Sermon, All Saints (Year B)

 We have just come through AllHallowTide – a 3-day time in the Christian calendar where we honour our dead.

Starting with All Hallow’s Eve – or Halloween
Continuing through All Saints Day (formerly called All Hallows Day) – when the canonical Saints are honoured; those people who are teachers of the faith and forerunners of the second coming.
And concluding with All Souls Day – on November 2 – a day where we remember those we love but see no more.

Many folks may find this segment of the calendar to be somewhat spooky, (we don’t like to think of the dead), yet, the church invites us to reframe that sentiment, to return to what these three days of celebration and commemoration originally intended.

And it’s this simple:
Hallow means Holy.
These are days designed to celebrate the holy folks who have influenced our lives.
The people who continue to lighten our paths with their words and actions. The nuggets of wisdom they left for us, the morals they conveyed to us, the teachings they shared with us.

And here’s a fun part about these things: they don’t have to be factual to be true and important.
The lives of the saints carry with them some mystery: and that’s okay.
The lives of our loved ones sometimes carry with them some mystery and unknowns – and this in no way invalidates or diminishes their positive influence on us and the world.

In fact, sometimes how we fill in the unknowns can enhance how we have been touched by those who have gone before us;
It can strengthen the relationship that we continue to have with those who live in our memory.
As C. S. Lewis once said: Death ends a life, but it doesn’t end a relationship.

And so in these three days, when we are remembering, and respecting, those relationships, we acknowledge – with joy – what keeps us connected: the power of Christ.
It is because of the promise to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus, that we continue to be blessed by the memory of our dead.

The scriptures today really emphasize this aspect of ongoing relationship.

The Wisdom of Solomon brings comfort to those who grieve, when he reminds us that “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God” and they are at peace.
They do not suffer, they are not afflicted, they are being held in the source of all love.

The psalmist assures us that the earth is the Lord’s – and all that is in it. God transcends time and space!
There’s a Celtic tradition of thin veil – a time or place when the veil between this world and the next is so thin that one could practically reach through it.
The whole notion of All Hallow’s Eve fits in this tradition as an annual thin place, where the hand of God reaches to us.
This psalm confirms how God’s reach extends everywhere – that the entirety of the created order belongs to God. With the promise of blessing, and salvation, we hear repeatedly the call for glory to God – meaning honour and splendour. A powerful relationship!

The reading from the Revelation to John during his exile on Patmos is intended to bring comfort to the living; as the relationship is described in increasing detail.
This book, in its entirety, is a message of ongoing hope for relationship between God and the people of the world. And in this passage, in the age when the veil disappears, God will dwell with humankind, that death will be no more, that mourning will end, and that pain will be no more. What a gift for humanity.

The Gospel today addresses the reality of human loss: the natural and normal feeling of grief and desperation when we have lost someone we love.
These are emotions that even Jesus does not deny, or minimise; Mary and Martha have experienced loss. They are sad, disappointed, angry - and rightly so.
Yet here we can hear being described a foretelling of what the resurrection will be like: for we recall how in baptism we die to sin and rise to newness of life…
Here Lazarus is being raised to new life. This is not his resurrection; it is an earthly re-animation. Lazarus will remain human, he did, at some point, die.
But: in this temporary raising, an important thing happened: he was unbound.
For Jesus and Mary and Martha, this meant the literal untying of the shroud around his body.
For us, we can understand this as the metaphorical binds that prevent us from fully receiving the fullness of life. The binds that keep us from being fully open to the gifts in this life… From receiving the blessing of love as it is offered… from living in the comfort of belief.
For When we believe, we see the glory of God.

This glory: the honour and splendour and awe – it is a part of our relationship with God.
And we recognise that part of our relationship with God is shown to us – unveiled, revealed – through our relationships with each other.
What a great privilege, then, to celebrate the feasts of All HallowTide, as a thanksgiving for the love given and received in this earth.
To extend gratitude and considered appreciation for those who live forever in our hearts.
To be surrounded by the peace, comfort, and love of God, as we hold those sacred memories: confident and thankful that in the body of Christ, death does not release us from being in community with one another.

I close this holy time with a blessing for the sacred time of remembering with our heart, written by Jan Richardson in “The Painted Prayerbook”. It’s titled For Those Who Walked With Us
For those
who walked with us,
this is a prayer.
For those
who have gone ahead,
this is a blessing.
For those
who touched and tended us,
who lingered with us
while they lived,
this is a thanksgiving.
For those
who journey still with us
in the shadows of awareness,
in the crevices of memory,
in the landscape of our dreams,
this is a benediction.


On this day, in this season, in the company of the communion of saints, may you find yourself in a thin, thin place where heaven and earth meet and you receive what you need for the path ahead.

Amen.