indian shawl instead of a stole; these eccentricities came from his years in an ashram in India.
Murray led us in a weeklong retreat at Wollaston College. On the last day, he invited us to spend 10 minutes or more gazing, looking into his eyes one on one, and allowing him to look into ours. It sounds a bit weird, but it was a compelling experience. Again, I felt seen, deeply seen, and re-arranged in my soul in a good way, readied to take the next step of the pilgrimage.
This morning, we thank God for the communion of the saints, including the Saints with a capital ’S’ – the great heroes and models of our faith like Saint Francis – as well as the saints without the capital, the ordinary Christians like you and me who know that Christ has made a claim on their lives.
We should be thinking of vast numbers. In the General Roman Calendar there is at least one capital ‘S’ Saint for every day of the year, 365 or more. But the Roman Catholic Church has canonised over 10,000 capital ‘S’ Saints.
I don’t know how to count the ordinary saints. If there were 20,000 Christians by the end of the first century, and there are two and a half billion saints today in 2026, there must have been hundreds of billions over the past 2,000 years, and we have no way of knowing how many billions more are still to come.
They are beyond our imagining. We can just about imagine 100,000 people in the MCG Stadium. But then to imagine each of them seen by Jesus and held in his love. And then multiply those 100,000 by billions.
This is the picture that John, the writer of Revelation, wants us to take and use. ‘A great number, more than anyone can count,’ he writes (Revelation 7:9). A huge stadium, with the Lamb at the centre, all praising God.
It’s like the stadium pictured in the Letter to the Hebrews when we are told, that ‘we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses [so] let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2a)
This is reality. A great cloud of witnesses, saints who have seen Christ and have been seen by him. This crowd is described as a cloud, the same cloud that surrounded Jesus, Moses and Elijah, on Mount Carmel (Luke 9:28-36), the same cloud that Isaiah tells us rains blessings on us (Isaiah 44:3). ‘
Put together the stadium in Hebrews with the vision in Revelation, and we see the power of this picture. This is not ‘pie in the sky when you die’. This stadium-full of saints is present now. It is reality which breaks in on us now. We don’t need to take it literally, because this eternal reality is far beyond our powers of imagination and description.
And it is a wonderful encouragement, like having a whole stadium, whole stadiums, barracking for you, for me, cheering us on. ‘Up there, Cazaly! Go, Lyn! Go, David! Up there, Philip! Well played, Anne!’
We worry about the small numbers at Church. But when two or three, even just two or three, are gathered, in Jesus’ name, there is Christ with them. (Matthew 18:20) And with Jesus are the whole multitude that no-one can count, the billions of cheering Christians, the angels and the archangels, and they are all praying with us. Or, if we see it the right way round, we are praying with them.
I love singing in Church, because it’s the only way I know of hearing the singing of praise in eternity. We join our song with theirs.
When life is tough, all the saints cheer us on. The saints are with us. They want the best for us. They point us to the Lord.
This is the Feast of All Saints. Knowing that Saints, both those with a capital ‘S’ and those ordinary saints, are with us here and now. Saint Francis, Saint Clare, Saint Bonaventure, are in this room with Saint John of God, with Saint Peter and Saint Paul, as well as Saint Rae, Saint Jenny, Saint Steve.
When we sit or kneel to say the Daily Obedience, they are with us. Not just our brothers and sisters in the Third Order, not just Saint Francis and Saint Clare, not just the hundreds of Franciscan saints, but, in their loving generosity, all the saints, and the angels and archangels. Every time we gather to pray, the communion of saints prays with us.
They are with us as we renew our promises. They are with us who will be admitted as novice. They are with each one of us here. They are here as we step out to ‘live joyfully a life of simplicity and humble service after the example of Saint Francis’.
Stop for a moment to try to take it in. … … …
All the Saints. We are here with them and the Lamb.
