For All The Saints

I grew up with a Baptist Grandmother. She was one of the many saints of my life. Both of my grandmothers, in different ways, were big influences on my spiritual life from an early age. But Esther Warner Simpson, my dad’s mother, was big on the Bible. One of the ways she showed love for her United Methodist grandchildren was to have us memorize Bible verses.

Jesus wept. That one was pretty easy! Just two words in the Revised Standard Version or, as she preferred, the King James Version. I like the New Revised translation that we used today better on most days, but it bums me out that they require four words when Jesus arrives at the grave of Lazarus, his friend: Jesus began to weep. I like the older version better. Jesus wept.

In any case, there is a lot going on in this liturgy today, one of the great days in the church year. Over the weekend, many of you have put pictures of loved ones and candles on the tables in the back and offering prayers for those who shaped our faith and now are among that great cloud of witnesses. I want to invite you to take a moment, whether or not their pictures are on one of those tables, to give thanks for their lives. Take a moment to celebrate what was good about their life and if there is any unfinished business, any lingering need for forgiveness and healing, offer that up to God as well on this day. We trust that in death, life is changed, not ended – so the relationships are still real and the bonds of love are stronger than death. I’ll give you ten seconds.

Just as we wept at the grave of our loved ones, so Jesus wept at the grave of his friend. Grief comes in waves and although time does help, it’s not exactly true that time heals all wounds. Jesus wept for the same reason we do: because death is hard.  Jesus called his friend out and they unbound him and let him go because love is stronger than death. We put our trust in that same truth that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Jesus and in the love of God we share with those who have gone before us.

At the other end of the spectrum, today is one of those days when the Church celebrates Holy Baptism and we will do that here today. Baptism is about belonging, something we spoke about all last month in our stewardship journey. Today we say that Colton belongs to God – that he will be claimed and marked and sealed as God’s own. Forever. Nothing can change that. Nothing can separate him from the love of God. He will always have a home here and even when the Church doesn’t get it right, we dare to proclaim that Jesus loves us, this we know, for the Bible tells us so.

We promise to be a community of faith that shares that love with all the world. Today we will renew our own baptismal promises to be the Body of Christ, to be the People of God. So similarly, take a few moments to reflect on what you hope for today for this child and his generation in this town and around the planet – maybe for your own children and grandchildren. (Ten seconds)

But that’s not all, folks. That’s enough and that’s always what this holy day is about: birth and death and the love that binds us together into one great fellowship divine. It’s enough and honestly, although I love preaching, the liturgy holds all that today: those candles and photos of our loved ones, the water and the oil and not just one beloved child of God but a whole congregation full of them. What more needs to be said?

Well, I’m not going to belabor this, but in case you have forgotten, there will be a national election on Tuesday. The stakes are very high. I have strong opinions about this election, but those opinions are my own. I have thoughts I’m happy to share with anyone who asks me over a cup of coffee or a beer. But it is NOT my job to tell anyone of you how to use that precious right on Tuesday. I know some Christian leaders do that. I’m not personally afraid to do that, or worried about losing tax-exempt status: I just take very seriously that I am ordained to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, not to be a political operative.

And yet…

And yet, we do well to remember that Jesus lived and moved and had his being in the Roman Empire. He will be executed by the state. Jesus was “spiritual and religious.” The root word for religion is religio. It literally means to bind together. We can be spiritual on our own but we cannot be religious without others, to whom we are bound. For Jesus as a practicing Jew that was about a way of life, set apart. For us, bound together in Holy Baptism, it is also about a way of life. This way of life is about core values – those values found in The Baptismal Covenant. When we remember those, a vote becomes an expression of our identity, and a kind of prayer for the world that looks more and more like God’s will on earth as in heaven.

I want to say three things about this and then I will sit down. First, as this week unfolds, remember who you are and whose you are. Remember that we have promised and still promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being, no exceptions. We are a people who are called to seek and serve Christ in all persons, no exceptions.  

This is what our ancestors in the faith taught us, some of whose pictures are back on those tables and all of whom continue to cheer us on whenever we are in danger of losing hope. Always the two great commandments remain: love God and love neighbor. This is what we promise to teach Colton not only with our lips but in the way we live our lives. These promises are not for inside this building only, although that’s a pretty good start. We practice at vestry and committee meetings so that we can do it at home and work and yes, when we vote.

The second thing I want to say is that the opposite of faith is not doubt. Good old Thomas, the patron saint of Episcopalians everywhere, reminds us that doubts and questions can lead to deeper faith. Rather, the opposite of faith is fear. Fear divides us from one another. Fear appeals to our worst angels; faith appeals to our braver angels. We should vote based on our faith, not fear. Faith binds us together – religio; fear divides us.

Third: we may gather here next Sunday and still not yet know the results of the presidential election. It’s going to be very close and there are a lot of ballots (my own included) that went in early but will be counted late. We need to be patient at a time when the stakes are very high. But whatever happens and whenever we know of it, God will still be God and we will still be called to follow Jesus. The work God has given us to do is the work of reconciliation.

When I was an undergraduate in Washington DC in the 1980s, I used to go hang out on the Mall and in particular I’d hang with honest Abe Lincoln there and read the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. I said earlier I liked the verse “Jesus wept” because it was short, but I’ll tell you that there was a point in my life when I could recite both of those speeches by heart.

You will remember that the second inaugural was on March 4, 1865, when the Civil War had bitterly divided this nation and almost rent it asunder. Lincoln appealed to the nation’s braver angels when he spoke these words, words I feel speak to us across the years to this time and place:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

My brothers and sisters, the work we are called to share in the name of the risen Christ means choosing wisely on Tuesday, choosing in a way that will lead us toward peace on earth and good will for all. Your faith and your life experience will inform how you see fit to vote. But that is your sacred right and it is not my job to tell you which bubbles to fill in.

But on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and next Sunday morning and beyond,  we have work to do together, as followers of Jesus. And it is my job, for a season, to proclaim the good news. It is my job, for a season, to be your pastor and to build up the Body of Christ here, always with God’s help.

With malice toward none and charity for all; firm in our convictions but knowing we don’t ever see fully, we are called to the work of healing and reconciliation, of binding up this nation’s wounds, of seeking and serving Christ in all persons, of respecting the dignity of everyone. No exceptions.