Sermon, All Saints (B)

This is a full day for us, as we have a combination of several things happening around us.

It is, of course, Halloween, which means we will (hopefully) see lots of friendly little ghosts and goblins and such coming round this evening to help us divest of our candy supplies.

We are also, this evening, as the sun set, entering into All Hallow’s Eve – the evening before the day when we remember all those who have been hallowed – or honoured as holy. Namely, the saints – those folks through the ages with an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God - who have gone before from this life and entered into the next.

And All Saint’s Day is, of course, immediately before All Soul’s Day: a day when we honour, remember, and commemorate all the faithful departed; all those whom we love but see no more, those who are equally loved and cherished in the household of God, and are less likely to have statues made of them here on earth.

That’s a LOT for us to honour and dwell in, in a short time period.

Add in there some significant memories – it’s 20 years ago tonight that the building of St. John’s was harmed by fire – and this is a significant weekend indeed.

And through it all: we are invited to keep seeking God.

To see God in our company – even when we’re feeling separated.

To hear God in the joyful noise - even when we’re feeling too much silence.

To feel God in our hearts – even when we’re feeling the blahs.

To know God in our midst – even when we’re feeling alone.

Because as soon as we stop actively seeking God: we bind ourselves to the world – and to worldliness.

And that is easy to do: our lives are busy, our calendars are full.

We have tasks we want to do, and conveniences we want to take advantage of.

We have priorities and privileges and preferences.

We can be bound.

We forget to invite God into our midst, into our families and our conversations and our lives:

And we forget that we’ve forgotten to invite God in.

And we carry on, in the world; bound.

Limited.

Limited by our anger; our preferences; our sadness; our schedules; our addictions; our consumerism; our excuses.

We are bound: by the past, by ourselves, by our choices.

We are overwhelmed by the burden of everything, and we lose sight of our focus on God.

Yet Jesus says clearly to us all, as he did to those around Lazarus:

UNBIND HIM! LET HIM GO.

Unbind US, we hope. Let US go.

So we ponder: What is preventing us from the fullness of life – in this world at this time – and

What is preventing us from seeing the hope of eternal life that is promised!

Unbind us, Lord, that we may seek you.

Because this past year, 19 months, we know: we have all suffered a loss. We are all grieving. COVID has taken a toll on us, individually and collectively. We have all lost something during COVID.

And today: as we pray for the saints and souls, and we try to abide in that holy hope, we name and honour all that has been lost this year:

People

Connections

Sense of security and safety (real or perceived)

Travel

Medical access

Established routines and expectations

Hugs

Casual gatherings

Social Norms and Niceties

Communication Skills

Perspectives.

The list goes on: we have lost much.

And this is not the time when I will tell us to smile harder, ignore the pain, forget the sadness:

Instead, this is a time when we honour it.

Because we know, as people of hope, as people of God – that the pain doesn’t last forever.

The feasts of All Saints and All Souls are important: because they help us to acknowledge our losses, and to articulate our sense of lament (a long-lost skill in our society) – and they help us to – every year – continue our journey towards hope.

And hope:

Our hope keeps us going – on the great days, and the not-so-great- days.

Our hope keeps us seeking God – where we expect God to be, and where we are delightfully astonished.

Our hope keeps us in the world but not bound by the world.

For our hope is the hope of Solomon, who can declare with confidence that the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. That those who are faithful are faithfully held and cherished, abiding with God in love: this is indeed a hope full of immortality.

And our hope is the hope of the psalmist, who declares the entirety of the world as the Lord’s – knowing that this includes us, and our ancestors, and generations yet to come. No wonder they continue in glorifying God as they seek the face of God!

And our hope is the hope of John, as he shares what was revealed to him, that the home of God is ever among mortals, removing all grief and sadness from us, assuring us of the impermanent nature of death, of the renewal of all beings in the presence of the Triune God!

And our hope is the hope of Martha and Mary – who confess their faith even in the midst of their grief, who do not ask for a miracle but is open to seeing the full and unbounded glory of God, revealed in an utterly unbelievable action by her friend Jesus.

Our hope is the hope that has been shared with us: the hope of generations past, the hope of our world today, the hope of the future.

A hope that does not speak of a far-away heaven as a destination, but rather as the kingdom of God being an on-going journey made accessible to everyone in the here and now.

A kingdom that we are meant to seek out, meant to delight in, meant to invite others towards.

A kin-dom of hope where we, as Christians, are invited to be humble.

The kingdom of God is a place where we do not have all the answers, nor can we understand how God expresses his love to all of his family. A place where we do our best to live out our faith in the world around us, respecting God’s authority in all the world.

The kingdom of God is a place of hope:

So let us pray for those who have departed, thanking God for the privilege of having known them, and for the wondrous faith and hope that they taught us.

And let us live in hope.

Let us pray:

O God, the king of saints, we praise and glorify your holy name for all your servants who have finished their course in your faith: for the blessed Virgin Mary; for the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs; and for all your other righteous servants, known to us and unknown; and we pray that, encouraged by their examples, aided by their prayers, and strengthened by their fellowship, we also may be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.