All Saints
7 Nov 2021
I want to take a moment today to remember Colin Powell. He was someone I admired greatly, a true soldier who knew the evils of war, who cared for those who served with him and under him, and who understood the role of the military in a democracy. He sometimes fell way short of the mark, but for the vast majority of his life he was the sort of man you would like to emulate. I did not know until his memorial service that he was an Episcopalian, but his way of being in the world was very much like the Anglican ethos. He was honored in an Episcopal church, with a eulogy given by another Episcopalian with a different political viewpoint, Madelaine Albright, and with Michael Curry as the presider. Powell was a saint.
Once a week clergy can gather via Zoom to discuss the texts for the upcoming Sunday. It is always good to hear multiple perspectives and share your own. This week was, of course, the texts for All Saints, in particular the Gospel. I have thought that the raising of Lazarus was there to give us hope and to give witness to the belief in bodily resurrection. Now I am not so sure. Death seems pretty final but maybe Lazarus is not so much a story about overcoming physical death as a story about coming into the Kingdom.
One of the priests shared a personal story. At one point she was managing a student housing at a seminary. A woman came to her and said that she had not seen someone – we will call her Ann – for several days and she was worried Ann was dead. Apparently Ann was not very well liked; she did not say or do things that would endear her to you and so had no friends.
The priest telling the story, Elaine, said that she got her master keys and went with the other woman to Ann’s apartment and opened the door, knowing from the smell exactly what would be found on the other side. Indeed, Ann had been dead about four days, and it was pretty ghastly for everyone. And in true human form, those who had avoided Ann or said unkind things about her were filled with remorse. This was not a Lazarus moment for anyone. I am sure Elaine wished she could be Jesus just this one time.
The Vicar of Dibley presented me with yet another perspective. In 2020 a series of 5 minute vignettes were taped and spliced together. They feature the unforgettable Geraldine talking to the good folks of Dibley via Zoom. She Zoomed with a group of local elementary students and when she asked them about miracles, one mentioned Lazarus, but in a truly uninhibited childlike fashion, asked why Jesus didn’t raise everyone who died and why Lazarus seemed to get special treatment. If she were Jesus, no one would die. Geraldine “left the meeting” as she had no good answer.
“Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.”
Let him go!! Jesus calls us from the tumult; from the graves we have dug for ourselves. Who puts the bindings upon us? Are we bound by our own blindness or by the burdens that the world places upon us? If we are female or black or brown or other abled, we have even more graveclothes bound upon us. Jesus promises to set us free, to loose us. It is for us that Jesus wept. It is for all those who have died and for all of us who are still bound by shame or anger or the hurts imposed by others upon us.
All Saints should not be only a time to remember the faithful departed, but a time when we remember how we are brought to life by the light of Christ as it shone in the lives of those who surrounded us: our parents and grandparents; our family; our friends; people who did not even know us but whose lives stood, and still stand, as beacons to us. They, too, unbind us by the way their lives modeled Christ.
I learned to model simplicity and generosity and humility because that’s how my parents lived. I knew unconditional love because that is what they gave to me. I hope and pray that you received that kind of love and those values as well. I believe our prisons are filled with people who never had saints in their lives and were never told they were beloved of God.
We owe much to all the saints: the ones who lived and died, perhaps as a martyr, long, long ago; those who lived righteously and yet whose names are know only to God; those who lived outside the knowledge of Christianity and still walked with God; those whose names we know, whose lives touched ours. They are all saints!
Yet perhaps we forget to count ourselves. Perhaps we are the Lazarus’ of the world, people who lived, or still live, in a kind of death until we are unbound by the saving grace of Jesus. Like Bartimaeus we were blind but now we see; like Lazarus we were dead but now we live. You are all saints.
When I realized that I was beloved by God and that I, too, am a saint, my life changed. So I am telling you that you, too, are a beloved child of God and that you can take off the bindings of death and join in the joy of salvation. To enter the company of saints, you need to look at your neighbor and the stranger and the sojourner and remember that they, too, are children of God. When we start seeing everyone as a child of God, the last of the strips of cloth will be peeled away from us and we will stand whole and united with God.
Even death now will have no power To quiet your Name From beating wildly in our hearts. Hafiz
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