The sermon discusses the meaning of saints, relics, and healing in the Episcopal faith. It reflects on how the English Reformation removed saints and relics but something important was lost in linking believers to the incarnation. The sermon tells the story of St. Alban, the English martyr for whom the church is named. It discusses two healing stories in the Gospel and how Jesus' healing power is the power of love. The sermon argues that Confederate relics need to be seen for what they are - symbols of

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The Reverend Beth Lind Foote
Proper 8, Year B, St. Alban’s Day (observed)
June 28, 2015
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Albany, CA
2 Samuel 1: 1, 17-27
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 8: 7-15
Mark 5: 21-43
“St. Alban’s Day: Saints, Relics and the Healing Power of Christ’s Love”
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
always acceptable in your sight, our Lord and our Redeemer.
Amen.
Today we celebrate St. Alban, the Saint for whom our church is
named. In the Episcopal Church we name churches after Saints
but we keep ourselves at a tasteful distance from them. Notice that
we don’t have a statue of St. Alban here in the sanctuary. Maybe
we have an icon somewhere. We certainly don’t have any relics.
Saints. Relics. Healing. Let’s consider what these things mean in
our lives. First, let’s consider saintly relics.
As Episcopalians, we are products of The English Reformation,
which greatly simplified the Catholicism of the High Middle Ages,
sweeping away the saints, and their relics, from the daily lives of

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the faithful. The Saints were no longer intercessors for us, who
heard our longings and our desires for healing. Instead, they were
recast as people of heroic faith to be admired in stained glass
windows.
But I think something important was thrown out with the
bathwater. Those physical relics of the Saints, those pieces of
bone, linked us to the Incarnation, the reality that in Christ, God
became one of us, someone who, like us, lived a mortal life in a
physical body.
And The Saints embody an edgy faith that went all the way to
death. That links us to Christ also, whose faith went all the way to
death, and beyond. The Saints, and especially their relics, pieces of
their actual physical bodies, became sources of healing. The saints
and their relics embodied the power of love, faith in Christ, and
healing.

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I experienced something of that saintly power in the Cathedral of
Santiago de Compostella at the end of my Camino. Because Spain
did not have a Reformation, the bones of St. James bones lie
beneath the altar. My fellow pilgrims filled the cathedral for the
pilgrim’s mass. It was physical and edgy. We had walked
hundreds of miles to get there, and we smelled like it, too. Being in
that place with each other and the sacred relics of St. James made
the cathedral and experience holy. There was healing in that place.
Our own St. Alban was a Roman Briton from the 4th century
before Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Alban gave shelter to a priest being pursued by the local Roman
authorities. Moved by the priest’s faith, Alban became a Christian,
and offered himself to the authorities in place of the priest. When
asked to renounce his faith in Christ he said, “I worship and adore
the true and living God who created all things.” He was tortured
and beheaded and became the first British martyr in A.D. 304.
When Christianity prevailed, a church was built over his place of

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martyrdom and then a great Abbey. People came on pilgrimage to
visit the relics of St. Alban in search of healing.
In our Gospel reading today we encounter two healing stories.
In rapid succession, Jairus begs Jesus to heal his daughter. A
woman suffering from hemorrhages reaches out to touch Jesus’
cloak and is instantly healed. Then Jairus’ daughter dies, and Jesus
raises her up saying, “Talitha Cum! Little Girl, Stand up!” Jesus
sees these women as full human beings, which was unusual in
Jesus’ day. Something new was happening: Jesus loved them all.
His healing power is the power of love.
Healing. Saints. Relics. How else do we think about relics? I
found it interesting this week to think about the different ways we
use the word Relic. On the one hand, we use the word Relic in
connection with the Saints, as holy touchstones.
On the other hand, we use the word relic to dismiss things that are
worn out, passé, and which have lost their value.

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The relics of the confederacy are like that. The Confederate flag
and statues of Civil War Generals, especially Robert E. Lee, have
kept southern culture and all of us across the U.S. tethered to an
oppressive time in the past.
This last week, after the murder of nine faithful people in the
A.M.E church in Charleston, something new began to happen. It
felt like God was speaking. The Governor of Alabama quietly
decided to take down the Confederate flag in front of the capitol.
The Governor of South Carolina began the process to take down
the flag outside their statehouse.
People are beginning to see the relics of the Confederacy for what
they are, symbols of intimidation and oppression. So much more
needs to be done regarding racism, of course. In our own
“enlightened” Bay Area, too, of course.

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Our unquestioned right to own a gun is also a relic that needs to be
seen for what it is---a way to create an eye for an eye, tooth for a
tooth world where everyone lives in fear. This is not how Jesus
wants us to live. In our passage today, Jesus says, “do not fear,
only believe.”
These relics of hate and fear need to go away. As our President
sang at the end of his amazing eulogy for The Rev. Clementa
Pinckney, “Amazing Grace will lead us home.” God is leading us.
With God’s grace, we can do more than we can either ask or
imagine.
As followers of Jesus and his Saints, we are called to love. As a
Church, we have the Eucharist: our living relic, our touchstone, of
love. Through the Eucharist, Christ draws all to himself to be in
Communion with Him. Sharing the Eucharist heals us to become
more Christ-like. Sharing the Eucharist heals us to be more loving.

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The General Convention of the Episcopal Church began on
Thursday in Salt Lake City. After the joyful news about the
Supreme Court ruling on Friday, I was overjoyed again yesterday
to hear that Bishop Michael Curry was elected our new Presiding
Bishop! If you attended Bishop Marc’s installation in 2006, you
probably remember his powerful sermon. I’m excited that he will
lead our Church for the next nine years!
Someone shared a wonderful video with me in which Bishop Curry
spoke about the power of the Eucharist. He told the story of how
his parents, both African-Americans, visited an all white Episcopal
Church in the South in the 1940’s. His mother was Episcopal and
his father was Baptist at the time.
Bishop Curry’s father stayed in his seat and watched his wife walk
up to receive Communion. He wondered what the priest would do
when he came to his wife, the lone black woman kneeling there. At
that time in the South it was strictly taboo for a white and black

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person to share a common cup. He was greatly moved by the way
the white priest gave the chalice to his wife, just the same as the
white person next to her, and said the same words: from the 1928
Prayer Book: “The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was
shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.
Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s Blood was shed for thee,
and be thankful.”
Bishop Curry’s father said this about his experience: “Any church
where black and white drink from the same cup has discovered
something I want to be a part of and that the world needs to learn
about.” Bishop Curry goes on to say, “This is the Sacrament of
Unity that can overcome even the deepest estrangements between
human beings.”
Love is stronger than hate. We have seen this in moving ways this
last week. The families of the nine sainted people slain in
Charleston immediately forgave the shooter. On Friday, the

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Supreme Court made Marriage for All the law of the Land.
Amazing Grace!
Love is stronger than hate. Jesus is the embodiment of that truth.
We celebrate it every Sunday here in the company of St Alban and
the Communion of Saints. As St. Alban said so long ago, “We
worship and adore the true and living God who created all things.”
Amen.