November 1, 2009
Celebration of All Saints (Year B)
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6a;
John 11:32-44
All Saints’ Day is one of our oldest feasts. It arose out of the Christian custom of celebrating the martyrdom of the saints on the anniversary of their death, and of course the first martyr was Stephen, stoned to death not too long after Jesus’ crucifixion. We have a long history! When the numbers of martyrs radically increased during the persecutions by the Roman Emperors, local dioceses instituted a common feast day in order to ensure that all martyrs, known and unknown, were properly honored. In those early centuries, the feast was celebrated in the Easter season, on May 13.
Our particular festival had its roots in the churches of Britain and Ireland. Not surprisingly some sources cite Celtic/pagan origins. November 1 was the celebration of Samhain (sa-win). According to legend at the turning points of the Celtic year, the gods drew near to Earth, so at Samhain, the autumn festival, “Summer’s End,” many sacrifices and gifts were offered up in thanksgiving for the harvest. Personal prayers in the form of objects symbolizing the wishes of supplicants, or ailments to be healed, were cast into a special fire, and at the end of the ceremonies, brands were lit from that fire to re-kindle all the home fires of the tribe. With Christianity’s practice of assimilating and transforming “old ways” festivals, it is not surprising that, in due time, Samhain was renamed Hallowmas, All Saints’ Day, the day to commemorate the souls of the dead who had been canonized that year.
In the eighth century Pope Gregory III consecrated a chapel in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to all martyrs and he ordered an annual celebration. Gregory IV, a century later, extended this feast to the entire Church and ordered it to be celebrated on November 1. And so it is, still, today, for us and our Roman brothers and sisters, All Saints’ Day.
Personal prayers cast into a special fire: “As those early Celts received the flame that marked this time of beginnings [Samhain], people surely felt a sense of the kindling of new dreams, projects and hopes for the year to come.” Not my words; rather they are from one of the web sites I consulted. (http://www.chalicecentre.net/samhain.htm) But I quote them because of the coincidence, you might say, with our Taize, Prayer, and Healing service of last Sunday where many people, and there were many, wrote their concerns, their hurts, their angers, their sorrows, their prayers, anything that was on their hearts, on slips of paper that were subsequently burned, symbolizing the hope of fostering reconciliation, of making new beginnings for our parish.
And how that now ties into the readings we have just heard, readings of new beginnings! Two of these, Wisdom and Revelation, are texts often read at a Burial Service because they are messages of hope and of all things becoming new. Wisdom speaks of the faithful who will “abide with [God] in love” because of his “grace and mercy.” Death is not what it seems; it is neither destruction nor disaster because they, the deceased, are now at peace. And in Revelation John in his last vision sees a “new heaven and a new earth” and he hears “a loud voice . . . saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.’ . . . Death will be no more. . . . ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.’
And then the gospel: Lazarus is dead, has been buried for four days, in a cave, and a stone rolled in front of it! John, writng many years after the fact, is making sure that we see the connection with what was to come! The two sisters are quite different in their approach to Jesus, the good friend, who was not there when they needed him most, or so it seems. Mary, when she sees him, is weeping and is reproachful, “Lord, if only you had been here . . .” Martha on the other hand, upon going out and meeting him, has declared him the Messiah! (John 11:27) What they are expecting him to do at this point in time, we can only speculate. But I think it’s safe to say that Mary thinks Jesus could have healed her brotherand thus prevented his dying. But do either of them think he can bring him back from death? Possibly, but more in theory, I think, than in the actual here and now! There was a common belief in Judaism of that time in future resurrection but what that actually meant was the subject of many interpretations, but primarily it was an event to happen in the future, the end time.
When he had met Martha on the way, Jesus had said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” In that moment and in the events that immediately followed, he established a new thing, a hope of a continued relationship with God even beyond death. Death is no longer an “end,” It has become the threshold, the doorway, the beginning of a larger life with God. And in bringing Lazarus back to life Jesus revealed to Mary and Martha and the crowd of witnesses who stood alongside them, his true power and his unity with God, and how he could and would be all things to all people. According to John because of this miracle from this time on, Jesus’ enemies conspired to find a way to kill him. This was a turning point, an end, a death even, to his active ministry, and the beginning of his walk to Jerusalem.
On this past Friday several of us, who either are or have been involved in prison ministry, went to the Federal Medical Prison facility in Devens to attend a Service of Confirmation presided over by Bishop Barbara Harris. It was a congregation composed of inmates, men, twenty-five or so, and seven women, volunteers and clergy, all singing, praying, worshipping, reading. Two of the inmates provided music, a violinist and a pianist, and one of the confirmands sang a beautiful solo for the anthem. But even in this strange setting, a prison chapel, one could feel the hope; one could sense the new beginnings being made not just by the four men, two confirmands, two reaffirming their vows, but by all those present. One could feel the support that was being promised to those men in their new lives with Christ, their new beginnings. There was no doubt in my mind that we were surrounded by God’s Grace.
Now where else in our day to day existence can we look for inspiration, for examples, for support as we follow Jesus? For lives that may be a lesson for us? Well, today, we are celebrating the saints, all of them. They have come to the end of their earthly lives and now enjoy a full, spiritual life with God. But they have each left behind a legacy that we might do well to study as we seek “new beginnings” in our own lives.
Throughout the church year the lives of the “famous” have their special days. Should you attend a Wednesday morning Eucharist, you would undoubtedly hear about one of them; they are from all walks of life and from all centuries. Some you may find familiar but others led pretty obscure, albeit meaningful, lives.
On this day, however, we celebrate the lives of all those who have gone before regardless of who or what they may have been or done. We celebrate our saints, known maybe to us alone but just as important to us as any Francis of Assisi or Catherine of Siena! I recall especially of my own grandmother. They are the ones who have throughout their lives supported us in our lives in Christ. They are the ones who through their lives will continue to support us in making those new beginnings that God is waiting for us to make, to rekindle in our hearts the fire of his love.
Let us pray: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living. God, help us to be Jesus' love in what we say and do.
Amen.
Sonia F. G. Stevenson, M. Div.
Church of the Good Shepherd