When We Gonna Wake Up!

When We Gonna Wake Up

That’s the basic question for all of us: When are we going to wake up? Spiritual teachers inside and beyond the Church all say the same thing – Wake Up! Tony De Mello, the Jesuit priest and psychotherapist would remind everyone he ever taught, most of us, whether we know it or not, are sleep-walking through life. We are born asleep. We live asleep, we marry in our sleep, we have children and raise families in our sleep. And we die in our sleep without ever waking up. We rarely if ever take time to understand the loveliness and beauty of this thing we call human existence. All the mystics of any and all religious traditions, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion, or no religion, are unanimous on one thing: all shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare. WAKE UP! [Awareness, Anthony De Mello, p 5]

You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. Romans 13:11

I remember my seminary faculty advisor, professor of Church History, priest and friend Fred Shriver, preaching at Church of the Good Shepherd, Ruxton, MD reminding us that the fundamental teaching of Jesus sees him breaking bread. Not a little or even oversize wafer, but a crusty loaf of peasant bread. See him now at the table with his closest friends the night before he is to be crucified on a Roman cross. He takes the bread. Blesses the bread. Breaks the bread. And Gives it to them. This is my body given to you and given for the world. Take, Bless, Break and Give. The summary of his life, death and resurrection. Take, Bless, Break and Give/Share. That’s the spiritual life Jesus taught. Listen as the crust breaks open. I invite you to open your heart it seems to say. Let me into your life, into your heart, into your mind he is saying. Allow me to break you open and awaken you to new life, true life, eternal life. That cracking of the crust that we think is there to protect us, that we maintain to keep everything close and tightly kept inside. Listen to the sound of the bread being broken, he seems to say. When you see me break it allow it to awaken you. Wake Up!

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. Matthew 24:42

Tony De Mello tells the story of a father who knocks on his son’s bedroom door and says, “John, wake up.” John answers, “I don’t want to wake up, papa.” The father shouts, “Get up, you have to go to school.” John says, “I don’t want to go to school.” “Why not,” asks his father. “I have three reasons,” says Jaime. “First, because it is so dull. Second, because the kids tease me. And third, I hate school.” And the father says, “I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school: First, because it is your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old; and third, because you are the headmaster.” Wake up! Wake up! You have grown up! You are too big to stay asleep. Stop playing with your toys. WAKE UP!

Wake up, and strengthen what remains… Revelation 3:2

Most people want to stay in kindergarten. But don’t believe it. They want you to fix their broken toys. “Give me back my marriage. Give me back my job, my money, my reputation, my success.” Waking up is unpleasant. It is comfortable to be in bed. It is irritating to be woken up. The wisest spiritual teachers do not attempt to wake people up. It is none of my business, they say. Even though from time to time they urge us to wake up, they know. They know that they can only dance their dance and live their lives and if we wake up and learn something, so be it. If not, fine. As the saying goes, “The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes, and flowers in the gardens.” Look at the image of Jesus in the third chapter of Revelation (there is no “s”). “Behold, I stand at the door and knock!” The famous pre-Raphelite painting of this by William Holman Hunt shows that there is no door handle on Jesus’s side of the door. He cannot open us up. He can only knock on our door. He can only break open the crust that keeps us asleep in our beds of idleness, presumed knowledge, false senses of security, unaware that things shall be well and are well if only we will open our eyes, our hearts, our minds, open the door and wake up. WAKE UP!

Shoshin. Shoshin, is a Japanese word. It means “beginner’s mind.” As Shunyru Suzuki teaches, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” We think waking up is hard to do. To practice Shoshin is hard. To unlearn what we think we already know is difficult and too much work. To wake up means to always keep our beginner’s mind – to always encounter the things we do and say as if for the first time. This is hard to do. We begin Advent and think it is a time to prepare for Christmas, the birth of the Christ child. But, with a beginner’s mind, we learn that Advent means coming, and that it was originally meant to be a time to wake up and to prepare for the Risen Lord to come again into our messy and suffering world. It is a time to stop all the busyness that distracts us from our beginner’s mind and allow Jesus to break open our hearts, our minds, our lives so we can open the door and welcome him in right now, right here. Because. Because he is here, now. He promises to be with us to the “end of the age.” All shall be well. All is well when we open the door. But unless we practice beginner’s mind, we forget this promise he makes to all of his followers, his disciples, those who say they walk in his way, and yet forget to stop to heal the sick, welcome the immigrant- stranger, visit those in prison, clothe the naked and give a drink to those who are thirsty.

Behold, he stands at the door and knocks. There is no handle on his side of the door. The only handle is on our side of the door. Do we even hear him knock? Or, are we so dead-tired and asleep from all the distractions of this life, this world, that we cannot even hear him knocking? Let alone do we wake up, walk over and open the door? And what does chapter three of Revelation (no “s”) say will happen if we do wake up and open the door? “Behold! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” That is the promise. We will have a marvelous meal and party with him! We will wake up and discover all is well. If only we will practice beginner’s mind, wake up, walk over, open the door and let Jesus in!

And to those who have ears, he says listen: WAKE UP! Your life and the life of the world depends on it. When we gonna wake up, when we gonna wake up, when we gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?

When You Gonna Wake Up – Bob Dylan

Filled With Love - Christ the King

Filled With Love

What to do as nationalism, secularism and strong-man dictators rise up across the world? In 1925 Pope Pius XI instituted Christ the King Sunday because he felt, that with the rising nationalism, secularism, and strong man dictators that eventually became World War II, a Sunday was necessary to refocus us on why we are here – to be icons of God’s love in this world. Originally set as the last Sunday of October, in 1969, another era of social turmoil, Pope Paul VI moved it to the Last Sunday before Advent and called it, “The Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.” Sunday, November 24, 2019 is Christ the King Sunday, King of the Universe.

Christ the King is a title that strikes a peculiar tension since any and all descriptions of Jesus who is called Christ thankfully bear little to no resemblance to the kinds of earthly leaders and kings Jeremiah condemns in no uncertain terms: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So, I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord.” Jesus, he who is called Christ – anointed, messiah– has none of the trappings of these wicked, evil shepherds: Christ does not destroy, scatter and divide. Rather, he heals, restores, gathers and unites every one and every thing.

It is plain to see that he is like no earthly king at all. And yet. We who will in another few weeks proclaim the Incarnation of God in the Christ child need be reminded that the child born of Mary, a young woman from a small town in Galilee, was, according to the Letter to the Colossians, and the majestic and profound opening lines of the Gospel of John, present before that first Incarnation, that first revealing of God’s power and love of every thing, the Creation of all that is, seen and unseen. This First Incarnation took place some 13.7 billion years before the Second Incarnation we celebrate in the arrival of the fullness of God in the Christ child. He did not come into this world as much as he comes out of an already Christ-soaked world as God’s presence poured into a single human being so that divinity and humanity can be seen operating in him.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. … For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” [Colossians 1:11-20]

Richard Rohr is quick to point out that it is a leap of faith “trusting that Jesus together with Christ gave us one human but fully accurate window into the Eternal Now that we call God…This is a leap of faith that many believe they have made when they say, ‘Jesus is God!’ But strictly speaking, those words are not theologically correct. Christ is God, and Jesus is the Christ’s historical manifestation in time. Jesus is a Third Someone, not just God and not just man, but God and human together.” [Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, p18]

Theologians in the Middle Ages began to see that this Christ is a Cosmic Christ. And that this is one of the earliest understandings of just who Jesus is as witnessed in Colossians, John and throughout the New Testament. We say “is” because as John chapter one puts it, “The true light... was coming into the world.” That is, the Christ Mystery is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process throughout time – as constant as the light that fills the universe. We must remember, that we do not so much as see light but that light enables us to see every thing there is to see – just as the Cosmic Christ enables us to see both who and what God is, and therefore who and what we are – Love. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” [1 John 4:16b]

Consider, that for the philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages, this Second Incarnation in the life of Jesus provides divine clues as to the structure and meaning not only of humanity, but of all life and of the entire universe! Ilia Delio, in her book The Humility of God, points out that the thirteenth century philosopher Dun Scotus, focused on such passages as John 1, Colossians 1, and 1 John 4, concludes that “the Incarnation was too great a mystery to simply remedy a defect. Rather, from all eternity, Christ was willed by God to come in the highest glory. The reason, according to Scotus, is simply that God is love and wanted to love a creature who could fully respond in love. Christ would have come, he said, even if there had been no sin. Christ is the first in God’s intention to love and it is because of Christ that creation has its meaning.” [Delio p 50] That is, concludes Delio, in understanding Jesus as the Cosmic Christ, King of the Universe, Incarnation occurs because of a positive – love – not a negative – sin. Such an understanding of Christ the King makes all the difference as to how we are to shape our lives as Christians in this world.

“If love is the reason for the Incarnation then it is also the reason for God’s humility because…God’s love is a humble love. It is a love that goes out of itself toward the other for the sake of the other…Bonaventure captured the core of the humility of God when he wrote, …’the eternal God has humbly bent down and lifted the dust of our nature into unity with his own person.’” [Ibid p 51]. God’s love is, writes Delio, a love which bends down to lift us up even when we are at our worst. Which is why we see God’s humility expressed most vividly in the cross because God could not bend over any further in love for us and creation than in the suffering and death of the cross. [Ibid p53] For it is on the cross where we see the Christ still comforting, healing and reconciling all to himself as he forgives those who have crucified him and promises the criminal on the cross nearby, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." [Luke 23:33-43]

Jesus comes out of creation to show us that all of creation, all of God, all of every thing is filled with the presence of the Eternal Now that we call God. And if it is as John and Colossians says, that all things, every thing, come from this Cosmic Christ, then every thing, not just people, but every thing, seen and unseen, visible and invisible, is a “child of God.” The Whole of Creation is the Beloved Community of God’s Love, not just the Church. Every thing, every person, is holy ground – as Woody Guthrie once wrote, “every speck of dust is holy ground.” Every atom, every neutrino, is holy ground. We must seek Christ, not merely in “all persons,” but in all creatures and in every thing throughout the created universe, for all things come out of this Christ-filled creation as an expression of God’s love for all.

We have been misled by bad shepherds to think that faith consists in our assent to certain mental beliefs, rather than our calm and hopeful assent to the presence of the Cosmic Christ in all and in every thing. As St Paul tells us in his hymn to Love, only three things last, three things that are the essence of the Christ-filled life: faith, hope and love. And each of these must always include the other two: faith is always loving and hopeful; hope is always faithful and loving, and love is always faithful and hopeful. And faith and love and hope are all things that we do, not things that we say. As Jesus himself says, what matters is “doing this right,” not “saying this right.” [Luke 6:46] As Richard Rohr concludes about this Cosmic Christ, “Jesus came to show us how to be human much more than how to be spiritual, and the process still seems to be in its early stages!” [Richard Rohr, Ibid pp 22-23]

Whether Pius XI knew it or not, by calling us annually to reflect on the Cosmic Christ, King of the Universe, he calls us to come to new understandings of faith, hope and love: No one religion can ever encompass the depth of such faith. No ethnicity has a monopoly on such hope. No nationality can control or limit this flow of such universal love. [Rohr ibid p 22] Just as all creation is filled with this love, so may our hearts also be filled with this love - a love that goes out of itself toward the other for the sake of the other.

Filled With Love – Joyce Andersen

Apocalyptic Boogie

Apocalyptic

“See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble… But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” [Malachi 4:1-2a]

We tend to find the Apocalyptic literature in the Bible to be baffling at best. We overlook its primary purpose: to be a literature urging Perseverance in hard times and sustain Hope for a New Day. But let’s be clear about this from the outset: the kind of “redemption” promised in the Bible’s Apocalyptic literature “is not a private lifeboat to save a few privileged folk while everything else is destroyed. Rather, redemption is equated with the coming [the advent] of God’s reign, which spells transformation, healing and wholeness for all of life.” [Sharon Ringe, Luke, p 253] Apocalyptic makes the promise that the world and creation will be made new!

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down…By your endurance you will gain your souls…Truly I tell you, this generation shall not pass away until all things have taken place.” [Luke 21:5-38]

We tend to shy away from these sorts of Apocalyptic passages in the Bible, viewing them as bizarre, incomprehensible, intended for some other people, some other time, some other place. Or, worse still, by avoiding them and paying as little attention as possible to them, we allow others to turn this genre of faith literature into so much commercialized pablum that distorts it all to advance some elitist agenda or other that says some version of, “Only these sorts of believers will be saved, or “Unless you believe what we are telling you, you will be left behind.” As if God’s redemption is somehow limited to a precious few. As if God does not really love all of creation, including all people. As if in our baptism we have not pledged to seek and serve Christ in ALL persons, loving your neighbor as yourself. As if we have not pledged to STRIVE for Justice and Peace for ALL people, respecting the DIGNITY of EVERY human being.

Furthermore, how near the time is coming is never made exactly clear. “How near the time will be is not exactly clear. The word ‘generation’ can refer to the thirty or so years that one would normally assume for a human life cycle. It can also, however, refer to an entire era marked by a particular quality (‘this age’), which could encompass all of human history. We do not know what Luke meant, or in the similar saying in 9:27. But the essence of the ‘revelation’ has been to put an end to such calculation, emphasizing instead, confidence in God’s faithfulness to God’s promises of salvation (21:33).” [Ibid p 253-254]  We do well to note that the Apocalypse in Luke 21 urges us to Be Alert, Endure, and concludes with what to do in the meantime following the lead of Jesus: spend nights in quiet  prayer and contemplation in a sacred place of one’s choosing, and get up early in the morning to, as the voice from heaven commanded back at the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36), “Listen to him.”

 Such franchises as the Left Behind books and movie only serve to trivialize what is going on here. For the audience Luke addresses has seen the destruction of the Temple, and indeed all of Jerusalem, come true. The Temple is central to Luke’s story of Jesus. Luke begins in the Temple with Zechariah. The infant Jesus is brought to the Temple. His family regularly goes to the Temple. He teaches openly in the Temple. The Temple is not only the center of his story, but it is the very center of the universe for all of Israel. It was the center of the Jewish and early Christian faith, the place where God’s finger touched the Earth and held it still. Now, after Rome destroyed it in the year 70CE, not one stone was on top of another, and the entire city, Jeru-salem, “city of Shalom”, “city of peace”, lay in smouldering ruins. It literally looked like Hell.

Try, for just a moment, to imagine what impact this had on the psyche of both the people of Israel and the early Christians, who we are told in Acts chapter 2, worshipped in the Temple every day. Think of other crises that have resulted in generations of psychic memory: The Crusades, The Trail of Tears, Slavery in the U.S., Pearl Harbor, The Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Carpet Bombing, Agent Orange, Thalidomide, Assassinations (JFK, MLKjr, Bobby, Anwar Sadat), September 11, the Climate Crisis. Imagine the lasting damage of any one of these.

Luke, along with Mark and Matthew, includes this Apocalyptic revelation specifically to quell any time wasted calculating the ‘when,’ and even the ‘what,’ to refocus the people, to refocus us, on the importance of what we should be about here and now in “this generation.” The examples are quite simple: prayer and contemplation, and continue to listen to Jesus and to follow him wherever he goes and whatever he does. That’s it. No disaster stories with some swept up we know not where while others are left in eternal torment. Go back and review the list of the kinds of events that linger in the psyche of a people for generations, for decades, for millennia, and realize all kinds of eternal torment are already forever etched in the DNA and memories of all people everywhere.

We do well to note that in giving the disciples an answer as to when the Day of the Lord will come, Jesus instead urges them to sustain the virtue of Hope that the falseness of this world is ultimately bounded by greater Truth and Light. His vision and his revelation is that God’s redemption, salvation, reign, or whatever else one wants to call it, is about transformation, healing and wholeness for all of life – not for some elite group, not for some private lifeboat for a few privileged people, but for all of life – all people, all creatures, all of creation.

And that life is not primarily about what we believe, but rather about what we do. His call is to follow him, to walk in his way, a way that is self-evident in its care for the “least of these of my sisters and brothers.” Jesus repeatedly urges us to remain confident in God’s promises, to be Alert, to Endure, and to Persevere in following the man from Galilee. And to live a life informed by quiet prayer and listening to him.

All other attempts to sensationalize Apocalyptic thinking is the fantasy of those who find the call to follow Jesus too difficult to imagine and instead are looking for an easy ticket out of here. Boy, will they be surprised! It’s not about best-selling books, disaster movies, and calculating when the Day of the Lord will come upon us. It will more likely come out of our faithfulness to a way of walking in this life than anything we can say or believe. Faith and Love are about doing, not saying a thing. Persevere in doing Faith and Love until the New Day dawns from on high.

We Come From Love, We Return To Love, and Love Is All Around

“Since no one really knows anything about God,

those who think they do are just troublemakers.”*

The eighth-century Sufi female mystic Rabia best captures the scene in Luke 20:27-38. Some Sadducees approach Jesus in Jerusalem. He is nearing the end of his journey to the cross and resurrection, to return to whence he came. Up until now Jesus has been sparring most often with Pharisees who, like himself, believed in the resurrection from the dead. Sparring, or debating, Torah is what the Pharisees loved most! It was their way of trying to be closer to God, the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was their love of debating Torah that sustained their hope in resurrection because they imagined that the eternity of the next age would offer them endless time to debate the meanings of Torah for ever and ever, all of the time! What could be better?

The Sadducees, on the other hand, were a more conservative group, largely located in Jerusalem – they were aristocrats and priestly families, maintaining the sacred life of sacrifices in the Temple. They felt they were responsible for the continued life of the people Israel. And they felt that there was little else to debate, discuss or learn about God and God’s ways. The Sadducees renounced fate, the concept that God commits evil (all evil emerges from humanity’s free will), the immortality of the soul (Plato et al), an afterlife, and postmortem rewards or punishments.

Their plan to trick Jesus and demonstrate how impossible and absurd hope in resurrection was, admittedly, a good one. They based it on the practice of Levirate Marriage. Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man who is childless is obliged to marry his brother's widow. Although its primary concern was to keep common family property in the family and continue the family line lest a widow marry outside the clan; it was also a way of protecting the widow and keeping her within the care of her deceased husband’s family.

So, some Sadducees, “those who say there is no resurrection,” come up with a fantastic version of Levirate marriage in which a poor widow remains childless through her marriage to seven brothers, each of whom dies childless. Which of the seven brothers, then, will be her husband in the resurrection? Ha! Let this country bumpkin from Galilee answer that one if he can. Surely this will demonstrate how absurd it is to believe in the resurrection of the dead.

Now surely Jesus can see just how absurd their puzzle is since it assumes the very thing the Sadducees deny: the resurrection of the dead! What do they care? Of course, it is just a trap. But not so fast. Although outside the canon of Torah and the Tanakh, the whole of Hebrew Scriptures, he might have sited the story of the mother and her seven sons who were tortured and killed by Antiochus IV for refusing to deny the God of Israel and eat some pork to prove their denial. One by one they all refused to disobey the commandments of their God. Their mother bore the anguish of watching her sons die with good courage “because of her hope in the Lord…Filled with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage, and said to them, ‘I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore, the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.’” [2 Maccabees 7:20-23] That is belief in the resurrection of the dead!

Jesus might have replied with this story. But Jesus showing infinite patience and wisdom has another answer. "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

We might note the not so subtle dig at the Sadducees when he says, “…but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age!” Ouch! The argument, of course, is that resurrection life will not be a replica of this life, and the commandments for living in this life have no relevance in the age to come. We say, at the time of our mortal death life is changed, not ended. Levirate marriage was necessary for preserving family lines in this world, but then we shall all be children of one father, one God, children of the resurrection! We are made one with all creation from the very beginning. Like Jesus, we shall all return to from whence we came.

Jesus shows patience and mercy with his opponents, a quality of character we would all do well to make our own. We live in a world in which troublemakers like the Sadducees in this story try to undermine all that is good and wonderful and true in this life with trick questions, false narratives and patent untruths. As Rabia learned 13 centuries ago in Basra, those who think they know it all and are unwilling to open themselves to that which is true are the real troublemakers – and they are often the saddest among us all. As the old quip puts it, “The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection – that is why they are sad, you see!” And after the destruction of the Temple, the Sadducees disappeared from history altogether along with all parties and movements that refuse to align themselves with the truth. Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century theologian, reminds us:                            All are having a relationship with God.

A pear taken from a limb and

set in a bowl,

surely it is talking to its Lord,

and happy that it is being honored for its life,

and somehow knowing

that soon it will be

returning to

Him.

We use words like “returning.”

Think about that. Inherent in that word is

separation,

and separation from God is never

really possible.

What can you be that He is not? “You

cannot be what I am not,”

my Lord once said

to me.*

*[Quotations from Rabia and Thomas Aquinas are from Love Poems From God, Daniel Ladinsky, translator, Penguin Compass, 2002, pp 27 & 147]

All Saints 2019

Scientia Cordis

I recall one Sunday after church, a gentleman came into my office, sat down and declared more than ask, “Why do we pray for the dead? It’s not in the Bible!” I don’t recall what I said to him that day, but today I would say something like this: Because our mystical communion with the dead is what strengthens our virtue of hope that the falseness of this world is ultimately bounded by a greater truth and light despite the fact that the world rarely provides much evidence that such hope is justified. When we pray and reflect on the things they did in this life it inspires us to live lives of faith, hope and charity – even risking everything to bring greater truth and light to all persons, all creatures and creation itself.

For this reason our tradition sets aside three days to face into our mortality as a way of maintaining our hope – “the blessed hope of everlasting life…and when our mortal body doth lie in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.” [BCP 349] It is this hope, not love, that is unique to the Christian faith, for nearly all religions can and do instruct us on how to love others as well or even better than we do. Nor is our perspective on faith unique. As Fr. Sam Portaro observes, “It is the basis of all religion, and the very substance of government and economy, for no God can inspire, no government can rule, no commerce can work without genuine faith – faith in God’s authority to guide, faith in those who govern, faith in the value of goods and services. But where else is hope?” Where, indeed. [Sam Portaro, Brightest and Best, p 200]

So, All Hallows Eve (Oct 31) originated as a festival to use the powers of humor and ridicule to confront the power of, and our fear of, death. On All Saints Day (Nov 1) we reflect on the lives of those who embody faith, hope and charity and their remarkable deeds of triumph over the powers of darkness and the devil. And All Souls (Nov 2) we remember the great diversity of all who have gone before us as we again proclaim our aspirations, hope and expectations of a shared eternity, recalling that all the people of God in the early church were commonly referred to as “saints.” As the hymn proclaims in song, “there’s not any reason no, not the least, why we all shouldn’t be one too.” [Ibid p 199]

The book of Daniel is a book of tales and visions written several hundred years before Jesus. In chapter seven, Daniel has a dream, a vision: “I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.” [Daniel 7:1-3] Seeking clarification, Daniel learns it is about four kings rising up, but that ultimately, “… the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever." These ‘holy ones of the Most High’ are the people like the rest of us. To the extent that Daniel describes a messiah, that messiah is the faithful people of God! That is the holy ones of the Most High are you and me! Written in a time of severe repression, and being forbidden to practice the religious rites and rituals of Israel while under foreign occupation, this vision among others in Daniel counters the depression of the people with the hope that ultimately, the people will one day, collectively, “possess the kingdom for ever.” And if that is not enough, the interpreter adds, “for ever and ever.” This is no doubt the equivalent of Buzz Lightyear’s, “To infinity and beyond!”

Jesus in Luke chapter 6, in his blessings and woes [v 20-31] encourages a similar hope as Israel is now under the domination of Caesar’s Rome. Only Jesus takes it all a step further: Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, weeping, and persecuted “on account of the Son of Man,” for yours shall be the kingdom. But Woe to those who are rich, full, happy and well regarded; you will now be poor, hungry, mourning and will now be regarded as false prophets in the reign of God. Once again, the people of God, not those presently in charge, will inherit everlasting life, once again sustaining the hope that all the people shall be the holy ones, the saints of God in this world and the next. And what matters most, Jesus continues, is to love God, love neighbor, love your enemies, and in your spare time be merciful as God is merciful!

After chasing after our fears of death, ghosts, goblins and the devils on All Hallows Eve, we reflect on the lives of those who in their time most embodied what it means to be “holy ones of the Most High" and saints of the church of Jesus Christ. Some of their names are familiar, like Martin Luther King, Jr, Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Jonathan Myrick Daniels. Others, like William Laud, Richard Hooker, Evelyn Underhill, Elizabeth of Hungry and Hugh of Lincoln we need to read about to learn who they are and what they have contributed to human society. We would learn that Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, alone among all bishops in England, quelled anti-Semitic riots and killings in his diocese in the twelfth century. Elizabeth of Hungry, a wealthy princess, married well, and yet escaped the “woes” Jesus enumerates for the rich by giving all her wealth away: after her husband died she gave her dowry away as alms, sold her jewels to establish a hospital, opened the royal granaries in time of famine to feed the poor, and when her resources were reduced to subsistence she devoted herself to serving others until she died of exhaustion – ending a life of one who gave all she had as a “holy one of the Most High.”

Jean Vanier, was a Canadian Naval Officer, philosopher, theologian and founder of the L’Arche communities where he and others live together in homes as companions and care givers for those who have what he calls intellectual disabilities. Vanier began the first L’Arche home in1964, and lived in them until he died this past May. The experience has been healing for everyone involved. In one book called Becoming Human, Vanier describes some of what he has learned from those he serves about what the ancients call “Scientia Cordis,” science of the heart: “The science of the heart permits us to be vulnerable with others, not to fear them but to listen to them, to see their beauty and value, to understand them in all their fears, needs, and hopes, even to challenge them if need be…The mature heart does not seek to force beliefs on others; it does not seek to impose a faith. The mature heart listens for what another’s heart is called to be. It no longer judges or condemns. It is a heart of forgiveness. Such a heart is a compassionate heart that sees the presence of God in others. It lets itself be led by them into unchartered land. It is the heart that calls us to grow, to change, to evolve, and to become more fully human.”(Vanier, p.88)

I had my own experience of this mature heart one Sunday as guest preacher at St. Mark’s, Newark, NY, a parish that has a ministry to those who have intellectual disabilities and live in a nearby State Hospital. As I was preaching, there they were in the front row. Among them was Phyliss, a somewhat loud but loving woman. She was so proud as she told us she would soon receive an award for 25-years-service in a work program. Phyllis felt comfortable interrupting me when she had something to add to whatever I was saying. At one point when I was talking about the presence and grace of God in our lives, Phyllis told us all about being in the hospital the year before, and how it is true that God was with her through the whole ordeal of her surgery and recovery. I simply stopped and we listened to Phyllis for several minutes witness to the power of God in her life.

When she finished there really was nothing more I could say. I thanked her and encouraged us all to take a few moments of silence to take her words to heart. For whatever capabilities Phyllis may lack, hers is surely a mature heart, and a heart that rests in the very heart of God in Christ – she is one of the “holy ones of the Most High” from whom we all have something to learn.

Jesus encourages us to see that the communion of saints and Holy Ones extends far beyond the William Lauds and Richard Hookers of the church, far beyond the Desmond Tutus and Mother Theresas. To be human is to be merciful as God is merciful. To be human is to have a mature heart that reflects the very heart of Christ. To be human is to be one of God’s saints and holy ones.

Today we give thanks and praise for ALL the saints. Those who from their labors rest, and those who, like Phyllis, live among us even now. We give thanks for a tradition that takes three days each year to remember the great and broad diversity of saints among us now and throughout all time. We give thanks for everyone who in any way gives us a glimpse of what it means to be human, imago Dei, created in the image of God. We give thanks for ALL the saints. And we give thanks that “there’s not any reason no, not the least, why we all shouldn’t be one too.” And that is why we pray for the dead: so we can become human, sustain the virtue of hope, and live life with a mature heart. Amen.