If you read my last post entitled "Preaching on Reformation Sunday" you'll know that this blog won't be an intricate look at the technical side of this important day in the church year. Instead, you'll get some thoughts, musings and opinions. Keep reading if you are interested, or if you are looking for a way to avoid that next task on your to-do list.
(or even better, pencil "read this blog" into your to-do list so that you'll have something to check off when you're done)
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Some Musings that Might (or Might Not) Connect with One Another:
This day can hit you hard:
- If there is a Sunday of the year that can really hit people "where they live" and connect with their daily lives, it's this one. Yeah, of course, Christmas and Easter and EXTREMELY important, but they can be clouded by the trappings of ritual, marketing and tradition in such a way that the emphasis on the message can be lost (at least that's the challenge we face). All Saints Day, on the other hand, hasn't been over-run by Hallmark, Toys R Us or Amazon. (at least as far as I know...am I missing something?)
- Whether they know it or not, people will be in a more existential mindset as they think about those who have gone before and those who will come after them.
Everything Goes Away:
- It's a mark of maturity to know that sooner or later everything goes away. Nothing lasts forever. Even the Pyramids have lost their outer layers. At an early age, it starts to dawn on us that pets and grandparents can die. We also learn that parents, houses, jobs, relationships, security, youth, health...whatever...will probably not be hear forever. Sure, we do an admirable job of trying to forget about or mask this truth, but if we're honest, we know it's true. So, when it's time for the sermon on All Saints Sunday, the vast majority of people within ear shot will be able to place in their mindseye someone that they have lost: grandparent, parent, spouse...even child. It's a time to remember that things won't always be this way: sometimes that can fill us with melancholy.
It doesn't have to be a weep-fest:
- Of course All Saints Day shouldn't be a maudlin weep-fest, but to ignore the above misses the reality of many people this Sunday. Your sermon might not even be centering on the saints who have gone before us: you might be looking at the saints of today and tomorrow. Nothing wrong with that! Just remember that people within earshot will be thinking of that grandparent, parent spouse...or even that child who is no longer there.
It's all a bit absurd:
- For some, it might seem absurd for the church to say that we are still contected with those who have gone before us. "Sure they are still in our thoughts and memory," you might hear, "But it's really silly and immature to say any more than that..." For some, a day like All Saints is simply a fairy-tale like myth that helps us make sense of the world and sleep better at night. Considering it to be anything else would be simple-minded.
It's this whole Jesus-following thing a bit "absurd:"
- All Saints Day might indeed be absurd...almost as absurd as what Jesus says in the Gospel Lesson: "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets." Yeah, sure. There seems to be plenty of evidence to the contrary...
- What Jesus says is absurd and quite hard to swallow, but so is the idea that God would really care much about the world and He rose from the dead. So is the idea that a 1st century Jewish peasant is alive and active in my heart. Absurd, hard to swallow, yet AMAZING and LIFE CHANGING.
- For me, All Saints Day is an opportunity for us all to be a bit defiant. In the middle of a universe that has countless stars and billions of light years in between them, we're saying that these "little" people who came before us and those "little" people around us and those "little" people still to come MATTER. Not because of anything they did, but because of what was done for them.
That's what I have, what do you think?
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