For All The Saints

The Four and Twenty Elders, William Blake

All Saints Day remains one of my very favorite days of the year. These ruminations are an edited version of a sermon I preached a dozen years ago on All Saints Sunday at St. Francis Church in Holden, where I was serving as rector at the time. The lectionary is on a three-year cycle, so the texts are the same this year as they were twelve years ago for this coming Sunday, including the one from the seventh chapter of John's Revelation.

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“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) If you sit down to read the Bible and start at the very beginning (a very good place to start!) then those are the very first words you will read. What follows is really a prayer; a litany that makes the theological claim that in spite of the chaos we sometimes experience in the world and in our own lives, God is still creatively ordering that chaos. God speaks the Word and worlds emerge: sun and moon and stars and oceans and deserts and mountains and wildflowers and trees and sparrows and turtles and whales and every living thing. And God saw that it was good.  And there is evening and there is morning, the first day; the second day, the third day…until finally there is a day of rest. And God pronounces that it is all exceedingly good.

At the other end of the Bible—in the final chapters of the last book of the Bible, we hear in the Revelation of St. John about a new creation: “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” John lived in the midst of a decaying Roman empire. The world around him was literally coming apart at the seams. He knew chaos! But contrary to the ways that this book is sometimes read and interpreted, John isn’t looking for the rapture. He isn’t looking for a divine rescue attempt that will beam him up to heaven. John of Patmos is a mystic who believes the prayer Jesus taught his disciples: “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” At the end of days, as John imagines things, it is not human beings who will join God in heaven, but God who will join human beings on earth:

I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…and I heard a loud voice…saying: ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples and God himself will be with them….

On the Feast of All Saints we read from the seventh chapter of that oft-misunderstood vision. John offers us a glimpse of his vision for community, a vision of heaven that is meant to challenge us here on earth.

After this I, John, looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"

Like John of Patmos, we live in between that first good creation and that second new creation. We live in a world that sometimes feels like it is coming unglued and we sometimes live lives where the chaos threatens to overwhelm whatever order and pattern we may try to bring to our daily lives. The mystical vision shared with us in the last book of the Bible is not meant to predict the future like some reader of Tarot cards or palms might do. Nor is it meant to instill fear in our hearts. Or, worse still, to assure us that we are right and our neighbors who disagree with us will be tossed into some fiery lake or “left behind.”

Rather, this vision is given to the Church and shared down through the ages to encourage us to keep on keeping on. It is given to instill hope in our hearts by encouraging us to keep moving toward that New Jerusalem and that new Washington, DC and that new Massachusetts. We are meant to imagine that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us down through the ages cheering us on: Peter and Paul and Thomas and Mary Magdalene and Martha and Mary; Justin and Clement and Agnes and Irenaeus and Jerome and Augustine; Benedict and Dominic and Francis and Clare and Julian and Catherine and Columba and Cranmer and Luther and Calvin and Ignatius—right down to this present day.

When we die, life is changed, not ended. So those saints who left a mark on our lives are still with us today. For they lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still. The world is filled with the saints of God and you can meet them at work or at school or at play and even over tea (or a cup of coffee or a single malt scotch, neat.) This Feast Day is a wonderful celebration of what the Celtic mystics sometimes call a “thin place”—that place where the gap between the living and the dead feels smaller. Our annual All Hallows Eve celebrations invite us to ponder the great mysteries of life and death by remembering the ancestors who have gone before us and giving thanks for their lives and their witness. We feebly struggle while they in glory shine; yet all are one in thee, for all are thine. Alleluia! Alleluia!

We know how the story ends. Not the details, of course. The Book of Revelation isn’t some secret code that needs to be broken so we can be sure to be ready for Christ’s return on January 4, 2025 or October 16, 2027. It is a vision given so that we might not lose heart, a vision given so that we can become more faithful and courageous disciples in this time and place, by bearing witness to the new creation that God is bringing about. Above all else we are meant to remember that nothing can separate us from the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ. Nothing. Not even death.

The Book of Revelation and this Feast of All Saints are given to the Church so that we will not be afraid to do the work God calls us to. This vision is given as a gift that allows us to peek at the end of the story so that we will be less afraid to live these days with courage and boldness. Those white-robed martyrs knew the costs of discipleship and some of them paid with their lives for insisting that Jesus is Lord. But now they sing because what else do you do in the presence of God but feel true joy? If you listen closely you can hear them singing with the angels and archangels, a heavenly chorus: Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!

That is the Church and that is what the Church is for: not a collection of individuals, each of whom stands alone, but a Body with many members stretching through time and around the planet. A choir of the living and the dead. We need each other to sing those rich, complex harmonies that God so adores. We need each other to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God. We need each other because sometimes when life is scary, you need to hold on tight to someone’s hand to make it through.  

We are on a journey together toward that vision John has of a great multitude that no one can count from every language and tribe and people and nation. And our work is to get used to the fact that everyone in the Kingdom of God doesn’t look like us or speak the same language or sing the same songs or agree with our politics. Our job, as the Church, begins with the practice of hospitality and openness and love until we start to get it right, so that when we find ourselves among that cloud of witnesses we won’t be too surprised by the richness of it all.

We need the Church, not to be an institution that perpetuates itself or a security blanket, but to be a living Body with many members that is moving toward God’s new creation. We live between the Garden of Eden and the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, in the midst of extraordinary challenges globally, nationally, and locally. But we face those challenges with hope. 

Questions of Faith

A few years ago, there was a television ad for Google's Pixel Phone that imprinted on my brain. Which, of course, is exactly what advertising attempts to do. It began like this: “when you change a period to a question mark, it changes everything.” And then they gave some examples, in rapid succession:

• The earth is flat. The earth is flat?
• We’re lost. We’re lost? 
• Cars need drivers. Cars need drivers? 
• Smartphones can’t get any smarter. Smartphones can’t get any smarter?

When you change a period to a question mark, it changes everything.

What happens when we apply this insight to our faith, and begin to change periods into question marks. This pandemic is the end of the Church. This pandemic is the end of the Church? 

My experience teaches me that questions lead to deeper faith. Perhaps the patron saint of this truth is St. Thomas, whom we often misremember as a doubter, when he was really just that guy who was willing to ask the hard questions. Certitude truncates faith and certitude is an equal opportunity offender: there are versions on both the left and the right. When someone knows something, for sure, they stop listening. Period. They close themselves down. Period.

This is always a problem for Christian community. Statements get debated. Questions get explored. So when we change periods to question marks, it changes everything. We begin to wonder what we might not be seeing or what we do not know and we are free to wonder what others have to offer us to help with our blind spots. Our neighbor is no longer a threat, but a gift to us. It reminds us that we need one another, and we are in this together.

We are blessed by our diversity. We are blessed by our diversity?

Some days it may not feel like that, because it’s hard work. Division and mistrust permeate the dominant culture in which we live. But we dare to proclaim a deeper truth, that in Christ there is no east nor west; in Christ no south or north. Just one great fellowship of love, throughout the whole wide earth. We dare to believe and even to insist that everyone be treated with dignity and respect. Though we are many, we are one.

When you change a period to a question mark, it changes everything. Even as this pandemic continues, we dare to ask: what does the Lord require of us? (See Micah 6:8) And then to allow that question to lead us into doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. 

Winter Is Coming

From lightning and tempest, from earthquake, fire, and flood, 

from plague and pestilence and famine; Good Lord, deliver us. 

("The Great Litany," The Book of Common Prayer, page 149)

Deliver us, Good Lord, from plague and pestilence. I freely admit to you that when 2020 began, this prayer was not on my lips or in my heart. Usually Episcopalians use "The Great Litany" to mark the beginning of Lent. There are lots of petitions in that great ancient prayer that ring true to my ear. But on March 1, 2020, on the First Sunday in Lent, that was not a line that stood out for me. Nor, I'm fairly certain, for most North American Christians.

That all changed, however, when spring arrived less than three weeks later. These are both Biblical words: in the NRSV translation you find plague used 78 times, and pestilence used 57 times. A lot of times in Exodus, of course; and a surprising number of times in the Revelation of John. And in the Psalms, including but not limited to the following: 

• He made a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death, but gave their lives over to the plague. (Psalm 78:50) 
• They provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them. (Psalm 106:29)
• For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence...(Psalm 91:3)
  

Why this little word study? Because the longer this goes on, for me at least, the less numb and in denial I feel. I admittedly spent much of the spring numb - and grieving losses. Everyone has their own lists. For me, Spring 2020 was incredibly disorienting and surreal. 

By the time summer rolled around, it was very real. And I was beginning to realize that we would never return to "normal" and that the only way through this was forward, not back. It helped me, at least, to have long days and outdoor opportunities. Very early in July, I began walking 6-8 miles every day. It helps to be an early riser and it helps that the days are long in July and August. I found a new rhythm, walking from 6 am to 8 am. It became a form of prayer for me and has become almost liturgical. Most days I walk on the Central Mass Rail Trail - I prefer a set pattern to the more adventurous walking my spouse likes to do. 

In my vocational work as Canon to the Ordinary, we were able to work with congregations to offer outdoor worship which has seemed to be relatively safe, at least in places where that was possible. 

Autumn is upon us, however. This morning when my walk began, it was closer to 7 am, since it's now pitch black at 6 and sunrise was at 7:04 am. And it was 38 degrees. 

Autumn is, in good times and in challenging times, the most beautiful season in New England. But those of us who call this home also know that it will not last. Winter is coming... We have had snow in Worcester as early as Halloween, and always by Thanksgiving the days are getting cold and dark. Even if the winter solstice does not officially arrive until December 21, signs of endings are all around us well before that. 

This brings me back to plague and pestilence. As time has gone on and as denial has given way to the hard truths of what this pandemic is doing, it is also beginning to dawn on us that the idea of "hunkering down" for the winter will be very real as we seem to be hitting the second wave of this pandemic. Outdoor worship and outdoor dining will soon be a thing of the past and the dangers of indoor gatherings as cases are again increasing is very real. The image posted above came on my I-Phone today as an alert from the state government, even as our president called the scientists "idiots." 

Winter is coming. But as always, in places that rely on the rhythm of the four seasons, we know that the green blade will also rise again. Later in New England than Virginia, to be sure. But spring will come again, as surely as summer and fall and winter will come again. And hopefully by spring, we will at least be able to see the light at the end of this tunnel. I have no insider information of when and how that will happen, but we will get to the other side of this. 

In the meantime, I am thinking about the communion of saints and the Biblical narrative that shapes my faith. I am thinking of my grandmother who used to tell us about family members who died a hundred years ago, from the plague of Influenza and the Great War. She is now among that cloud of witnesses but I would give anything to sit and chat with her about what it was like to live through 1918-1919. What I do know, though, is that she was a survivor and so many others were too. And there was life on the other side of it. In fact, after it all ended, there was dancing in the "roaring twenties" just as there was singing and dancing after the Hebrew people escaped from Egypt. (See Exodus 15.)

This may be uncharted territory for all of us who are alive today. But it helps me, at least, to ponder the idea that it's not brand new for God's people. Plague and pestilence are a part of the human experience throughout history. Thankfully, even the Bubonic Plague had a beginning, a middle, and an end. It did not last forever. Life is being changed, but not ended, before our very eyes. We will find our way through this wilderness. Winter is coming. But that won't be the end of the story. Just the next chapter.

Caesar's Imprint

Today's Gospel reading is from Matthew 22: 15-22.  I am not preaching today, but offer a prayer from Walter Brueggemann - that pretty much sums it all up. It comes from a collection entitled, Prayers for a Privileged People. 

Caesar's Imprint 
On reading 1 Kings 12:1-18

We talk theology;
we breath image, metaphor, abstraction;
we credit you with big acts of mercy
and great strokes of judgement;
We are paid to live in the rarified air of faith.
But after dark, out of the office,
we follow the money as best we can;
we worry about church contributions and pledges
and budgets;
we peek at our IRAs and pension funds;
we worry about health care
and college tuition. 

We read our lives through the flat questions of Karl Marx,
and so it does not surprise us that at Solomon's 
death, the issue of taxation came up.
We watch the old, wise advisors to the king;
we notice the young brash alternatives for the king;
we observe the silly, foolish king,
as his power and authority ebbb away,
and the kingdom falls apart.

We are indeed money creatures;
we pay our taxes
and fund war
and hope for gentle welfare.

We pray about sins, but
more often about debts to be forgiven
and trespasses against the neighbor to be pardoned.

We come to you as bodied selves
with food and sex and money on our minds. 

Deliver us from too much theology,
from too many images,
from abstractions that are too rich,
and too much conviction about things spiritual.

Give us courage and energy for the issues of 
taxation and poverty and welfare,
and the fleeting chances for justice and compassion and mercy.

Our prayer is in the name of Jesus who
watched the coins drop into the temple plate,
and wondered about Caesar's imprint
on our worth. 

Being the Body of Christ in an election year

Negative campaigning in this country goes back to the very beginning. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were two giants in 1776 who helped this nation gain our independence from Great Britain. Both of them were "in the room where it happened." But by 1800, partisan bickering had so distanced the pair that for the first and last time in U.S. history, a president found himself running against his own vice president. Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." (Those words didn’t make the cut when they were looking for words to engrave on the Jefferson Memorial!) Adams, in return, opted for racial slurs, calling Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father." 

And so it went: Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant. Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward. Even Martha Washington jumped in, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was "one of the most detestable of mankind." 

I am not naïve, and we should not be naïve, about how bitter partisan politics can be and probably always has been. There may be more money and more technology today—and way longer campaigns—but polarization and division are nothing new. There are no "good old days" that focused on the issues and qualifications. (Ask Ed Muskie. Or Tom Eagleton. Or Hillary Clinton.) I suspect that the human heart and the lust for power are much the same as they have always been. My father, whose political stage was at the town and county level in northeast Pennsylvania, was fond of repeating the old adage, "if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!" 

So if there is nothing new under the sun and if what has always been will always be, then what role does our faith play in shaping not only the issues that matter most to us and the candidates we trust the most (or mistrust the least) but how we pray in these final weeks of yet another bitter election cycle? 

I try, in my own prayers, not to tell God how to do God’s job. I often remind people who say that as an ordained person I must have some extra pull that "I'm in sales, not management." Even so, I admit to you that I have broken my own rule this time around because I am truly worried there will be nothing left of this once great nation if we don't embrace change. Even so, in my more lucid moments I try to pray the prayer that never fails: "thy will be done." 

The theme of our diocesan convention this year, which will take place a few days after the election, is "the mission continues." Indeed. Whatever the outcome (and even if we don't yet know the outcome) as we gather virtually, across the diocese, we must be about the work of binding up this nation's wounds. While I know that partisan politics is nothing new, it is also true that at their best, faith communities have risen to the occasion of building bridges and healing divisions. The Church can play a role in doing that and I would argue must do so as we embrace our vocation to be “instruments of God’s peace.” In so doing we are taken to the very heart of our work to be salt and light and yeast in this sinful and broken world.

What the Bible has to say about faith and politics is a mixed bag. Most of the time, ancient Israel lived under foreign oppression and domination. The names of the imperial powers changed: Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Rome. But the experiences were pretty much the same. In the brief period when the United Kingdom of Judah and Israel got to try their own hand at self-governance (under Kings Saul and David and Solomon) the truth is that they didn’t do much better. They learned that it was harder than they thought, and that even great leaders like David did not always deliver as promised. After all, it was the giant-killer/ shepherd-boy who ended up seducing his neighbor’s wife while he was off at the front lines, and then having his political cronies cover it up. It turns out that power has always corrupted, and absolute power has always corrupted absolutely. This is why our founders (who thankfully had better days than the ones I was quoting from above) believed in checks and balances and limited government.

In the Bible, when David forgot who he was (and whose he was) there emerged voices who insisted that they spoke on behalf of YHWH, that they had a “word of the Lord” for God’s people. They insisted that YHWH cared most of all about the poor and vulnerable—the “widow and orphan,” as they put it. Isaiah and Amos and Micah and Jeremiah and Hosea and Joel stood up to speak on behalf of those whose voices were being silenced, imagining a future messianic age where, “the gates would be open, so that the righteous nation that keeps faith might enter in.” (Isaiah 26:1-8) The playing field, they said, would be leveled and those who trample on the poor and needy would be brought low. In other words, they dared to imagine the world otherwise, and articulated how that world might look like if God’s people truly loved God and neighbor. When he was a little boy, Jesus’ mother sang to him a very similar prophetic song and out in the wilderness John the Baptizer sounds a lot like Isaiah as he worked to prepare the way and make the path straight in the desert.

When St. Paul writes to the fledgling minority of Christians living as resident aliens in the heart of the Roman Empire (right in "the belly of the beast") he tells them they should be subject to the governing authorities and pray for them and keep their noses clean and pay their taxes and pray for the Emperor. We do well to remember that not everyone listened to Paul's counsel here at the time, or since. There are other texts that encourage the faithful to stand up against unjust, unrestrained power. We call people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Steve Biko martyrs and saints for making such choices. Even so, in Romans (in spite of what sounds like Paul compromising with the powers-that-be) I think there is a word for the Church, which is something like "letting go and letting God" and particularly of letting go of our own imperial ambitions. There was a time, before American fundamentalists got greedy for power, that Episcopalians roamed the halls of power. It usually doesn't end well for the same reason King David forgot who he was. Whoever wins in this election cycle, Christians are asked to pray for our leaders, even if we aren’t personally happy with the results. They will need our prayers to deal with the difficult problems we face as a nation. Moreover, we are called to work together for something bigger than partisan politics: the Kingdom of God. We do that by loving God and by loving our neighbor. That is how we fulfill Torah.

I have found over the years then whenever preachers like me move from "preaching to meddling" by getting into the weeds of politics, someone will try to end the conversation by suggesting that Jesus said "render unto Caesar." As if that stops the conversation. But I invite you to take a closer look at Mark 12:13-17. We are in the Temple and in the midst of a conflict between Jesus and the temple authorities. It is admittedly a tricky text to interpret. Notice how it begins: with the Pharisees and Herodians trying to trap Jesus. Keep in mind also that they are the ones who have made peace with imperial Rome. Depending on your perspective, you could say that they were realists who compromised or that they were sell-outs who were sleeping with the enemy. But essentially, this is the same issue I've tried to set up above, wanting to suggest that perhaps St. Paul (at least in his letter to the Romans) was in that first group and the prophets were in that second group. While the Bible itself doesn't settle the matter, Jesus does seem to stand more often in the prophetic line of Isaiah. So when asked about taxes it's not a neutral treatise on how his followers ought to relate to governments. Rather, it's a highly contested situation and they are trying to entrap him. It's a "gotcha question." And he gives an enigmatic answer: give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.

In a real sense, that is a response that we Christians will continue to struggle with until the end of human history: how much of our lives belong to God and what belongs to Caesar? Does God just get an hour on Sunday mornings, and Caesar gets the rest? Christians down through the ages have responded differently but the responses always have a context and that context is always shaped by how much power the Church has at that moment in time. Just war theory and non-violent resistance aren't just two different Christian perspectives; they are shaped by who is advocating for them and where they happen to stand in the socio-political context at the time. And how much privilege they have. 

For my own part, I don't think there is one right answer for every time and place. Rather, we need each other to be the Church, and because God is not a Democrat or a Republican. By engaging one another across partisan lines, we can remember that our politics is always penultimate and that our ultimate loyalties are not to Caesar (or any current pretenders to Caesar's throne) but to Jesus who is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Period. Full stop.

Even in this time of pandemic when our gatherings are limited and often virtual, we can pray for one another and remember that in spite of deep divisions over many things, we truly are one in Christ. And that will be just as after November 3 as it is right now. Though we are many and though we are different, we are members of one Body. The Church is not a place where we avoid politics and try to just be "spiritual" (whatever the hell that means!) but where we can remember that petty partisanship, while deeply ingrained in our American psyche, is not the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus is to choose the path of faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love.