Tearing up the Shroud of Death: November 3

Year B, All Saints                                                       Isaiah 25:6-9                                                                                                 

            It’s complicated. All Saint’s Sunday is complicated. This is partly because the understanding of this day has evolved over the years. It was originally meant to be a day to commemorate all the Christian martyrs (those who had been persecuted and died for their faith).  In the first few centuries of the church, they would commemorate a martyr with a specific day. But by about the 4^th century, with the increased persecution of Christians, it became clear that they were going to run out of days.  Finally, by the 9^th century, they picked one day and called it All Saints Day.  This was to be the day that would not only commemorate all Christian martyrs, but all Christians who had died.  With all of these changes, the understanding of what it was to be a saint shifted to what many people perceive as the original intention…the intention of the New Testament—to include all Christians who have died and all Christians still living.

            When Paul used the word saint, he was almost always referring to those who were alive. In his letter to the Ephesians he wrote, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints…” Even knowing that---that saints includes the living and the dead, I have never completely wrapped my head around the reason that the Episcopal Church specified this day as a day when we should have baptisms.

There are 4 recommended days in the prayer book for baptisms.  One is Easter, which makes sense. It’s a celebratory day when we talk about new life and hope.  Pentecost is another as it marks the day when the Holy Spirit descended on the assembly and thousands of people were baptized as a result.  The other recommended day is the day when we celebrate the baptism of Jesus, which seems like an appropriate place to have a baptism.  But All Saint’s Day?

The challenge with having baptisms on All Saint’s Day is not just the grief  that comes with the recitation of the names of those who have died in the last year, but also the biblical readings themselves. The readings that we have on All Saint’s Day are the same readings that are recommended for funerals. They are about death and grief, at least that is what I associate them with. I recommend this reading from John when I am officiating a funeral for someone who has died unexpectedly, because people can often empathize with Mary’s frustration and anger and Jesus’ grief and tears.  I use this reading from Isaiah that talks about the feast of rich food and wine when the person who has died loved to cook or host gatherings.  I imagine them in heaven at this amazing banquet, finally being the recipient of hospitality rather than the host. 

While I associate these readings with death and funerals, our funeral liturgy in the Episcopal Church is about more than death and grief.  We try to emphasize with our readings, music and prayers, that we are also celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of us all.  Thus, it’s appropriate to have baptisms on this day when we read the names of those we have lost over the last year.  Because both baptisms and death are new beginnings—in very different ways, but they are new beginnings.

This year, I am just having a harder time with that idea.  I attended a funeral of a good friend a few weeks ago and I wanted to embrace the message of resurrection and this beautiful life to come, but it was hard.  The final hymn was, “It is well with my soul.” I struggled through singing that hymn, because it didn’t feel well with my soul.  My soul felt like it was covered in that shroud that Isaiah describes so perfectly in the first reading.  Isaiah talks about a shroud that is cast over all people.  Isaiah said that God will destroy that shroud and swallow up death forever.  But Isaiah was predicting what was to come in that time where there would be no death, when sin would be no more, when God would wipe away the tears from our faces. That time has not yet come.  People we love still die. We still live under the shroud of death, and sin is all too present in our world. 

In some ways, having baptisms on All Saint’s Day is little act of rebellion, and we do love our rebellions at Christ Church.  When we baptize our new saints, whether they be a small child like Rory or an adult who teaches the children of our city like Leah, we aren’t pretending that sin and death don’t exist. We are acknowledging their presence, but also protesting them. We are saying, yes, death is still a reality in our world. Evil and hatred are still present. In spite of all of that, maybe because of all that, we are still bringing new saints into our communion of saints. Not only that, we as a congregation are making a promise to support these new saints and be a community of saints with them, not because we are all perfect, or even close to perfect, but because we all know how much we need God in our lives. 

One of my favorite lines in the baptism is “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  When we say that line, we use oil blessed by our bishop.  We use that same oil for people who are very sick or about to die. It’s reminder that wherever we are on this journey that is our life and our faith, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  We will all die one day.  It’s the reality that we all face.  Before we die, we live, we live knowing that while death and sin are a shroud on this beautiful world, moments like this, when we are together celebrating new saints in our midst, provide tears and rips in that shroud and one day, God will come again and tear the shroud to pieces. 

The final line in our reading from Isaiah is: “This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Let’s not wait until God comes again to be glad and rejoice.  Let’s claim every moment we possibly can and rejoice in God’s love and salvation. Let’s do it now.

 

Forget Normal: November 7, 2021

 Year B, All Saints                                                            Revelation 21:1-6a                                              

            I can’t think of anyone who has ever told me that the Book of Revelation is their favorite book of the Bible.  Anyone?  If it is, that’s ok.  It just makes you unique. Despite the lack of popularity around the Book of Revelation, there are a few passages that bring incredible comfort to those who hear them, including the passage we heard today.  It might be familiar because we often use it at funerals.  In fact, all the readings from today are ones that are recommended for funerals. The part from Revelation that usually appeals to most people is: “God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”  The part that speaks to most of us is the release from pain, the visual of God wiping the tears from the eyes of those who are suffering.  It moves me every time I hear it or read it.

            If you read the rest of the Book of Revelation, you will see why this release from suffering is so important. There was a lot of pain and suffering before we get to chapter 21. There were beasts, lakes of fire, dragons, Satan, huge storms, rivers of blood… plagues.  We think the last year and a half has been bad….imagine 1,000 years of this--plus dragons and rivers of blood.  Then again, it kind of feels like 1,000 years, doesn’t it?  5 million people have died from Coronavirus alone.  That doesn’t even include all the other ways that people have suffered and died.  This might be the perfect time for us to dwell a little on the Book of Revelation.  If we don’t take it too literally (which I don’t think was ever intended) then maybe we can identify with this book, now, more than ever.

            While the visual of God wiping the tears from our eyes and the end of death and mourning is powerful and comforting, there are other parts of this reading that not only comfort, but inspire.  The writer talks about a new heaven and new earth. It begins with, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea was no more.”  Usually when we talk about the world ending, it’s threatening and scary.  But this part of the Book of Revelation gives hope because it allows for this new heaven and new earth, this opportunity to make all things new. 

It’s strange that the writer specified that the sea is no more.  Why even mention that?  Can’t we assume if the old earth is passing away, the sea is included? In Biblical times, the sea represented division. It was what separated people from one another.  It represented a barrier to human relationships.  For God, it isn’t enough to create an entirely new heaven and earth, God wants to ensure that relationships will be renewed as well. There will be no division between red and blue, Christians and Muslims, conservatives and liberals, vegetarians and bacon lovers.  The barriers will be removed and we will once again live as God intended.

            Much of this might seem irrelevant to us today.  If this is about the end times, why are we talking about it now? The Episcopal Church doesn’t talk about the end times.  But what if this is about more than the end? What if we were able to translate this vision of the future to our present?  For the first few months of the pandemic, we talked about going back to normal.  Then we realized that probably wasn’t going to happen, so we talked about the new normal.  But no one really knows what that means, and let’s face, it doesn’t sound that appealing.  Because when we say “new normal” we just focus on things we need to change, not by choice but by necessity.  We all know that change is hard and disruptive. Why in the world would be want to go through that disruption to achieve normality? Normality was never that good in the first place.          

            When the author of Revelation wrote, “See, I am making all things new.”—it wasn’t a threat.  It was a promise.  Because once you have been through lakes of fire, rivers of blood, dragons, beasts, and plagues, “new” sounds pretty good. Instead of worrying about what will have to change or what we can change back, perhaps we can focus on how to make things news.  If what we read in this text of the Book of Revelation is a vision for this perfect future, there must be a way to bring parts of that perfect future to our present world.  I can think of one way: let’s get rid of the seas that divides us. We have planes now and cell phones.  We can overcome the sear.  The only thing that actually divides us is our pride.  Enough of the divisions.  Enough of the fear mongering. Don’t we have enough anxiety without stoking the flames of unnecessary fear?  Normal. We don’t need to go back to normal. We need to go back to God.  Return to God. Make all things new.