Sermon for All Saint's Day, delivered November 7 at Calvary United Church

November 7, 2010

Today is our Sunday celebration of the saints of the faith, All Saints ’ Day being last Monday. When we think of saints we might picture an old guy with a halo dressed in a robe. The truth is that the Catholic Church recognizes many different people as a saint, the most recent being Brother Andre a French Canadian monk, who was canonized in October and who died only in 1937. When we in the United Church talk about saints we do so from a slightly different perspective. We would include any of those who have died and been reborn into eternal life. So on this celebration of all the saints, we remember all those who have died who have had a deep and lasting impact on our lives. While we remember those who we love who have died, we cannot help but grieve. So on this day we may shed tears as we remember, but that is only appropriate to our service here today.
Many of you will know that Halloween is the day before All Saints’ day, and is properly pronounced, “All Hallow’s Eve”—hallow being another word for holy or sainted. The tradition of wearing masks on Halloween came out of the belief that the boundaries between the spiritual world and the material world were especially thin before the day when the church remembered the saints and so the masks were used to scare away evil spirits. All Saint’s day was not randomly placed in the calendar, either. It was placed the day after Samhain, a pagan holiday where the spiritual and material realms overlapped at the culmination of the harvest time and the beginning of the period of deep sleep during the winter. So at this time we believe that there is a particular closeness between us and those whom we love who have passed away and we hope that they can feel our love for them, we hope to feel their presence with us again.
There is another period of a thin boundary between the material and spiritual realities during the Sacrament of Communion. During communion we eat bread and drink grape juice—not a particularly holy act if one were at home munching on some Wonder Bread and dipping it in grape Kool Aid! But by using bread and the fruit of the grape, we are connected to the first meal of communion—the Last Supper—when Jesus announced his impending death but also his everlasting presence in the bread and the cup. So whenever we speak the words, eat the bread and drink from the cup, we are linked to Jesus in that moment and the spiritual and material meet in that moment. The bread and juice are turned from grocery store items into a spiritual symbol that spans years and worlds.
Likewise in the sacrament we are linked with all those who have taken this meal before and with all those who share it with us now. So the barriers between us and our loved ones are especially thin today as we celebrate communion on the Sunday after All Saints Day. I say these things not to be overly superstitious or to scare anyone. Quite the opposite. I say them to comfort us with the knowledge that death—although abrupt and painful for those left behind—is not the fearful transition with those who have crossed over. They are in another part of reality, but they retain some connection to this world and to the people that they loved—namely you! I hope that on this day you will feel that love that is being sent to you.
And just so that you know I am not making this up or quoting some New Age source, let us hear from Jesus in today’s reading from the gospel of Luke. Some religious leaders pose a cheeky question to Jesus about a widow married many times and whose wife she would be in the afterlife. Like most of the trick questions posed to Jesus, he deflects the trap and goes into a deeper understanding of the issues. Jesus says that marriage is a partnership for this world but that even the Laws of Moses don’t encompass the magnificent reality that is God’s love. Those who are dead are safe from pain and suffering—their lives are like the lives of angels. But even the dead are not separated from us forever. Jesus says, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” To Him all are alive. This means that as much as we hurt from the losses that we have suffered, the loss is not permanent and the pain will heal. Those who have passed away may seem as far away from us as forever, but to God we are simply in different rooms of the same house. To Him all are alive. The love that God surrounds us with in our suffering is poured over our loved ones in an equal measure. What a joy to know that the strength that God gives us to continue life when life seems meaningless is also given to our departed one to sustain him or her through the wait until we are reunited again! To Him all are alive.
Imagine the trick question posed to Jesus. A woman widowed seven times! What a tragedy to experience loss so deep and so often. To even make up this situation seems insensitive. But given the situation, what a trivial thing to focus on who the woman would be married to in the hereafter. Imagine it was you being reunited with your loved ones—the ones you lost and had to live without for many years. What would you care for the rules of this world? The joy of being with those for whom your arms ached all these years is the main thing. Love given and returned is the point. The rest is just details. And—this is the good news—Jesus came to earth to tell us that love given and returned is the point. Don’t sweat the small stuff. If you can get love right, you have lived up to the dreams God has for you.
Our love today is going out to those that we love whom we have lost. We may or may not feel the love returned that they would surely give to us were they here. But whether we feel it or not, we are linked in love—to our lost loved ones, to those who share our pew today, to those who share the meal of communion. We are linked in love to all the faithful of God, past and present and we are linked to our head and cornerstone, Jesus, the one who first loved us. Even amid our grief, may we know the love that surrounds us and enfolds us this day and every day until we see our Creator face to face. For to Him all are alive. For to Him all are loved. Amen.

When they work...

Computers are very handy, but not always. I've been trying to get a sermon I preached online in a nice, readable format. What I am going to do instead is post my sermon as a blog post - so it will be long and not nice looking. But it will be there.

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

I gave up on this blog because I thought no one was reading it. It turns out that I was giving up on a select few who were reading it. Ooops, sorry!

In the spirit of repentence and restoration I will start posting again and hopefully some will find this helpful.

We Are All Treaty People

This video was created by Saskatchewan youth to inform people about the need for Treaty education. If we accept that the Native population are Treaty people because their ancestors signed the treaties then immigrant populations are also Treaty people because our ancestors signed those treaties too--just on another side!

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

I've been reading a lot of books lately. Picture books, mostly! Last trip to the library I picked up one that piqued my interest - He's Got the Whole World in His Hands by Kadir Nelson. I sang this hymn when I was a boy and have sung it many times since. Reading the picture book gave me a different perspective on it, though.

When I sang that hymn as a boy I sang it in a mostly white congregation and didn't understand the origin of the hymn as a black spiritual. Seeing the black family of the book and thinking of the origin of the hymn made me think about the words. Instead of being an innocuous hymn about our Creator God it is a hymn of defiance to earthly authority. The slaves or oppressed who first sung it did so in defiance of the power of their earthly masters. For them, ultimately all authority rested in God's hands--a God who loved them and would free them one day.

White Canadian born people are not oppressed in this way but when we sing this hymn it can still be a hymn of defiance. Instead of earthly corporations putting a cost on everything in life (think buying seeds from Monsanto, buying land that was taken from the First Nations, buying health from the drug companies) we know that ultimately God is in control. He's got the whole world in his hands, and one day he will bring an accounting to those who abuse the world. Amen!

Peace

Driving up to Prince Albert today I heard on The Current an interview with Ursula Franklin. There was a lot of good thoughts in that interview but the most compelling comments I heard were about the nature of peace. She said that "peace is not a commodity" and that "peace is indivisible." Peace is not something that can be bought by some and withheld from others

We can see in North America that some have tried to buy peace by moving to expensive suburbs or gated communities to remove themselves from the unrest of impoverished areas in the inner city. The United States and Canada have used tax payer dollars to create peace for our countries by fighting in areas where terrorists are thought to make their home. Concrete results of this "war on terror" are yet to be seen. If we want peace for the world we must make peace available for everyone. Peace is not indivisible.

By the way, though I am generally not supportive of Canadian troops in Afghanistan I must say that our armed forces are determined and conscientious to do the job that they have been ordered to do and they are doing it well.

The times in the United Church are a changin'

I just read the General Secretary's Triennium report. With that title you might be forgiven for thinking that this is another sleeping pill from the church. Nora Saunder's report on the next three years is anything but business as usual. Several times she cites the appetite for real change in the church and offers four options for the General Council (national church) level. The General Council Executive this last weekend approved the recommended changes. These include a $1 million New Ministries fund for creating new churches and communities of faith and cutting 15 to 20 positions at the General Council offices. It remains to be seen what these changes will mean but it seems that people in the church are ready for a change.

Reproductive Health

What is the point of an online blog if not to be controversial? With that in mind I am dismayed at the Harper government's decision to withhold funding from foreign aid on women's health with regard to abortion. Regardless of your opinion of abortion it currently is the law of the land that abortion is publicly funded. The Harper government claims that they are not trying to open the abortion debate in Canada and that it will remain publicly funded. If that is the case, then why is this appropriate for Canada and not for other nations? Why should women in Canada have this choice and not women from other - poorer - countries?

A New Beginning

I've written an online blog once before. It was called the pastorspage and I wrote it while I was in ministry at Ardrossan United Church. Now I am in ministry at Calvary United Church in Prince Albert, while I live in Saskatoon. I'm looking for ways in which to connect with the congregation at Calvary despite the commute and a blog springs to mind.

I'm going to be offering my view on the world through the lens of my faith. I hope other people are interested in that view! Most of all I'm interested in your comments, so please feel free to disagree, debate and even agree with my posts. I'm looking forward to the discipline of theological reflection.

And now as I say to my daughter, Laura, away we go!