All Saints’ Day is about our past, our present, and
our future as the Body of Christ. It is about our past because we gather here profoundly
aware of all the saints who have gone before us, the ones who from their labors
rest. That includes those “capital S” saints that we share with the one holy,
catholic and apostolic faith: people like Peter, Paul and Mary (the originals,
not the band!) and John the baptizer and Andrew the fisherman. And down through the centuries, people like
Julian of Norwich who lived through the plague and still insisted that “all
shall be well,” and Francis of Assisi who lived during the crusades and kept on
praying, “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.” We sometimes feel like we are living in
challenging times and we surely are. But is there really anyone here who
considers the days of John and Andrew, or Julian or Francis, to be “the good
old days?”
All Saints’ Day is about our
past because it also gives us a chance to remember our own personal small “s” saints
as well. We have already named some of the members of this great cloud of
witnesses and no doubt recall some happy memories and maybe also a few loose
ends and unresolved conflicts too, because life and death are rarely as tidy as
we wish they would be. For most of us there is some stuff we keep working on
long after our loved ones are gone. So we remember them on the day of their
birth, and on the day they died, and on Christmas morning and lots of moments in
between, including this thin, holy day. They are still part of the fabric of
our lives- our lives are knit together, as today's collect puts it and our relationship with them is changed, not ended, by death. This is why even at the grave we dare to make our song: alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
St. Andrew’s and St. John’s have
some interwoven history and some saints in common, going all the way back to 1825
when the Rev. Daniel Goodwin held the first services at the Rising Sun Hotel
for what would become St. John’s. As far as I know he was not related to the
Rev. Laura Goodwin! In the 1880s, St.
John’s established missions in Millbury and North Grafton, in Barker’s Hall and
in people’s homes, planting the seeds of what would eventually become St.
Andrew’s. Fast forward about ninety
years or so, to the 1970s (because things don’t usually move quickly in the
Church!) when these two congregations shared a priest.
I mention these things
because we are tempted in the church to have very short memories about
tradition, which should not be confused with nostalgia. Often when we speak of
tradition what we really mean is how we remember things being done when we were
growing up and those memories are often skewed by nostalgia as we remember a past
shaped by our present yearnings. In fact, the presence of the Episcopal Church
in Sutton and in North Grafton has taken various shapes over the past two
hundred years or so, which in God’s time is but a blink of an eye, worshiping
in homes, in secular buildings, and in several different church buildings.
Our presence here today,
together, reminds us that while All Saints’ Day is definitely about what has
been, it’s also about what is, and what will be. As the song we’ll sing when we
leave here today puts it:
…they lived not only in ages, past…there are hundreds of thousands still. The world is bright with the saints of God!
As we gather here today,
perhaps dislocated from our normal pews by strangers who are becoming friends,
look around you and see God’s beloved – claimed and marked and sealed as
Christ’s own forever. Conventional wisdom uses the word “saint” to mean
somebody who is holier than thou. But that is not what I mean and that’s not
what the Church means by this word. I mean the baptized, these companions God
has given to us along the way, these fellow witnesses to the good news of Jesus
Christ with whom we walk this road as followers of Jesus. These saints teach
church school and sing in the choir and go out and flash-mob and do messy
church together and make sandwiches for Worcester Fellowship together. They say
prayers for us when we are experiencing joy or carrying heavy burdens, and they
sit at vestry meetings when there are probably twenty-three other things they
would rather be doing. Some of them will even go and sit at Diocesan Convention
on our behalf this Saturday. Now that
is true love!
If the saints around us are
only those who lived in ages past and we are not finding ways to be faithful
today, then we misunderstand what this communion of saints is all about. Then
it’s just about ghosts. Rather, we are called to ministry, together; to be what
in the old days they used to call “the church militant.” That metaphor is
problematic for me and I’m not suggesting that we revive it. But the point of that
old language was to remind the Church that there is work to be done today and while the saints triumphant
cheer us on, they had their turn! The work that God gives us to do is ours,
here and now, and if we don’t take up that mantle then we are always in danger
of becoming a museum and not the Church. We need all hands on deck.
So I love All Saints Day,
because it reminds us not only of our heritage but because it also calls us to
fidelity in the present. But there’s even more: this is such a thin place that
we also get a glimpse into the future. While we give thanks for those who have
gone before us and celebrate the saints in our midst, we also try to peer beyond
this moment to the culmination of human history. Even as we shed a tear or two for
those whom we love we see no longer, we recall God’s promise to wipe away every
tear. We reflect on the banquet where all of God’s children are fed and there
is always room at the table for one more. Where the wine is beyond to die for, it’s
to live for. And the roast beef is
done to perfection. That is what Isaiah is talking about. Can you not perceive
it? We reflect on the table where all of God’s children will gather—and they
are all God’s children, from the east
and from the west, from the north and from the south, from every tribe and
language and people and nation. That is where John (not your baptizer but the
seer from Patmos) picks up where Isaiah left off: imagining a world where there
is enough for all. Enough food, enough wine, enough healthcare, enough hope,
enough faith, enough joy, enough peace, enough love.
There is enough. But one
thing the visionary on Patmos does not see are church buildings – because once
they have fulfilled their mission there is only the Lamb at the center, only
the risen, victorious Christ. As I interpret this it simply means that the mission
is always first and whether we are worshiping at the Rising Sun Hotel or in
Barker Hall or out at the Brigham Hill Community Barn or in people’s homes or
at St. Andrew’s or here at St. John’s, these are all means to an end because
the church is not a building, and the church is not a resting place, and the
church is not a steeple. The church is a people! The church is the communion of
saints. Christian faith is about the hope that inspires us to join in the
adventure that is headed toward that future day. This is our work, to
participate in and to cultivate God’s mission taking hold in this world and to
live the words we join with Christians throughout the centuries in praying: thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
Now let me move from
preaching to meddling. Johnny and Drew—do you mind if I call you Johnny and Drew?
I feel like we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the past couple of
years. You have some past shared history as mentioned and even some shared
clergy in the not-too-distant past. Like all relationships with some history
there are some happy memories and perhaps some old wounds too. That’s life. These
are not really my stories to tell, they are yours. But it is important to
remember rightly and honestly, for in coming to terms with your past new
possibilities for tomorrow may emerge.
What is mine to share is how I
have been seeing in recent months some of the leadership from both of your
congregations working with consultants from the Church Building Fund and with
the three canons on the Bishop’s staff. Along with some folks from St. Stephen’s
in Pittsfield and St. James in Greenfield, they have been working hard to focus
on how they might recast their assets, that is to say in regular language how
to use the gifts God has given to each of them to do the work God calls each of
them to. The faithful people doing this work are trying to imagine new ways of
doing this mission, of finding ways to partner for the sake of the gospel and
to ask some questions together about what the future might look like – about
where the Spirit is blowing. Along the way they have discovered that St. John’s
and St. Andrew’s are remarkably similar congregations; not the same, but
nevertheless facing many of the same challenges and opportunities.
And so in the past year or
so, St. John’s and St. Andrew’s have been doing some things together and this
liturgy is only the most recent example. While it’s not yet clear where this is
all going, it seems to be Spirit-led or perhaps Spirit-driven. As you may
recall, after Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan River by our pal John the Baptist, Jesus
went into the wilderness to be tempted. Mark’s Gospel says the Spirit drove him there. Matthew and Luke say
the Spirit led him. In my experience,
the Spirit does both and sometimes we are led by the hand, but sometimes our
own internal resistance is such that we must be pushed. Driven or led, the
Spirit has been at work in these two congregations for a long time. But now,
driven or led by the Spirit to this place in time, new opportunities to share
ministry are emerging that invite you all to do some work together and to learn
and grow together.
It’s not
yet clear where this is going and there is no “master plan” being cooked up in
Springfield. It just seems good to your clergy and your vestries and to your
bishop and to me and we believe to the Spirit that there is reason to follow
this path. Nevertheless, this is very challenging work and it can raise some
anxiety, because questions about identity and of potential loss always raise concerns.
And since there isn’t a road map, it’s not possible to say “here is where it is
going to end up.” Or over there. It’s a bit more like wandering around the
Sinai Desert for a while (hopefully not for four decades) in search of the
Promised Land. But needing to get one’s bearings and sending some scouts ahead
and maybe even with some grumbling going on. Manna again? Really? All we
get is stinking manna! But the Spirit does indeed seem to be leading, or
driving, this work. And this much I know, because I can tell you from watching
it unfold: it is messy, Church. But it’s also holy, Church.
Today’s gospel reading
doesn’t give us a roadmap and definitely not a GPS, but perhaps it is a kind of
compass that can help us to at least get our bearings. First, notice that Jesus
weeps at the grave of his friend, Lazarus. In those tears we see that we really
do have a friend in Jesus, one who shares our joys and our burdens. I think
it’s a good reminder that we should never underestimate loss. Someone has said
that it’s not change people are resistant to, but loss. Every change that comes
our way, even when it is good change, also represents some measure of loss.
While some of us embrace change faster than others, all transitions involve
loss and there seems to be some part of us all that would rather maintain the
status quo than deal with loss. But we need to remember also that the costs of
inertia are very high as well and we need to acknowledge that. Often we put enormous
energy into resisting change because the costs seem too high. But I wonder what
happens if we follow Jesus’ lead and weep for what is lost, so that we can then
see more clearly what lies ahead? The truth is not only is the church of the
nineteenth century gone, but the church of the mid-twentieth century is gone
too. All those Republicans on the stage who are debating to see who is nominated
for President; last I checked, General Eisenhower wasn’t one of them. The 1950s
aren’t coming back!
There were saints who lived
in ages past who made decisions based on the leading or driving of the Holy
Spirit and they cheer us on, but it is you and I who are called to be saints in
this time and place. Look around you – here we are, the starting lineup. At various speeds, congregations across this
diocese are beginning to let go of the past in order to discover new missional
strategies toward God’s preferred future, trusting that those who sow with
tears will reap with songs of joy. So listen to what comes next. Listen to what
Jesus says: (1) Roll away the stone; (2) Lazarus, come out; (3) Unbind him and
let him go.
Roll away the stone. We don’t tend to be people who are comfortable rolling away stones. We
like to leave things put: my grandmother donated that stone! Sometimes we entomb
what needs to be called forth, but you know what, after a while it starts to
smell when we do that. Four days, sometimes forty years or more…
But then, Lazarus, come out! Jesus doesn’t go in
to get him. Nor does he send in others to do so. Lazarus needs to move away
from that tomb himself and toward the One who is Resurrection and Life. I don’t
think that requires a lot of words from me on this day when we stand in such a
thin place. But just to be clear since we’ve come this far and I’m since I’m almost
done: what might it look like to hear Jesus saying to Drew and Johnny – come
out! Come out and live!
And then finally, because
Lazarus has been bound up like a mummy: unbind
him and let him go. There are many things that keep us bound up, to be
sure. But I’m already well past the time considered reasonable in Episcopal
Churches for sermon time. So I’ll let you all work on that one in the days and
weeks and months ahead. Let me just conclude by saying this: I believe this
work of unbinding is the primary work we are called to in the Church today. We
can and should honor the past, the saints who have gone before us and the work
they did. But they did live in ages past and they faced different challenges.
We are the saints today. After shedding some tears, and rolling away some
stones we need to come out, and we need to be unbound and press on toward the
goal.
We are called, in other words, to put our whole trust in Christ’s love
and to go on the adventure that the Spirit is leading (or driving) us to. Like
Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, it’s not
a bad idea to bring some friends along.
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