All Saints – November 1, 2015: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
I love Halloween. On Friday at our Nursery School, we had our annual Halloween Parade and Show, and the kids were awesome – there were skeletons, cowboys, superheros, turtles, alligators, a dinosaur or two, and loads more. They sang songs about little bats and itsy bitsy spiders. And at my house last night, I just about rolled on the floor laughing as one little kid, who stood only about 3 feet high, went running down the street in his…wait for it…Samurai wrestler costume. You had to see it – this puffy costume made to look like a very large wrestler, with the funny hair, and the small black loin cloth thing…well, he’s running down the street in this and it is wobbling all over – absolutely hilarious!
All of it was awesome, and not a bit scary – which, when we think about Halloween, and all the ghosts and goblins, well, you kind of expect it to be scary, right? Well, I’ll give you something to scare you…
Pat Robertson.
Yup, Pat Robertson, pastor and TV personality on the 700 Club said last week about Halloween “That’s the day when millions of children and adults will be dressing up as devils, witches, and goblins … to celebrate Satan.” Does anyone else think of “The Church Lady” from Saturday Night Live when you hear that?
I’ll tell ya what’s scary…someone who claims to represent the church saying something like that and being heard by millions of viewers who might actually take him seriously – that’s scary! Or maybe that anyone takes him seriously is scary.
Of course, the thing about Halloween is that we make fun of stuff that generally would frighten us. I mean, if you really saw a glow-in-the-dark skeleton walking down the street you’d be scared right? I would be. They aren’t supposed to do that. Well, and they aren’t supposed to glow-in-the-dark either, but whatever.
And while that was yesterday, on All Hallow’s Eve – the day before we remember those who have died – today, on All Saints Day, the passages from scripture are, in a very real sense, perfect not only for All Saints, but for Halloween. And no, I don’t mean just because we have a walking mummy named Lazarus in the gospel – though how cool is that, right? I am talking about readings from both the gospel, and the Revelation to John (which is a book of the bible that is enough to scare anyone away from using drugs – I mean, it could be used in the anti-drug abuse commercial with the line “this is your mind on drugs.”) But before we go to that land of whatever was in John’s head – the land of Revelation – let’s look at the gospel.
The gospel story is the familiar raising of Lazarus from the dead. I think it is a story that would go great with a soundtrack from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The best part of the story, as I mentioned when it came up in Lent last year, was the reaction of Martha to Jesus when he tells them to roll away the stone. The guy’s been dead for four days she tells him. There is a stench – or the best version of it in the King James “Lord, he stinketh!” Yeah, I would think so. Jesus calls to Lazarus to “come out” and then tells the people to unbind him, as Lazarus walks out of his tomb, mummy style. This is a story made for fright night.
It is also a story for All Saints and baptism.
And the place to start with this story is inside of the dark tomb – the place where the one that Jesus loved, Lazarus, spent four days. It is a place we make fun of on Halloween, I think in part because we feel uncomfortable there. Think about how often we need to make jokes when we are in those weirdly uncomfortable places – we call it “gallows humor.” My guess is – Lazarus wasn’t laughing. He was dead.
While most of us can likely say that we have never been dead – physically anyway. I said most, not all, because, well – some people actually have been dead – having come back to life after NDEs (near death experiences). But, most of us can remember a time in our lives, or the lives of others we know, who were or are dead – emotionally or spiritually. They may be suffering from depression, grief, or loneliness that covers them like a tomb. They are the walking dead, and they aren’t scary, because they are often people we know and love. It may even be the one we see in the mirror.
And it is there that Jesus goes. It is to the darkness of our lives that God enters. But first, God weeps. Jesus wept. We all feel that deep sorrow at the pain and darkness that people we love are experiencing, and God, the one who loved us so much as to walk among us, feels it too. Jesus wept.
See, that is the thing about these difficult times in our lives. I don’t believe for a moment that old nonsense about how “God only gives us what we can handle” – to that I think Lazarus, and a whole lot of other folks too – would say “Now hold on there God – obviously you overestimated my abilities.” No, God doesn’t give us what we can handle – God doesn’t do this to us – no loving God would, right? Would any good parent willingly do that to their kids? Torture them with pain? Okay, Jimmy Kimmel Live videos of parents telling their kids that they ate all their Halloween candy (which to a kid is like the worst thing to EVER happen to them) aside – we would call any parent deliberately putting their children in pain – physically or emotionally – a case of clear child abuse. Now, I know there are times when teenagers THINK that is what their parents are doing (and vice-versa) or we can think the in-laws are the devil incarnate, but God? No.
What God does do is grieve…and then goes to us. God meets us where we are, calls to us – calls us out of the dark places. God meets us in our brokenness with grace that unbinds us from what keeps us in darkness. That is when God is saying “See, I am making all things new.” That is when new life happens – not only for the Lazaruses of the world, but for all who know them.
Because while God might say that all things are being made new, the reality is that when we encounter grace, what really happens is that we are changed. We are still the same person, not some new being. The wounds – emotional, physical, and spiritual – are still part of our DNA. In the encounter with Jesus, Lazarus was brought back from the dead. He still looks like the old Lazarus – okay, probably like one with a four day hangover – but essentially, he is still the man Jesus loved – the brother of Martha and Mary – same legs, arms, and of course, the same memories.
And yet – Lazarus will never be the same. Life will be different for him, sweeter maybe, for having experienced the depths of darkness – for having been so very dead. And everyone Lazarus encounters is changed too. They are never the same for having encountered God’s grace in the face of Lazarus. And that changed life is what All Saints is all about. Because it is a day when celebrate all of those who have passed from this life into the next, and a day on which we baptize others into the body of Christ.
Today we baptize Jocelyn and Cordelia Treuberg. What a joyful day for them, their family, and for all of us. In baptism, they will experience what Lazarus experienced. They will be changed forever in this outward and visible sign, of an inward and spiritual grace. Baptism is a death and resurrection experience symbolized by the water. It is an Easter experience – we wear white. And on All Saints, it is an especially important day for baptism, because we not only remember those who have died, but we remember them as saints of the church.
No, not saints as in they led perfect lives, but saints are those who lived their faith as best they could – looking to love and serve as part of the body of Christ – a life they began in baptism.
Today, Jocelyn and Cordelia enter into the household of God, and in the prayers we pray for them, it is clear what all of us are called to do in our lives as Christians. We ask God to deliver them out of death. We ask God then a series of actions: To open their hearts to God’s grace and truth, fill them with holy and life-giving Spirit, to keep them in communion with the church – all of us, to teach them to love others, to send them into the world as witnesses to God’s love, and to bring them to the fullness of God’s peace.
Open, fill, keep, teach, send, bring. That is the life Jocelyn and Cordelia will be taught here, in this faith community, upheld by all of us. That is the life all of us are called to live into.
We are called to open our hearts, not only to grace but to the truth of the suffering of others in the world. And we will weep.
We are called to be guided by the Holy Spirit, and follow her to the dark tombs of the world.
We are called to go out into the world and love others – to be the body of Christ – bringing others into the fullness of relationship with God.
And, we are called to be nurtured here in the faith and communion of the church.
In Radical Grace, Richard Rohr, a catholic friar and international speaker, writes, “Though Jesus brings us to life, he needs us, the body of Christ. He needs the community to unbind Lazarus. We now share in the power of resurrection. The eternal Christ says to the eternal Church: Unbind the suffering world and let it go free! That is the meaning of Church. It is our call, our burden, our task in human history. The risen Christ invites us on his path of liberation.”
This life in Christ to which the saints before us, the saints alive now, and those to come, have and will lay a claim to is not a static one. Those prayers for the candidates are filled with verbs – filled with action – open, fill, teach, keep, send, bring… Ours is a life for those willing to live as Christ lived.
And that is what we celebrate today – the saints who lived in just that way. As part of our Stewardship campaign, we have been giving out symbolic gifts each week, blessed at the altar, for you to take home with you. This week, you will receive a bracelet – the kind that we wear for causes – except these have words printed on them. Words like hope, love, faith, and courage. These are what the saints before us represented, and what each of us are called to embody now as the body of Christ today. May these bracelets remind you not only of the life of the saints gone by, but the life that you are called to live now. The ones that goes out into the world and meets people where they are.
See, that’s the thing… We now walk the path of the saints before us. We are the body of Christ, and are the ones that weep. We weep at the loneliness, the violence, the despair, the poverty, the oppression. And we should, but we are called to do more.
And that is where All Saints comes in, because All Saints is about you and me – and the world today. It is about baptism, and our lives before and after. It is about call, and what it does for us, and with us.
Remember – Jesus went to Lazarus. He didn’t send an email telling him to come out of the tomb, Jesus went to him. Jesus was always doing that – going to the places no one else would go – to the dark places, the places of the poor, the outcast, the weak. Jesus didn’t expect them to go find him, though they sometimes did. Of course if Lazarus had sought out Jesus looking like something from a horror movie…well, maybe that is the origin of Halloween. No, Jesus met people where they were – in whatever death they were experiencing – physical, emotional, or spiritual. And we must do the same. God calls us to new life in baptism, and it is a life where we seek to not only live in love, but to walk in love, sharing the grace of God with a world bound up in darkness.
We need to be the Jesus alive today that that meets people where they are rather than just expecting them to waltz in the front doors of the church. Jesus is calling us to go to them, to weep – yes, but to go – to bring God’s love and grace. And, to do something else too – to call out to others to unbind them.
We are called to feel their pain, to go and bear witness by loving them, and to call out to others to put an end to whatever is keeping them bound up in despair – to stand against injustice, to stand up for the marginalized, and to speak for those with no voice.
We are always receiving word of a world in need, in the same way Jesus heard of Lazarus being near death.
Will we go, or will we say “it’s hopeless” and stay where we are.
Will we go, or will we say “they should come here – to church.”
Will we go, or will we only weep, remaining in our own proverbial tombs, closing our ears to the call of Christ to come out, be unbound, and live the life we are meant to live.
God has unbound us in baptism to live a life full of grace and truth, and to spread the message of God’s love to all, most especially to those who live in tombs.
It is not an easy life, but as we heard in our processional hymn this morning, For All The Saints, when “the strife is fierce, the war-fare long” we will hear the voices of those who went before us and they will “steal on the ear the distant triumph song.” That song is the one that sustains us – that tells us that neither they, nor we, live this life of Christ alone. God is with us. Jesus and the saints are beside us. The Holy Spirit guides us.
And because of that, our “hearts [will be] brave and [our] arms [will be] strong,” to serve a world in need.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Amen.
For the audio of the sermon from the 10:30am service, click here:
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
November 1, 2015
Pentecost 23 – The Feast of All Saints – Year B
1st Reading – Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9
Psalm 24
2nd Reading – Revelation 21:1-6a
Gospel – John 11:32-44
