All Saint’s Day B November 1, 2015
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Isaiah 25: 6-9 + Psalm 24 + Rev. 21: 1-6a + John 11: 32-44
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, beloved saints of God, from the One who is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. Amen.
Many years ago, when I lived in Nashville, TN, the veritable buckle of the Bible belt, I remember answering the door one Halloween night to the usual pint sized troop of trick or treaters. There was the tiny pumpkin and the witch, and a football player and then there was a boy who was wrapped head to toe in toilet paper. All that you could see were his eyes and his mouth. “Wow…great mummy costume” I said. And he looked at me through all of that super soft Charmin and said “I’m not a mummy….I’m Lazarus!”
This Gospel story from John is one full of rich imagery and deep emotion. Mary and Martha, sisters of the dead Lazarus, give Jesus grief that doesn’t begin to compare to their own. “Lord, if you had been here….my brother wouldn’t have died.” And they argue with Jesus when he tells those nearby to remove the stone from the grave.
In this story we have a glimpse into the grief of Mary and Martha and into the grief of Jesus, who had lost his friend Lazarus. The swirling emotions…the confusion even….maybe they remind us of our own grief.
Last year I was not present with you on All Saints Day…I had gone to Ohio to preach at the ordination of our former intern, Inge Williams. And I must admit that I was kind of relieved about that because it had been a hard year for me personally, with the deaths of my grandmother and my dear friend Lynette. And it is always an emotional day as a pastor, to remember those from our congregation who had died in the year just past. I wasn’t sure how I would carry the emotions of that loss on that day.
And here we are a year later and I still remember my personal losses – we all do. It doesn’t matter whether our loved ones died this year or last year or many years ago. The sting of loss, the tenderness of grief, is still with us. And we need the story of Lazarus to remind us that Jesus is well acquainted with sorrow.
Do you remember another encounter that Jesus had with Mary and Martha? He had gone to their home for dinner and Martha took issue with Mary’s decision to sit at Jesus’ feet rather than help her in the kitchen. It is a story of community gathering around a table, around a meal.
The reading from Isaiah this morning describes another meal – a banquet of rich rood and fine wines. It is that heavenly banquet that we speak of in metaphor and imagine gathering around in the life that is yet to come. This passage is so full….God will take away the mourning veil and destroy death forever. God will wipe away tears from every cheek. God will take away shame. And the people who gather at that banquet without their grief and shame will say “This is our God, this is the One for whose liberation we waited, God Is the One in whom we had hoped!”
This is the One. This is where God is found. This God has reached out to our very faces and wiped away our tears with great tenderness. Mary’s tears and Martha’s tears….your tears and mine. This God has taken away the shame that binds us just as Lazarus was bound with those strips of cloth. This God who calls us to feast at the table.
And God doesn’t stop there. In Revelation we read that the new Jerusalem, the holy city, the place where we are called in the next life comes down to earth full of beauty and love. We always imagine some dividing line between heaven and earth…but in this reading from this wondrous vision of John of Patmos, God comes down to earth and God’s very presence is among us. God comes to live with us and we are God’s people and God is fully present among us. God with us. And then this again: every tear is wiped from our eyes.
I know that it is hard. I know when you lose someone you love that emotions are deep and complex and that some days are good and some days you just want to lash out at Jesus….Lord, if you had only been here. But those saints in our lives that we honor and remember today live on in us…they live on in our lives and in our hearts and in the work that we do and the ways that we love.
I want to invite you to try a couple of things on….practices if you will ,that may be concrete ways of feeling God wipe tears from your eyes.
When we prepare to come to the table for communion every Sunday, there is a part of the liturgy that says “and so with the church on earth and the host of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn.” When I say or sing that phrase, I try to picture in my mind’s eye those we have lost from this community over the many years….I can’t name everyone, but I see them through the eyes of my heart: Eunice with her gentle smile, Bill and Winnie dressed in their Sunday best, sitting near the east windows, Kris sitting with her mini-me daughter, Lowell who would have had a birthday last week, and Dick who I knew would always have an encouraging word. And of course, way back in the northwest corner, Robbie, who would often leave worship early for a hot meal, but wouldn’t turn to go until I’d waved first. And Pastor Lundahl who told me he thought that wave was some odd liturgical action I’d invented. And Paul Bartling who I didn’t know for long enough. And so many others. I see them because we carry them with us, collectively in our spirits. This community of faith. They are a part of us, still.
Episcopal priest and author Barbara Crafton offers a similar suggestion as a prayer practice. I just read about this recently and I must tell you that it has transformed my prayer life. Crafton suggests that when we go to pray, that perhaps we light a candle or find another way to center our attention. And then, when we have gathered our thoughts and heart, we begin by saying “The Lord be with you” and THEN, we imagine, we literally hear, the saints of God who we miss respond “And also with you.” She suggests that we picture them gathered there with us, holding our prayers sacred. (I was afraid you might think this was a little woo-woo) but the first time I tried this, I could hear my grandmother’s Midwestern voice and then my friend Lynette with her southern drawl and she would have added “darling” to the end “And also with you darling!” because that was just her. And my friend Amy too.
I commend this practice to you. May it be a balm for your soul.
We find ourselves from time to time and day to day in the complicated web of our grief. But the gift of the communion of saints, who we remember and give thanks for, is that they are always with us. They are with us in our hearts. They are with us as we pray. They are with us when we worship. They are with us at the table, at that rich banquet that does not end, where we gather without shame and without tears because everything old has fallen away and God is making all things new.
Thanks be to God. Amen.