All Saints Sunday

Last Sunday, along with others, I pushed and shovelled water, helping to clear 4 inches of water out of the church basement. Part way through the exercise, I realized that the experience was the very one I would remember through the years; Bob and I throwing water over the sump pump that was in a large square box – tactfully missing each other’s shovels and pausing every now and again with a few words passed between us as we rested. 

While shoveling I was reminded of the porch project at the parsonage, 14 years ago.  A group of men from the congregation came to replace the floor. The lumber was in the driveway, the table saw was on the sidewalk, a few had on carpentry aprons; measuring tapes, large pencils, nails and hammers were in hand; men were working, and of course there were a couple of supervisors. I came home from a visit and went into the house to retrieve my hammer. At which point I offered to help ….  after a few looks, and me throwing the first nail, it was all good--- it seemed everyone took a very long break, while Heinz and I finished nailing down the floor boards.  This story is being told because it was the day I began to know Art Crouse. He is one among many whom we remember today.

In church world, I have found that when individuals focus their energy in the same direction, trust, relationships, and community grow.   Sweating and working together for a common goal and purpose are the moments that create saintly memories.

Over the years, that day on the porch, fostered relationship between the people present--- and in years that followed, when those men experienced overwhelming circumstances, the chaos of life, the death of loved ones, journeying through sickness, and their own deaths --- the saints gathered; I gathered with them and their families in a deep way; together we shed tears and bore each other’s burdens.  Gone was a superficial dancing around about how we would be with each other, gone was the need to nervously fill silence with talk; awkwardness and fear were dispelled for we had sweated together, focused together, were not afraid to get dirty together.  What I would like to call saint moments, are these times of vulnerability, whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual; moments that test and challenge us. Saint moments shape us into who we are and how it is that we “be” in the world.

The word from Isaiah, as read earlier, is a text that acknowledges the difficulty and challenge of present times.  For Isaiah’s people, it was living in a trampling ground for the empires of the world as they fought with each other.  Caught in the middle, the people are exiled by one foreign power or another; with tears they lose people, home, land, and Temple.  In tears, they face a changing way of life, and a fear that they will no longer be a people.

The difficulty and challenge of present times, as spoken by Isaiah, is just as tear-filled thousands of years later. Whether we look at escalating fear as articulated through exclusionary rhetoric, the cruel and inhumane treatment of fellow human beings, incidences and politics of hate --- we live in the face of a changing way of life. It breaks my heart, and the tears are there, ready to overflow.

I take comfort in the readings for this morning. They are the most tear-filled readings in the lectionary cycle. As a community we are invited to theologically reflect on tears.

American essayist and diplomat, Washington Irving wrote: There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.

There is truth in these words.  How many of you, those who have lost a loved one, or loved ones, have had moments when your eyes fill with tears, when tears simply run over? 
We are in good company.  The Gospel of John, shares with us a vulnerable and intimate moment in Jesus’ human life.  At the death of a close friend, while accompanied by others – Mary and Martha- Jesus began to weep. With tears they bore each other’s fears and grief.

Through the tears, because of the tears, Jesus and Mary and Martha, along with the others at Lazarus’ grave found themselves in a sacred place, a place of power; the tears articulated the depths of their hearts, their love, their fears, and their broken dreams.  The tears also had an edge, an edge that contemplated hope, promises, and dreams of newness of life and resurrection; the tears had a silver lining that they could be changed to tears of joy.

When Jesus approaches Lazarus’ tomb – Jesus approaches a dark musty and lifeless hole— it is into this nothingness that Jesus calls. Jesus’ words echo through the abyss, and from it, life comes out. Jesus says to those with tears in their eyes: unbind him, and let him go.  As the people unbind Lazarus, they unbind their own fear and grief; tears turn from sadness to joy.

Karen Shaner, a New Testament scholar, suggests that on All Saints day we reflect more fully than on the theme of physical death to life.   Yes, this story of Lazarus is one of hope and promise, but, it is not in the end of life when saints are made.  Today is not just about the saints who have left this earthly life, today is a celebration of current saints -the ones who build porches and bail water; suggesting that perhaps each Nov. we should pause to celebrate those who have been baptized over the past year. This changes our perspective, to celebrate the saints who have come into the church through the waters of baptism – through the action of dying to oneself and rising with Christ. Saints, people who continually prepare and practice living into community and focusing their energy to sweat and work together, for the common good.

Today, together, we uphold for each other that on both sides of the grave there is life.

Brian Peterson, a New Testament scholar states: this day is about what all God’s saints have known and experienced, that here and now there is no death or grief or fear so deep and dark that the voice of Jesus cannot reach into it, call us out, and bring life.

God has not left us or abandoned us. Through tears, following tears, God calls into the darkness –of fear, loneliness, depression, listlessness, grief--- and from the abyss draws life.

A loud voice from the throne says, I am making all things new. See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them; they will be God’s peoples, and God will be with them; God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. 

This is apocalyptic literature at its best.  It is explicit that God has not taken our loved ones away. The new heaven comes down to earth; the new heaven is not a replacement, but, rather, a renewal of what was and is – in the very place God has always been; at home, dwelling, among mortals; crying at the open grave and from the abyss calling out life.

The calling out of life, once again places life to grow out of darkness, the darkness in us, in our hearts, in the chaos in the world, and in the change of the way of life as we have known it.

As God calls into the darkness, and we see more clearly through the tears, the words of Isaiah echo…

then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces. It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for God, so that God might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in God’s salvation.

Perhaps today grief is too raw for you to contemplate tears of joy and tears of hope. This is the beauty of a community of saints, ones who have toiled together, built porches, and bailed water side by side; there is an unspoken reality that we are in this ship together and come hell or high water we will share each one’s griefs, and carry light and hope, and resurrection, for each other, especially when the other is unable to do so for themselves.

Each week we come to this sacred place, oft times with tears in our eyes ready to spill over, to celebrate being given the grace of God to be saints through the way we live our lives. We come with tears in our eyes at the magnitude of God’s forgiveness and grace, as we celebrate that which is yet to be; a great feast of good things, for all people, on the mountain of God.  We celebrate this feast here, not in perfection, but, with all those of every time and place, as the new heaven comes to earth, to dwell where God has been all along. Here.

We bring our grief to the table and find there a foretaste of the feast to come.

Art Crouse, as others on the list of saints who have passed from this life, are as present and alive to me in the meal we share, as they are resurrected while building porches or shoveling water with the saints with whom I continue to sweat and work. 

God says: Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true. It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

May your tears be tears that spring from the water of life; with power to dispel grief and fear; and may we be unbound through the sacredness of tears that as a community we might have life in abundance; with abundance to share.