All Saints 2023

 People have been saying, this is going to be a difficult All Saints, an emotional one.  Just in the past few weeks, Facebook has been reminding me of these saints.  Last week it was the reminder of the double duet with the two grand pianos and Sonya standing there, no hint she would join the Saints eternal this year.  I was asked to wish my friend Susan a happy birthday.  She died not long before All Saints Day last year but it is still jarring to think she’s not up to her usual shenanigans on this earth anymore.  We’ve lost friends we didn’t have a service for and that leaves a strange feeling, like there’s something left unfinished or dangling.  And we have in our minds wars and disasters that feel heavy, we have mass shootings on our hearts that defy our ability to understand the senseless loss of life.  And on this day, in the face of death, we choose to celebrate.

We celebrate the lives of these people that touched our lives or touched other lives we don’t know.  We celebrate their memories.  We remember them because they are still part of us.  Nothing will ever change that.  And we celebrate because we know there is more than this life.  Here, we just get a little glimpse of what life is.  The saints who have died see much more clearly.  They know what it is to be in the presence of God, at the feast that has no end, residing in one of God’s dwelling places.  They are at peace and they are at home.  We know we will be reunited but it is painful now to feel apart from them and not have them here with us.

As we wait for the day when heaven and earth unite, we work toward God’s vision together.  Today we hold up that vision which inspires us and gives us hope to keep working.

The Book of Revelation is a word painting for suffering Christians.  It was written for those persecuted by Nero to have a vision of hope, in which God and the Lamb, Christ are in the center, surrounded by the saints and martyrs, singing and worshiping God, with God’s love and light extending from that central place and rippling out in concentric circles to the farthest corners of the heavenly realm and breaking into our world. 

And we get glimpses of it.  Did you recognize any of the words this morning in that reading?  We enact this scene, or try to every Sunday morning at Church.   We place God and the lamb, Jesus, at the center, and we gather together as many as come, although all are welcome.  There is no distinction, but all worship together from any nation, all tribes, and peoples and languages.  I wear the white robe for all the rest of you.  It is like a uniform that the saints wear, so that no one’s clothes are better than any other or a distraction for the saints.  We sing this song, “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”  Sound familiar?  We sing these words from Revelation as we enact this scene, as the Kingdom of God breaks in, living this vision of what is to come.  We don’t just sing by ourselves, but our voices join with the saints gathered around the throne, collapsing the distance between us and them, between our world and the Kingdom of God.

As I grieve those I love, I like to remember their voices.  I can hear them, my grandma’s so stern and blunt, Sonya’s so kind and caring, Marge’s so welcoming, Carl’s so matter of fact.  You can hear them, too.  When I stop and listen to their voices, I feel like they are right here with us.  So when we sing, I like to hear their voices joining ours and it lifts me up.  I feel God’s Kingdom so close.

                And it isn’t just in our singing that these realms come near, but anywhere and anytime that people have enough to eat and drink, where there is shelter and protection, when compassion and tenderness is shared.  This is fully the reality in the heavenly realm, and there are points where it breaks into our world when God’s love touches our hearts and brings the Kingdom through us to others in need.

                Never does the heavenly realm see so far away from this world than in the values that matter to God and the values that are lived in this world.  That’s where the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew come in.  In this world, we think someone is blessed if they are confident, don’t know the pain of loss, are full of good food and all kinds of treasures, are merciless, are smart, refuse to compromise, and don’t endure any suffering.  That’s when a person can say they are blessed.  Those are the people we tend to admire.

                However, that is not what God admires or values or honors.  When we are so full of ourselves, how will we ever have room for God?  When we have all the comforts of life, what would cause us to open our eyes and look for something more, for a Kingdom and a realm of misfits?  If we can do it all ourselves, why would we need each other or God? 

To be blessed is to have room for each other.  To be blessed is to have room for God.  To be blessed is to look for God.  To be blessed is to realize that we all are broken and we all need healing.  To be blessed is to be honest about ourselves and our imperfections and shortcomings.  To be blessed is to be ready to receive.

I remember working as a chaplain, I found patients at the hospital were open to talking about their spirituality, more so than most people I met who were healthy.  I found my patients were blessing me with their openness to God’s presence.  Much of the time, I think we go about our day and don’t give God’s vision a single thought.  But when we mourn or feel helpless, we find ourselves remembering what is most important, and putting our hope in God, instead of our own power.  That’s when the Kingdom of God is breaking through and giving us new life. 

In the Beatitudes, God lays out God’s values.  Jesus begins with an unexpected blessing, for the poor in spirit, the merciful, etc.  This is a current reality that someone is living.  They didn’t choose this mode, it is the way things are.  Then Jesus offers a vision of a future reality that is God’s vision, of comfort, inheritance, fulfillment, mercy, vision, adoption.  This is the promised future.  This is the Kingdom of God which the martyrs know fully, and which is breaking into this world. 

Two times in the Beatitudes it isn’t a future reality, but a present reality.  For both the poor in Spirit and the persecuted, Jesus says, “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  This is a present reality more than the others.  They have access to it now.  They are part of it now.  It is theirs.  It is not far away, but here on earth, God wiping away the tears, these folks focused on what matters, living God’s values, open to God’s presence, upheld in community, shining with God’s light and love.

Every Sunday we also pray that God’s Kingdom come and it does come regardless of human defiance.  The saints and martyrs are in that reality even now.  But we also pray it comes among us, that it breaks through in our world in our words and actions.  And we pray that we would open our eyes to see it in the hungry and homeless and ill around us and reach out to them as Christ in our midst.  “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called Children of God; and that is what we are.”  And that is what our neighbor is.  “Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  This present reality gives us hope for the future that God is revealing to us.

May you have hope in more than your own comfort and stability.  May you find the broken places in your life, spaces that God dwells and shines a brilliant light.  May you look for God’s Kingdom coming into the world and participate in it.  May you know blessing in pain.  May you know God’s presence and share it.  May God’s future Kingdom promise be collapsed into your everyday reality.  May you live in the values of the Kingdom.