honor the saints

Nov 1 is All Saints Day, in the Lutheran tradition we observe this festival on the Sunday after Nov 1. One of my professors shared a really interesting paradigm with us in chapel yesterday. He said:

Honor the saints departed by serving the saints in your midst.

I'll have to teach a little bit of the Lutheran understanding of the use of the word saint in order to bring this into some perspective. Luther said, "We are simultaneously saints and sinners." We don't understand saint to mean someone who lived an exemplary life of faith a long time ago, for us, each member of the body of believers is a saint. We all stand under the same banner of Jesus sanctifying death on the cross.

If you look back through history to people who we commonly call saints, I believe that they would be honored when we pick up where they left off. They are honored when we serve the poor. They are honored when we stand up on the account of the oppressed.
They are honored when we share the gospel.

Honor the saints . . . .
. . . by serving the saints in your midst