The Sunday after All Saints’ Day
November 4, 2001
Christ Church, Covington

The call of God began with an individual and his physical descendants; God called Abraham and made promises to his offspring that they would multiply and inherit the land. God’s People, in the beginning, were simply an extended family; and the tribes of Israel understood themselves as a sort of kinship alliance in the midst of a hostile world. A person’s "blood kin" were his allies in defending the land, and also his legacy for the future. This is why Abraham was so concerned that he have a son of his own to follow him, rather than leaving his legacy to his slave Eliezer. God had made promises to Abraham and his kin, and God secured the legacy with the extraordinary birth of Isaac.

This consciousness is reflected in our first reading today, in which the succession of generations secures the future of the People. The fame of those who have gone before in Israel does not die out because it lives on in their descendants. "Their offspring will continue forever, and their glory will never be blotted out" (Ecclus 44:13). "Their name lives on generation after generation", the writer tells us. God is faithful to his covenant, made long ago with Abraham and secured in the present by the succession of his descendants.

In Jesus Christ this reality has changed forever. The Church which is brought into being by his death and resurrection gathers people "from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages" (Rev. 7:9) to become a part of the new Israel. In the Sacrament of Baptism Christians are born again, and become members of a large family of brothers and sisters. Our physical descent and succession is of no account is the new reality of God’s People, who are not dependant on kinship with Abraham but rather on sharing his faith in God. It is Baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which brings this new reality into being, the same Sacrament which we celebrate today for these six persons.

The promise made to Abraham has been transposed into a new key. The Church, the communion of saints, inherits the promise, extending it to all peoples. We continue to celebrate the same promise, to sing the same song, because God continues to be faithful to the new Israel. The glory that God has given to the saints, to all of us who are baptized, will never die out because God is faithful to his promise. The succession of generations is no longer crucial, but rather the succession of faithfulness, the succession of ministry, the succession of community and Gospel proclamation. It is this succession of prayer and praise over the years that can never die out. God has given his saints an inheritance, and God is faithful to his promise "from generation to generation" (Ps. 100:4).