For All The Saints!

This weekend as we celebrate The Feast of All Saints, I am at St. Stephen's in Pittsfield, one of our parishes at the beginning of a clergy transition.

All Saints is one of my very favorite days of the year. There are two main themes as I see it. First, it is a reiteration of our Easter faith: death never gets the last word. We are a people who make our song, even at the grave. Allelulia. Alleluia. Alleluia. And second, our alleluia song is sung by a great choir that includes those who have gone before us: saints like Francis of Assisi and Julian of Norwich. Stephen, of course, the first martyr. And countless others. But also those saints remembered by us today who left their mark on us – the ones you can meet at shops or at tea or over a cup of coffee. Those who taught us the faith and introduced us to Jesus. Take a moment to invite them in today, to join us as we gather in this thin place...

...my paternal grandmother, Esther Simpson, is one of the saints in my life. In addition to being my father’s mother, she is one of those people who helped to raise me into the full stature of Christ. She belonged to an independent Baptist congregation. She showed me how to love the Bible as a way to better know and follow Jesus. She read her Bible every day, using a resource called “Our Daily Bread” along with her King James Bible. When the message for the day struck her in a particular way she would clip it and send it to me with a note at college. She taught me to use the Bible and not to be afraid of it; the pages of hers were tattered and worn from use. She never heard (as far as I know) of a “lectionary” as a plan for reading the Bible in her congregation and her church didn’t use scripture inserts. I think she would have been suspicious. Everyone was expected to bring their Bible along to worship. Over the course of her life she must have read the Bible cover-to-cover many times over. The stories were real to her and through her they became real to me.

As far as I can trust my memory, I have to say that I don’t remember ever studying anything from the Book of Daniel in my Methodist Sunday School or for that matter even (sadly) in my Old Testament classes in seminary. Daniel was too often treated among mainline Protestants as an embarrassment—the Old Testament equivalent of the Book of Revelation—and the two of them together were viewed as something like inviting John the Baptist to a wine and cheese reception. But my grandmother loved Daniel: for her they were stories of resistance and hope.

So she would tell me about Daniel in the lion’s den. Do you know the story? About how all the king’s men established an ordinance and issued a decree about prayer and that anyone who didn’t pray to the king would be thrown into the lion’s den. But Daniel refused to follow such an unjust edict. He showed courage and defied the decree, trusting in the Lord. When he was thrown into the lion’s den as a punishment, the lions miraculously lost their appetites.

She would tell me that great story about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (also in Daniel) who also refused to worship false gods and for their obedience to the true God they were thrown into a fiery furnace to be burned alive. The king was so filled with rage that he ordered the furnace turned up seven times more than was customary and they were thrown into the blazing fire. But guess what? They were protected!

As a kid I wanted to know whether or not these stories were true, by which I meant simply did it really happen like that? That question was, I think, disconcerting to my grandmother, who would assure me that they had happened just like that, something I found hard to believe then and now. But as a 56-year old adult who has been at this work of ordained ministry for more than three decades, I am way less concerned today about whether or not these stories are literally true anymore. It doesn’t matter to me if they “happened” because I am profoundly aware that stories like this are “true” in ways that go way beyond reporting current events.

The world of Daniel is a world of imperial power: a world of decrees and secret police and authorizations and having your “papers in order.” That language permeates the text. And the big question being raised in that context is this one: what does it mean to be a person of faith in such a world? How can you hold onto your faith in a hostile world that is not your true home? How does one resist the government when the government is wrong? Where does our true allegiance lie? 

All Saints Day is as good a time as any to remember that we are Christians together with people all around the world. When I was in Holden we developed a strong relationship with the Church in El Salvador through a group called Cristosal. This began when we did a capital campaign and raised some money - I think in the neighborhood of $350,000 or so. The vestry was committed to mission and said if we were going to spend that kind of money on ourselves we needed to give at least 10% of it away. It turns out that there are a lot of groups interested in receiving gifts of $35,000 or so. We settled on Cristosal but with a catch. They told us they didn't just want our money. They wanted us to walk with them, to accompany them, to get to know them as fellow pilgrims on this journey. To break down some walls. And so we began sending groups down there...

Among those who went were Tom and Dianne Wilson. Flash forward to the day that Tom and Dianne are sitting in my office, telling me they are going to quit their jobs and become missionaries to El Salvador. They are going to move down there, and take this whole "accompanying" thing quite seriously and literally. I was blown away and had so much respect for that faithful decision.  

I tell you this story because yesterday, Dianne was ordained a deacon in our diocese at Christ Church, Rochdale. I tell you this because the lives of the saints are woven together and through Dianne, and Tom, and through Noah Bullock who is the son of the priest in charge in Easthampton, we are barely one degree apart from people who have lived in a world where Daniel's context is the reality of their lives, as it is in so many parts of this world. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. And the mess in their country is very much a product of decades of US foreign policy that has led to chaos and to people seeking a better life in this country even as we keep trying to build walls to keep them out.

The history of Central America is a world not so different from Daniel’s, a world that has known too often of corrupt and powerful governments intent on destroying the creatures of God. In the face of decrees and secret police and “authorizations,” and disappearances and torture, the faith of people like Oscar Romero and the Jesuit martyrs stands as a witness not very different from that of Daniel or of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: of a faith that was willing, day after day, to stand up for what is right. To be courageous even in the face of violence and degradation. To choose hope over fear. And they are a part of us, and we are a part of them, among a great cloud of witnesses that worships the Lamb on this day and forever and forever and forever. 

Daniel is, as one scholar puts it, “about resisting the dominant imperial power structures.” It is a subversive text about non-violent resistance. It’s about being able to keep your identity by defining who you are as a child of God, over and against the ways that the empire tries to define you. Living your faith in such a world can literally make you feel crazy sometimes. I think that is what is going on in the seventh chapter of Daniel, in the reading we heard today. Daniel (like Joseph before him and Martin after him) is a dreamer. He lies down in bed and has these dreams about how one day righteousness will flow like an ever-flowing stream. He has this dream of a world where every human being is treated with dignity and respect and where people strive for justice. He has this dream of a world that I imagine is quite similar to what Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor, and the hungry, and those who weep…

And yet Daniel also has this recurring nightmare. Imperial power can literally make you crazy. Threatening the dream of God are these visions in his head that terrify Daniel, and trouble his spirit, and keep him tossing and turning in his bed. The beasts (that is to say, kings who misuse their power and wreak havoc on God’s people) are an ever-present reality for Daniel; a part of his everyday life. So ultimately this text before us today is no different than the story of the lion’s den or the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. It asks the question of where your allegiance really lies. It dares to insist that we live by our dreams rather than our nightmares, because we belong to God. While acknowledging that the world can be a dangerous and even terrifying place, the encouragement in Daniel is that God’s people are called to stand tall and to not be afraid and to model an alternative way of life that is truly life giving. Ultimately the good news in this text is that the “holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever!” (Daniel 7:18)

So I think that makes Daniel a great text for this holy day. We remember those who have gone before us, including our own dear ones who told us the “old, old stories” along the way. We remember Sunday school teachers and pastors who gave us the gift of faith, sometimes in ways they may not even been aware of. We have received all of that as a gift, or as St. Paul says in today’s epistle, as an inheritance. The saints in our lives (or at least in my life) were not perfect. But in the end we give thanks for the gifts given and shared with us that call us to join this great cloud of witnesses.

Saints like Archbishop Romero, assassinated while at the altar celebrating the Eucharist and resisting the forces of evil, are here with us, along with all those whose names are known to us alone. And all whose names have maybe been forgotten by us (but never forgotten by God)—that great cloud of white-robed martyrs who have gone the way of a great ordeal; they are here, too. They, too, are a part of us, part of the communion of saints. Part of this cloud of witnesses. We sing today for all of them and with all of them.

And that one holy, catholic and apostolic Church is about to include a new generation of saints as people are baptized this weekend across this diocese, since this is one of the days that the BCP prefers for baptisms to happen. They represent the next generation of Christian witnesses whose job it will be to let Christ show forth in their lives as the Church continues its work. We promise to uphold them in their faith, and to teach them the stories that we have been taught, and to show them how to love even those with whom they disagree; how even to love their enemies. In just a moment we will renew our own baptismal promises so that we can be clear on how it is we do that, which always begins by remembering who we are, and whose we are. 

Some days it is hard to know exactly where we are called to resist and how. We live in a world where there really are powers and principalities that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. And those powers make it hard to be courageous and brave. Sometimes it’s hard for us let our better angels guide us, to let our dreams (rather than our night terrors) guide our decisions and our actions in the world. One thing I know for sure, though: we cannot do that alone. Every time we celebrate Holy Baptism, but especially in the context of All Saints, we remember that we are in this together by the grace of God. And that we have been claimed, and marked, and sealed. We are sent out with that in mind. 

The work we share is to keep articulating the dream of God and to hold up that vision as true and holy. Our work is to become those “holy ones” of God in this time and place who know that Jesus is truly lord of the universe. Not perfect, but holy in the sense of knowing where our allegiance lies. Our job is to become a people who live by faith rather than fear, so that the world might believe, until the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. Forever and forever and forever.