All Hallows

Jesus said, “The fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive." 

(Luke 20:37-38)

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

This is a time of sorrow, of remembrance, and sometimes of joy. It is the season, and the week, and in some homes the day, that we remember those who have died. We remember individuals close to us, loved ones, fellow worshipers, friends, and colleagues. We remember those far away. And we remember those long ago. 

Fresh it comes sometimes, the memory of the loss of someone dear to us, long ago. Or we are reminded, willy-nilly, by some random reference in a passing conversation, or news item. We pass the freeway exit. We taste something, or a fragrance comes to us, and we remember them.

We remember, too, those who are passing now, or recently, not only those we know personally, but those we hear about through news reports. This past weekend the headlines about a crush in a crowd in Korea and the murder of innocents in Mogadishu vied for space, while Ethiopia, Congo, Yemen, and other places were found further down the page, or on inside pages, or awaited their turn in our attention.

Some of us remember every day or every week those who have died coming through the desert, and we light a candle at a shrine, or remember them in our prayers.  

News items, or visitors, bring to mind tragedies of the past. Anticipated grief, expectation of loss to come, sometimes controls our consciousness. It looks like something is going to happen and we find ourselves getting ready to absorb it, or trying - in advance - to forget it, or address it, or both.

So we have a holiday or two, or three, this weekend and next. Monday is All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day, Tuesday and Wednesday, November 1st and 2nd, we observe El día de Los Muertos*, and on Wednesday, All Souls, All Faithful Departed** - and next Sunday we continue our remembrances, as we listen to the gospel in which Jesus explains to cynical skeptics the resurrection of the dead and the hope it gives, as our God is the God of the living, ‘for to him all these are alive.’

That last is a hard and beautiful doctrine, hard to get your mind around and assimilate, for it is so different from our cultural messages, even well-meaning ones, and the consolations quickly offered at the time of grief. But it is good news, nevertheless. 

And well worth remembering. If the dead are alive to God, and we are alive in Christ, then especially when we come to church and take communion together, and especially these days, we should be able not only to mourn but to celebrate the lives of those who have lived before us, as they are alive in God.

* “Día de los Muertos acknowledges the symbiotic relationship between life and death. El día de Los Muertos is celebrated on November 1st and November 2nd, in which the spirits of the dead are believed to return home and spend time with their relatives on these two days.” https://www.mexicanmuseum.org/dia-de-los-muertos

** “This optional observance is an extension of All Saints' Day. While All Saints’ is to remember all the saints, popular piety felt the need to distinguish between outstanding saints and those who are unknown in the wider fellowship of the church, especially family members and friends. Commemoration of All Faithful Departed did not appear in an American Prayer Book until 1979, and it is celebrated on Nov. 2. It is also known as All Souls’ Day. Many churches now commemorate all the faithful departed in the context of the All Saints’ Day celebration.”

https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/all-faithful-departed-commemoration-of/

Readings for Year C, Proper 27. The Third Sunday before Advent:

TRACK ONE

Haggai 1:15b-2:9

Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22

or Psalm 98

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Luke 20:27-38

TRACK TWO

Job 19:23-27a

Psalm 17:1-9

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Luke 20:27-38

A version of this essay was published in the Keeping the Faith feature of the Home + Life section of the Arizona Daily Star, Sunday November 13th 2022, page E3, under the title, "Celebrate loved ones lost." 

https://arizonadailystar-az.newsmemory.com?selDate=20221113&goTo=E03

The Empress and the Sinner

My wife told me a story once about the funeral of a great Empress. A grand procession accompanied her remains to the cathedral and when they arrived at the doors, a voice from within asked, “Who seeks entry?” And a herald pounded on the great doors and proclaimed, “Open! For the Great Empress, Protector of the Faith, etc., etc., etc.” - and the doors remained closed. “I do not know her.” Again. The doors stayed shut. Then finally the herald humbly asked, “Please open the doors for Catherine, a sinner, a child of your own redeeming.” The doors opened wide. And the welcome was glorious.

This story comes to mind this week for a couple of reasons. Two festivals are coming up in the Church calendar, one right after the other: All Saints and All Souls. On November 1st while we are recovering from a candy binge we remember the Saints of the Church recognized in our calendar. On the following day we remember All Faithful Departed,  All Souls, that is, a commemoration of every one, known and unknown, who has gone before us into glory.

And the other reason is that the story of the empress resonates with a parable of Jesus… which I will tell here with the labels removed from the characters. 

“Two people went up to the temple to pray. One …stood and prayed about himself with these words, ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like everyone else—crooks, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this person here. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I receive.’ But the other stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather, he struck his chest and said, ‘God, show mercy to me, a sinner.’ I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the other. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.” (Luke 18:10-14, Common English Bible, paraphrased)

“God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” is the prayer at the heart of this gospel story. In fact, in folk tradition, this prayer becomes ‘the Jesus prayer’ - the prayer one may recite repeatedly until it sinks into one’s heart. It can become a reflex, a prayer as close as breath, one that accompanies every step.

Of course in Boy Scouts the closest to a prayer that accompanied every step was, “A hundred bottles of beer on the wall.” Not so eternally sustaining. 

Many people have versions of the Jesus Prayer, simpler or more elaborate than the prayer of the man in the Temple, building on it or stripping it down to a simple “Je-sus” inhale/exhale, or adding words, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

And of course there is a long tradition of other repeated recited prayers. 

This one can be ours, as people of faith. Or as sinners. To be more accurate. And to be a bit humble about it. Nobody really owns this prayer; but one may own up to it.

The great empress, when all her finery had been folded and put away, was still a soul in search of God. Of mercy. 

And the Psalms remind us that, 

Our sins are stronger than we are, but you will blot them out.

and that we are welcome, not because of our own merit or position or greatness in the world, or conversely our practiced pieties, but because God is great and God is gracious. 

In other religious traditions we come across a saying that could be taken from the Psalms, “Let these words be written above my throne: ‘My mercy always prevails over my wrath.’” 

In other words, however tremblingly terrifyingly true it might be that God’s holiness and majesty, and our faltering failings, may be in chasmic distance from each other, God will come to us, as Jesus came, to bridge that gap between unutterable majesty and ineffable holiness, and our own - rightly acknowledged - humble condition.

The good news is that God does not leave us in despair, or the loneliness of sin, but comes to us, and brings us home.

Happy are they whom you choose and draw to your courts to dwell there! they will be satisfied by the beauty of your house, by the holiness of your temple. Awesome things will you show us in your righteousness, O God of our salvation, O Hope of all the ends of the earth and of the seas that are far away. (Psalm 65:3,4-6)

Father John Leech is a priest associate of the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew in Tucson.

__________________________

http://edgeofenclosure.org/proper25c.html

Two unusual sources of inspiration from Prof. Laura Hollengreen's University Humanities Seminar on World War One and the Avant-Garde:

Jay Winter, “Homecomings:  The Return of the Dead,” in Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press,1995), 15-28.

Allyson Booth, “Corpselessness” in Postcards from the Trenches:  Negotiating the Space between Modernism and the First World War (New York and Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1996) 21-49. 

The Arizona Daily Star published a version of this essay under the title “Humble yourself to be lifted up” in its Keeping the Faith feature, Home + Life section, Sunday November 6th 2022, E3. https://arizonadailystar-az.newsmemory.com/?selDate=20221106&goTo=E03&artid=4