TWO QUESTIONS FOR ALL SAINTS’ DAY

1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12

November 6, 2011 - Rev. Janet Duggins

All Saints Day is not – at least as we celebrate it in the Protestant Church – about admiring people of extraordinary holiness or ability or faith or sacrifice but about seeing ourselves connected with all those ordinary people who, like us, struggled to be faithful, and often failed, but whose lives were part of the story of God’s people, beloved and forgiven.

Today as we mark All Saints Day and think about all those beloved saints who have gone before us into eternity, we have 29 names on our list of loved ones who have died in the past year, people whose loss is still fresh for us. Last year, we had 10. This suggests to me that for a lot of us, this has been a year of loss and sadness.

And that doesn’t even begin to take into account the other kinds of losses we have suffered, nor yet the people we have lost from our lives before this last year - because of course we have not stopped feeling their absence and wishing we might have had just a little more time with them.

There are any number of ways to respond to loss – healthy ways and not-so-healthy ways. Ways that help us heal and ways that just help us cope for a while. Ways that dull the pain and ways that help us embrace it as necessary to our humanity. Ways to remember and ways to forget.

All Saints Day is a day for pausing and putting aside the things we use to distract ourselves and taking time to be intentional about remembering. All of us have some instinct toward denial or avoidance when it comes to facing loss, and especially the loss that death brings. But sooner or later, we do have to face the reality of the losses we have experienced and the inevitability of death. All Saints Day offers us an opportunity to do this in the company of others who are on the same journey, struggling with the same pain, and claiming the same hope in Jesus Christ.

In the face of death, we have lots of questions, but it seems to me there are two questions that rise up amidst all the others to become, and remain, the most important.

The first is the question in that old song: “Will the circle be unbroken?”

We want to know that those we love have not just vanished into nothingness. We want to know that they are beyond pain and suffering, that they are whole and at peace. Be we also want to know that the connection we have with them isn’t severed forever like a disconnected phone line with no information about a new number. We want to know that God has them.

Some of the time we may feel very confident in this. Some of the time we may feel unable to believe with much conviction, because we have no proof, no definitive answers, no way to see beyond the shadows of death.

But here’s the thing: It’s not our own ability to be sure about what happens after we die that matters, and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with being able to believe in the literal reality of heavenly choirs and streets paved with gold.

The important thing is what we read in the first letter of John: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” (1 John 3:1)

It’s not about the strength of our belief but the power of God’s love for God’s children. We are embraced and held forever in that love. So are those who’ve gone before us.

Even that, I know, is sometimes hard for us to believe, or to really feel. This, I think, is what being part of the community, the communion of saints does for us. It’s hard for me to have faith all by myself, all the time. Together, we share our faith with each other. When my faith is faltering, I can lean on the faith of others; when I’m stronger, I can hold somebody else up. And in the process, we learn about being the children of God, part of the beloved community that transcends time and is the unbroken circle of God’s love.

The second critical question that comes up in the face of death is “Does my life matter?” or to put it another way: “What is it that will make my life matter in this world?”

In the face of death – I don’t really have to tell you this, you know it – a whole lot of things that might have seemed like they mattered once upon a time don’t any longer seem very important – a spotless kitchen floor, the latest thing in entertainment systems, our pet peeves, our fondness for things being always done a certain way… this sort of thing falls away pretty readily.

Other things we have deemed important don’t lose their hold on us easily though. We are very used to defining success in life in terms of such things as money, influence, having certain things or a certain lifestyle, being able to retire early or having a lot of accomplishments that impress others, or at least raising children whose accomplishments we can brag about. Over against all of that, instead of “successful” Jesus offers us “blessed,” and it’s not just another word for successful. It’s interesting to me that the beatitudes are the traditional gospel reading for All Saints Day for churches that follow a lectionary schedule of texts. Apparently these are words of Jesus that we especially need when confronting the questions that come up in the face of death.

These nine “blessed are” sayings of Jesus in Matthew 5 are invitations to see our lives differently. To orient our lives to something that is meaningful. To define ourselves and act in accordance with our identity as children of God.

What does “sainthood” look like in the light of the “blessings” Jesus pronounces? What are we supposed to do with these words? They aren’t easy to understand, and some of them sound, well, not especially comforting. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? I’m not entirely sure, but I have a feeling that “rich in spirit” might be easier. What’s so blessed about mourning? Do I really want to find out? Peacemaking? I’ve tried it on occasion and gotten burned. But… on the other hand, there are the promises: “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” “they shall be comforted” “they will receive mercy” “they will be called children of God.”

I read that each of these blessings invites us to make some sort of discovery -about ourselves, about what’s really important, about what God wants for us, about the way of Jesus. Jesus’ blessing also urge us to make decisions about our lives.

What if we thought more about being merciful than about the consequences other people deserve? What if we really hungered and thirsted for righteousness – would we spend our time differently? Might we read scripture more and watch reality TV less? What if we let what we give, rather than what we have, determine who we are? What if we understood that there are times when mourning is more appropriate than a cheerful optimism? What if we were brave enough to do what we believe is right even if we get hurt in the process? What if we reconsidered our life goals in light of the things Jesus says?

How might the rest of our lives be different?

As John wrote, “What we will be has not yet been revealed….”

Resources:

Earl F. Palmer on Matthew 5:1-12 in Feasting on the Word, Year A, vol. 4.