Sermon for the Feast of All Saints

The text is 1 John 3:1-3.

As a dad to a teenager and a pre-teen, I aim to be “firm but fair” when it comes to media consumption. Like many parents, Sarah and I worry about the amount of sex and violence that our kids are watching on TV. An additional concern, which didn’t exist when I was a kid, is the kind of radical misinformation that can come to our kids through social media and the internet. I know we are not alone in this concern.

A number of years ago, I was listening to an interview with a Muslim scholar who had written a book on Islamic extremism. The news reporter asked this scholar if people should be worried that a new mosque was opening in their city. The scholar said, “No. Research has shown that regular attendance at mosque is a moderating factor, when it comes to extremism.” So, the reporter asked, “Where then are these young people getting radicalized by groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda?” And the scholar answered, “On the internet.”

My wife Sarah and I have regular conversations with our kids about internet safety and how to critically evaluate the supposed “information” to which they are being exposed online. Like any good parents, we want our kids to be smart and safe, so they can live healthy and happy lives in this world where mass media is never more than a few clicks away.

This is not just a problem for parents and kids. After the horrifying terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, media companies realized they could boost their ratings (and thereby make money) by keeping people glued to their screens with images that provoke fear and rage. Thus began the era of “doom-scrolling” wherein a person can lose hours of time, clicking on article after article and video after video about how the world will come to an end, if the next election doesn’t go the way they want it to go. Political polarization skyrockets as more citizens become convinced that every vote is a “battle for the soul of this country.”

In the world of dietary health, a common maxim is, “you are what you eat.” By this, nutritionists mean to say that the substances we eat eventually get metabolized into the molecules that make up our bodies, so we had better make sure that the food we eat is healthy and nutritious. I would agree with that statement. And I would add that the substance of our mental diet is just as important as the substance of our physical diet. In the same way that the food we eat becomes part of our bodies, so the information we consume becomes part of our minds.

Have you thought about your mental diet? Companies have realized there is a lot of money to be made by stuffing your brain with the junk food of lust, rage, envy, sloth, vanity, arrogance, and greed. (Did you count them? Those are the Seven Deadly Sins and they are the driving forces of our consumer economy.)

What I’m trying to say in all this is that our mental diet matters, at least as much as our physical diet. The information we feed our brains becomes a part of who we are, so we had better make sure that we are feeding our minds with good information that improves our health, as human beings.

St. John the Evangelist, in our Epistle reading this morning, makes just this point. He writes,

“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when [Christ] is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”

1 John 3:2 NRSV

Let me unpack that verse. When John writes, “we will see [Christ],” he means more than just the physical act of looking at something. The Greek term he uses is opsometha, which means “to attend to” something. This is more than just a passing glance; this is the act of giving our full attention to the presence of Christ in our midst. In older English translations, this word was rendered as “Behold!” or, in other words: “Hey, pay attention! This is important!” That’s what St. John means when he says, “we will see [Christ] as he is.”

This kind of deep and attentive seeing has a profound effect on a person. In the twenty years that Sarah and I have been in a relationship, we have shaped each other dramatically. I am a different man today than I was twenty years ago because I have been in a relationship with her. I imagine she could say the same thing about me. In some ways, that change has been for the better, and in some ways, it’s been for the worse (but that’s just what we promised to do when we got married). Our intimate relationships change us, as human beings, because we spend so much time paying close attention to one another, really seeing each other, in the way that St. John means it. The point that John is making in this text is that the same thing happens in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

When we follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior and really behold him “as he is,” we begin to become “like him” in the ways that really matter. When St. John, the traditional author of today’s passage, first met Jesus, Jesus nicknamed him and his brother James, “sons of thunder,” presumably because of their volatile temperament and boisterous nature. We know they were working-class fishermen who vied for privileged positions in (what they thought was) Jesus’ political revolution. By the end of his three-year journey with Jesus, we find gentle John reclining on Jesus’ bosom at the Last Supper. Later on, when John wrote his gospel, he only names himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” In summing up Jesus’ ministry, John is the one who records the words of the new commandment,

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

John 13:34 NRSV

Finally, when John wrote the epistle from which we read this morning, gentle John (formerly a “son of thunder”) is able to honestly utter the famous words,

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

1 John 4:16 NRSV

So profound was the transformation of John’s heart, Christian tradition remembers him as “St. John the Beloved.” By the end of his life, this “son of thunder” was not remembered for his violent temper, but for the fact that Jesus loved him.

As our evangelical kindred are fond of saying, Christian spirituality is “more of a relationship than a religion.” The tricky part is the fact that our present relationship with Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is not a flesh-and-blood relationship with a person who can be seen, heard, and felt with our physical senses. We encounter the risen Christ through Scripture, Sacrament, silence, and service.

When we gather for worship each week, we look for a genuine experience of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. At home, on the other six days of the week, I hope you are spending time each day in prayer and the study of Scripture. I hope that you give your time, talent, and treasure for the building up of the kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven. Through these spiritual practices, we deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Through that ongoing relationship, we come to resemble Christ more and more, as his light shines through us.

Beloved, we live in a world that tries to tell us who we are by our ability to produce and consume goods in a global economy. The Gospel of Jesus Christ shows us who we really are by revealing our true identity as God’s beloved children. As St. John writes in today’s epistle,

“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”

Beloved, I exhort you this morning to “see [Jesus Christ] as he is,” so that you too might “be like him.” Pay attention to your mental diet.

• In addition to your weekly attendance at church and reception of the Sacrament, spend some time each day in prayer and the study of Scripture.
• Whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.
• Proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
• Seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.
• Strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being.

By living out these vows, which we all made at our baptism and renew with every new baptismal candidate, we will deepen our relationship with Christ and be transformed, day by day, into his likeness. May God bless you in this holy work and reveal the Divine Self to you in the depths of your heart.