A Reflection on All Saints Day
TN and Epistle Reading: Ephesians 1:15-23
New Testament Reading: Luke 6:20-26
Why do we celebrate All Saints’ Day. It is a day
of celebration that many but not all Christians recognize on November 1st.
The early church experienced sporadic periods
of persecution and calm after the Jewish revolt that ended in the destruction
of Jerusalem in 72CE until the great persecutions in the 3rd century.
The church celebrated the victory over death of its martyrs in these
persecutions on the anniversary of their death. By 700CE well after Constantine
institutionalized Christianity, Pope Gregory initiated the modern day
celebration of “it All Saints’ Day” to celebrate
or remember the “holy apostles and of all saints,
martyrs and confessors, and of all the just made perfect,… those special
people who showed extreme devotion to Christian belief and the Church itself… who are at rest throughout the world.” Wisely the church
recognized two celebrations. November 2 called All Souls’ Day honors the
passing of those friends, family and associates who have deceased in the past
year – “ordinary people or the lesser saints.”
Most of
the Protestant Church abandoned the Catholic distinction between true
“saints” and “ordinary people” and merged these two
celebrations. For us All Saints’ Day recognizes
all believers who have passed in the current year.
From a historical perspective, whether
we call or All Saints’ or All Soul’s Day, a positive and a negative issue stand
out. First, the positive. We hold a profound belief that we share a connection
to that cloud of saints who have entered Heaven.
Second, the negative. When pressed we
Protestants admit we celebrate those whose lives appear as noteworthy examples of public righteous or pious life.
If we are rigorous about measuring piety by outward behavior, we know that only
God knows whether outwardly displayed piety reflects an inward piety.
That is one of the first things a
pastor learns, usually after walking into the trap. Be very careful about how
one expresses compassion or comfort to people we think are aggrieved by
someone’s passing. Virtually every pastor will approach someone with the words,
“I am so sorry to hear of your loss, I know you must be grief-stricken,” only
to hear the reply, “What do you mean?! That
person was a thorn in my side for decades and death couldn’t have come soon
enough.” So perhaps we ought to rethink how we make it a meaningful
celebration of All Saints’ Day.
How do the passages in Luke, and
Ephesians help us approach All Saints’ Day, and, for that matter, how are they
connected to All Saints’ Day? The Luke passage is quite difficult for us “moderns”
living in a material world.
Luke’s differentiation and emphasis on
true economic poverty and wealth cannot be avoided. Wealth permeates his gospel
as much as his anger at the leaders of the Jewish Temple (not Jews themselves).
Luke is focused like a laser on the economic reality of poverty and the
subversive nature of wealth.
This passage in Luke is essentially
the same as Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). Luke’s version is called the Sermon on the
Plain.
Isn’t Matthew’s version of the Sermon
on the Mount far more appealing to you? Matthew expands, or generalizes the theological
implications of Luke’s focus on wealth since wealth like all power, will almost
inevitably corrupt. In the end, however, whether a person experiences economic
or spiritual poverty, poverty pushes the person to search for release, be it in
God’s grace, more property and money, or the stupor of drugs and other
mind-deadening things.
You may recall the tumultuous time
that Luke recorded his gospel. Serious Roman persecution of Jews and Christians
in Palestine and in Rome sometime after 66-72CE. Rome had suppressed the Jewish
rebellion, razed Jerusalem and the Temple, and was killing or crucifying hundreds
of thousands of zealots and up to a million Jews by some historian’s estimates.
What Judaism was left was fully under the heel of Rome. It has been forty or fifty years since the
Crucifixion and people are wondering in despair about where is the Kingdom of
God and when will the Son of Man return.
Most Christians of the early church
were Jews and Christians who refused to renounce their faith, as well as were
Jews were being killed. Everyone listening to the gospel Luke wrote was struck
by the connection of the words Jesus uses in this passage to the Hebrew history.
Luke wrote in a dark time of despair that
challenged faith.
An observant Jew would recall the Blessing
and Curse Moses described in Deuteronomy
11:26-28. He told the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land to
choose life (the Law) or death. He tells them life, the Law, is close at hand,
you do not have to go to Heaven or cross the sea to find it, you just need to
look into your heart. Your life should mirror the Law because you have it in
your heart, not because it is on a tablet to be obeyed.
Now, hear again the three blessings
and woes Jesus describes:
The blessings and woes first describe the present
life. Both begin with a here and now
statement. Verse 20 says, “Blessed are you who are
poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” In other words, “If you find yourself
in poverty you have already inherited the Kingdom of Heaven.” Verse 24 laments,
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” That is,
“If you luxuriate in your wealth now, you have found your earthly reward.”
The remaining two blessing and woes are of the
form, “You will find future reward or woe for what you lack now. “If you are hungry now, you will be filled,” followed
by to the final capstone blessing, “Rejoice in that day (when you are
persecuted for your faith) and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in
heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.” This verse alone gives us a basis for All
Saints’ Day to celebrate the death of a martyr as a victory of the Kingdom over
death and sin.
Where is the wiggle room in these harsh verses?
It isn’t there, is it? Verse 25 is pretty clear, “Woe to you who are full now, for
you will be hungry.” In other words, if you sit down to a festive feast in your
home while a hungry beggar sits at your doorstep, you will be hungry and
mourn.) Verse 26 ends with the capstone woe, “Woe to you when all speak well of
you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” If people praise you for your wealth and
acumen in getting it, raise a lament because this is what your ancestors did to
false prophets.
These woes are not a pretty picture... They
strike awfully close to home. But I say
that wealth may not disqualify one for sainthood if the wealthy person suffers
deprivation or reprobation because of the faithful use of it. They can let
their true faith guide their use of wealth. It is however, as very tall challenge,
ask Andrew
Carnegie.
On the other hand, just being poor may
not merit sainthood if the person is truly a scoundrel. But the reality Jesus describes is what the
early church would call “saints” and “sinners.” He leaves it to each of us to
decide who we are.
We may dislike the term “saints” because
it reminds us how the Roman Catholic Church has taken the authority to name
persons as saints regardless that only God knows what is in the person’s mind.
But as we approach All Saints Day, wouldn’t we be better off to Reform
ourselves (like good Protestants) and politely acknowledge to our Catholic
friends that we are really celebrating the hope that the blessings Luke
describes are showered on us and our deceased Christian friends on All Souls’
Day? I think this idea points to a different way to celebrate All Saints’ Day.
Perhaps we should think about All Saints’
Day in the context of the Christian funeral? We call the funeral “the
celebration of life and resurrection” of the decedent. It is not unheard of,
but is rare to see folks celebrating at a funeral. More likely, people have
tears in their eyes identifying with the lament of Ecclesiastes 3:4, “There is…
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” …Isn’t
this exactly what blessing Jesus said
comes our way in verse 21, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh?”….
Should this define All Saints’
Day?
But let’s go on. If we cannot escape the
fact that we cannot see what is written in another’s heart, we are we left to
celebrate our hope that those who traveled the world before us and shaped our own faith enjoy
the inheritance, the joyous outcome of life and resurrection. We can use this day to be gracious and thank
the Lord for those who have passed on have made our faith stronger. All Saints
Day ought to be a time for laughing and leaping for joy over the blessings the
departed has left behind. All Saints’ Day can be a time to clean up the
wreckage of mourning started at the committal service of the Christian funeral.
I remember when I was about 26 years old
at my grandmother’s committal service. Her name was Queenie Mae Carnes, the
daughter of a Baptist preacher in NE Alabama and NW Georgia. She had an elegant
country grace about her that caused everyone to love her. My grandfather stood
by the casket as they lowered her into the ground. He said in tears,… by the
way it was the only time I knew him to cry, …“I’ll be seeing you soon
Queenie.” It was a testimony to his love
for her, for the way she impacted his life, and he, hers. He mourned enough
right there at that graveside to earn the right to laugh over their joy the
rest of his life.
In Luke, Jesus describes the joy we will experience
in his Kingdom. The old hymns sing romantically about that homecoming day, they
sing, “in that great getting up morning” or, “When we all get to heaven.” It must
be a joy that will surpass everything humanly imaginable. That means that being
in God’s presence, even as a footstool, must surely be a new life with a total divine
focus and purpose that does not have room for the cords that bind us to the old
world.
But the old world is where we live, isn’t
it? …Do you remember when the Sadducees
challenged Jesus about who in heaven would be the husband of the woman
married seven times. Jesus upbraided the Sadducees, asking, “Do you read the
scripture? God is the God of the
living.”
“God is the God of the living”…Keep those
words in mind as we celebrate All Saints’ Day. Let it be a time beyond the
Christian Funeral when and we can step back, enjoy and acknowledge the beauty and
faith the person brought to us when they were with us. It is not a time for
tears but laughter.
Remember, God is the God of the living. Keep
those words in mind as we celebrate the shared meal. This is a day to rejoice
in our inheritance of God’s grace and share it with everyone around us,
especially here today as we celebrate at the Lord’s Table. Truly it is an
occasion to leap for joy when we walk with people on this earth who are
impoverished and share our good fortune, our grace and a common meal and then hear
them laugh. When we hear the laughter of
a hungry person with a full stomach we know we have inherited that blessing… we
know we have brought closer to us that Kingdom of God that we pray for when we
say, “Thy Kingdom come…”
Amen.
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