In Communion with the Saints
Looking at the calendar for this week, the temptation is certainly there to preach a sermon about the election, about politics, about the state of our country. But if you really want to know my thoughts on that, I’d invite you to read this month’s Focus on Faith, where I touch on some of that, just a little bit. The only thing I’d add to that is that, given everything we’ve learned the last 4 years, nothing would surprise me. I’ve heard quite a lot of people say that Trump can’t possibly lose, and if Biden wins it’s proof the election is rigged. And I’ve heard quite a lot of other people say that Biden can’t possibly lose, and if Trump wins it’s proof the election is rigged. Obviously both things can’t be true, and I think a fair win is entirely possible for either candidate. If there’s one thing we know how to do in this country, it’s conduct elections.
But the political calendar is not the only calendar we’re looking at this week. If we look to our church calendar, today, the second day of Allhallowtide, is All Saints Day. In traditions that canonize and venerate the saints, like Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism, All Saints Day is a day to celebrate all the saints of the church who don’t have their own feast day.
But in our Reformed tradition, all the faithful people of God’s kingdom, past and present, are considered saints of the church. We don’t need to canonize and venerate everybody because we believe that God welcomes and venerates all people who worship him.
So in our expression of faith, there’s not a huge distinction between All Saints Day, and tomorrow’s All Soul’s Day – the last day of Allhallowtide. All Saints celebrates the saints of the church and All Souls venerates the faithful of the church, and to us those groups are one and the same.
Today’s All Saints Day, tomorrow’s All Soul’s Day, and the holidays that surround them – Halloween, Day of the Dead, Allerheiligen, are to commemorate and celebrate the lives of those we have lost.
When our congregation made the decision to re-gather for worship in our sanctuary, I made a conscious decision that, as much as possible, I’d try to avoid making my sermons be all-pandemic all the time.
But today, on All Saints Day – in this year and in the events we have all seen – it seems particularly important to remember those who have come before us, and who have departed to the nearer presence of God.
This morning I am remembering especially the lives of two of the giants in my education – the Rev. Dr. Gregg Mast, who was President of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary during my entire time as a student there, and the Rev. Dr. Allen Janssen, who was my professor for Reformed polity and Reformed standards and theology, and who advised me through writing my Credo. Both Dr. Mast and Dr. Janssen were claimed by Covid in the early days of the pandemic. And it is their faces I see and their voices I hear when I people try to convince me that this is all a hoax, or overblown, or much ado about nothing.
They are two among the tens of tens of thousands of Americans who died alone in their hospital beds, without the benefit of family allowed to be with him, whose burials have come and gone without proper funeral or memorial – waiting for the day when those men who touched and blessed so many lives can be fully and fittingly celebrated by the many, many people who loved them.
We have been lucky in this congregation.
Many of us have family members, friends, and neighbors, who have been touched by Covid. Most of whom were blessed to recover, God be praised. But to the best of my knowledge, our immediate church family has been spared.
We gather, we take our precautions, we mask and we sanitize. And we know these things all help, even if none of them are foolproof. And I think it’s because we’ve taken our precautions seriously that we’ve been fortunate, and God willing, will continue to be so.
I haven’t had to do any virtual funerals, though the vast majority of my colleagues in other churches have.
I haven’t had to lead any graveside services with only immediate family and the funeral director present. Though such services were not uncommon for my fellow clergy over the summer.
I haven’t had to try to offer words of comfort over Zoom to people struggling to draw their last breaths. Though I’ve certainly had those moments described to me in excruciating and mournful detail by people who’ve done that.
So I’m grateful that so far our congregation has been spared.
And I’m mindful of the people we’ve lost. Both those I know and love. And those whose I will never know.
Behind each number is a name. Behind each name a story. In each story, people who loved them, cared for them, knew their strengths and their flaws, their graces and their guilts. A trail of grief and tears in the wake of each life lost.
And so we live in mourning and sorrow – grateful for the people we have known, missing them immensely when they are no longer with us.
Yet even in our sadness we also live in hope.
The hope and the promise that the end of our days is not the end, but the start of a new beginning. We are not fatalists, we do not yearn for death or celebrate it. But we do not fear it either.
For we know that when our time comes, that we will be reunited together in love. That God brings all his faithful (and, I believe in God’s mercy and forgiveness, some of the less faithful as well)… God brings all his people together. And he gives us a glimpse of what is to come. In the Revelation of John we see people gathered together, from every tribe and every nation, speaking every language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, Jesus Christ. And humanity and divinity, people and angels, join together in God’s worship. And before God’s throne there is no hunger and no thirst. The sun will not scorch them, but every tear will be wiped from our eyes, and our souls and bodies refreshed at the spring of life.
Even in death, there is life.
In life there is hope.
And the source of every hope is God through Jesus Christ.
This doesn’t mean we don’t mourn death. Of course we do.
This doesn’t mean we don’t miss the people lost to us on earth. Of course we do.
God created us to be mortal. To love in relationship with each other. We don’t simply wash our hands of our loved ones and say, “they’re with God now – not my problem.” No, we mourn and we weep, and we miss them – we miss them fiercely. And we celebrate the lives they led. We celebrate those relationships.
Simply because we have hope does not make us immune to grief.
But rather, because God fills us so completely and fully with his own love, it makes our grief that much sharper.
Even though we know that there is resurrection and reunification and restoration awaiting us. We are not any less human because we are blessed with knowledge of the divine.
So with that in mind, I’m going to close this morning, with an invitation. An invitation to each of you to pray with me. To pray in remembrance for those we’ve lost. To pray for their families and loved ones. To lift up the lives of people we know and people we don’t, to appeal to God’s grace for his eternal love. And to pray for comfort and healing for a world in need of it.
And so I’ll ask you to please pray with me now:
Holy God of grace and mercy, we seek your loving presence in our world. We ask for unity in times of division. Love in times of distrust. And healing in times of illness. Holy God, we remember before you this morning the lives of people we have lost this year – both those taken by Covid, and those taken by other causes. We pray to be remembered in your love, as you remember them. Welcome all people born of your love into your kingdom, where we may never hunger, thirst, or weep again.
Gracious God, we lift up the names of your faithful servants, Gregg Mast and Allen Janssen, as well as the names of other people known and loved to your church. We offer their names in silence to you now.
*Moment of Silence*
Keep all your saints under your watchful care. Envelope them with your love. Let them know that they are loved and missed here on earth. And grant them and us every comfort of your presence until we can all meet again. We ask all of this through the name of our eternal shepherd, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Looking at the calendar for this week, the temptation is certainly there to preach a sermon about the election, about politics, about the state of our country. But if you really want to know my thoughts on that, I’d invite you to read this month’s Focus on Faith, where I touch on some of that, just a little bit. The only thing I’d add to that is that, given everything we’ve learned the last 4 years, nothing would surprise me. I’ve heard quite a lot of people say that Trump can’t possibly lose, and if Biden wins it’s proof the election is rigged. And I’ve heard quite a lot of other people say that Biden can’t possibly lose, and if Trump wins it’s proof the election is rigged. Obviously both things can’t be true, and I think a fair win is entirely possible for either candidate. If there’s one thing we know how to do in this country, it’s conduct elections.
But the political calendar is not the only calendar we’re looking at this week. If we look to our church calendar, today, the second day of Allhallowtide, is All Saints Day. In traditions that canonize and venerate the saints, like Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism, All Saints Day is a day to celebrate all the saints of the church who don’t have their own feast day.
But in our Reformed tradition, all the faithful people of God’s kingdom, past and present, are considered saints of the church. We don’t need to canonize and venerate everybody because we believe that God welcomes and venerates all people who worship him.
So in our expression of faith, there’s not a huge distinction between All Saints Day, and tomorrow’s All Soul’s Day – the last day of Allhallowtide. All Saints celebrates the saints of the church and All Souls venerates the faithful of the church, and to us those groups are one and the same.
Today’s All Saints Day, tomorrow’s All Soul’s Day, and the holidays that surround them – Halloween, Day of the Dead, Allerheiligen, are to commemorate and celebrate the lives of those we have lost.
When our congregation made the decision to re-gather for worship in our sanctuary, I made a conscious decision that, as much as possible, I’d try to avoid making my sermons be all-pandemic all the time.
But today, on All Saints Day – in this year and in the events we have all seen – it seems particularly important to remember those who have come before us, and who have departed to the nearer presence of God.
This morning I am remembering especially the lives of two of the giants in my education – the Rev. Dr. Gregg Mast, who was President of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary during my entire time as a student there, and the Rev. Dr. Allen Janssen, who was my professor for Reformed polity and Reformed standards and theology, and who advised me through writing my Credo. Both Dr. Mast and Dr. Janssen were claimed by Covid in the early days of the pandemic. And it is their faces I see and their voices I hear when I people try to convince me that this is all a hoax, or overblown, or much ado about nothing.
They are two among the tens of tens of thousands of Americans who died alone in their hospital beds, without the benefit of family allowed to be with him, whose burials have come and gone without proper funeral or memorial – waiting for the day when those men who touched and blessed so many lives can be fully and fittingly celebrated by the many, many people who loved them.
We have been lucky in this congregation.
Many of us have family members, friends, and neighbors, who have been touched by Covid. Most of whom were blessed to recover, God be praised. But to the best of my knowledge, our immediate church family has been spared.
We gather, we take our precautions, we mask and we sanitize. And we know these things all help, even if none of them are foolproof. And I think it’s because we’ve taken our precautions seriously that we’ve been fortunate, and God willing, will continue to be so.
I haven’t had to do any virtual funerals, though the vast majority of my colleagues in other churches have.
I haven’t had to lead any graveside services with only immediate family and the funeral director present. Though such services were not uncommon for my fellow clergy over the summer.
I haven’t had to try to offer words of comfort over Zoom to people struggling to draw their last breaths. Though I’ve certainly had those moments described to me in excruciating and mournful detail by people who’ve done that.
So I’m grateful that so far our congregation has been spared.
And I’m mindful of the people we’ve lost. Both those I know and love. And those whose I will never know.
Behind each number is a name. Behind each name a story. In each story, people who loved them, cared for them, knew their strengths and their flaws, their graces and their guilts. A trail of grief and tears in the wake of each life lost.
And so we live in mourning and sorrow – grateful for the people we have known, missing them immensely when they are no longer with us.
Yet even in our sadness we also live in hope.
The hope and the promise that the end of our days is not the end, but the start of a new beginning. We are not fatalists, we do not yearn for death or celebrate it. But we do not fear it either.
For we know that when our time comes, that we will be reunited together in love. That God brings all his faithful (and, I believe in God’s mercy and forgiveness, some of the less faithful as well)… God brings all his people together. And he gives us a glimpse of what is to come. In the Revelation of John we see people gathered together, from every tribe and every nation, speaking every language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, Jesus Christ. And humanity and divinity, people and angels, join together in God’s worship. And before God’s throne there is no hunger and no thirst. The sun will not scorch them, but every tear will be wiped from our eyes, and our souls and bodies refreshed at the spring of life.
Even in death, there is life.
In life there is hope.
And the source of every hope is God through Jesus Christ.
This doesn’t mean we don’t mourn death. Of course we do.
This doesn’t mean we don’t miss the people lost to us on earth. Of course we do.
God created us to be mortal. To love in relationship with each other. We don’t simply wash our hands of our loved ones and say, “they’re with God now – not my problem.” No, we mourn and we weep, and we miss them – we miss them fiercely. And we celebrate the lives they led. We celebrate those relationships.
Simply because we have hope does not make us immune to grief.
But rather, because God fills us so completely and fully with his own love, it makes our grief that much sharper.
Even though we know that there is resurrection and reunification and restoration awaiting us. We are not any less human because we are blessed with knowledge of the divine.
So with that in mind, I’m going to close this morning, with an invitation. An invitation to each of you to pray with me. To pray in remembrance for those we’ve lost. To pray for their families and loved ones. To lift up the lives of people we know and people we don’t, to appeal to God’s grace for his eternal love. And to pray for comfort and healing for a world in need of it.
And so I’ll ask you to please pray with me now:
Holy God of grace and mercy, we seek your loving presence in our world. We ask for unity in times of division. Love in times of distrust. And healing in times of illness. Holy God, we remember before you this morning the lives of people we have lost this year – both those taken by Covid, and those taken by other causes. We pray to be remembered in your love, as you remember them. Welcome all people born of your love into your kingdom, where we may never hunger, thirst, or weep again.
Gracious God, we lift up the names of your faithful servants, Gregg Mast and Allen Janssen, as well as the names of other people known and loved to your church. We offer their names in silence to you now.
*Moment of Silence*
Keep all your saints under your watchful care. Envelope them with your love. Let them know that they are loved and missed here on earth. And grant them and us every comfort of your presence until we can all meet again. We ask all of this through the name of our eternal shepherd, Jesus Christ. Amen.