Online Sermons
All Saints Sunday: November 2, The Rev. Dr. Barbara Schlachter
I received a great compliment at the Healing Ministries meeting where we planned tonight’s service. One of them said, “As far as I’m concerned, you can just preach last year’s sermon again.” Several others agreed. So that is basically what I am doing—although now I have set your expectations up pretty high to expect a really great homily.
But it can’t be exactly last year’s sermon because last year I reflected about the people we had lost to death in our family and our circle of friends beyond our parishes. There are new ones this year. Last year they were in the generation before us. This year, they are in our generation, all in their 60’s. If we keep it up at this rate, we will have no one left to reach the age of 70 except those three who have already made it. I lost a cousin, Mel lost a brother-in-law, and our son-in-law’s mother died.
Many of you are here tonight because you have lost a dear one. All the candles on the altar represent one of these who were part of our Christ Church family whom we have loved and lost this year. I walked the last part of the journey with many of them, and I loved them, and I salute their courage, and I offer comfort and hope to you who continue to miss their presence at your table at ordinary as well as holiday meals.
And yet, even as we have said good-bye to these dear ones, many of us have welcomed new members of the family, through marriage or through birth. I find it quite amazing that in our family we have had three births this year. It almost sounds like direct replacements, but of course, that is never possible. And yet, the cycle of life is such that there are births and there are deaths, and the wheel turns. It is such a great mystery how we come into this world and who we become connected to as family, and how we and they leave this life. The wheel turns and we wax and it turns some more and we wane. It is predictable and yet it is full of unpredictability as well.
Tonight and last night are thin times of the year. The ancient Celts believed that there were two times during the year when those who had died were present, available in some mysterious way more so than at other times. They called this time Samhain, and it became our Halloween and All Saints Day. The other time is Beltane, which has become May Day. We don’t hear as much about May Day being a thin time as All Saints, probably because for the Church one is recognized as a holy time and the other is not.
We who are Christians have come to look forward to this time of the year when we name and remember those whom we have loved and seemed to lose, especially those who have died during the past year, and yet not only them, but all of those who have gone ahead into the Great Mystery.
The numbers of those dear ones increase as the years go on. I remember being in the cemetery with my father one time when he lamented, “I know more people here than I do anywhere else.” I think there does come that time. How good to know they are still available to us in some mysterious way, through the communion of the saints. As long as we remember them, they still are. The Roman Catholic Karl Rahner has called this All Saints a time of special presence. He wrote, “Be still, O heart, and let all whom you have loved rise from the grave of your breast.”
I cannot imagine that there are any of us here tonight who have not lost someone we have loved, if not a spouse or sibling or parent, a friend. And we are here to remember them, and by remembering them, we somehow remember ourselves in the most fundamental way. We are put back together after fragmenting loss. We are re-membered by our remembering.
You have to admire the moxy of the Celts who thought that at the time of the year when it was dark more than it was light and it was just going to get darker, a time of the year when it was cold and it was just going to get colder, they said, “Happy New Year.” Samain, All Saints, was their New Year. How could you believe that dark and getting darker, cold and getting colder was the sign of anything new?
And yet, this is what they did. They said, our beloved whom we no longer see are still with us and the cold and the dark are the beginning of something new. The new day began for them in the evening. They knew the dark comes before the dawn. It’s an incredible sense of faith and trust that goes back even before they heard about the Resurrection of Christ. It was what enabled them to claim they had always been Christians.
They knew that out of dark comes light, out of death comes life. We trust that it is so. We trust that it is true that we will be united with our loved ones, that the great circle of life is not ever really broken. We trust that the new babies and the renewed relationships are signs for us of what is truest about God’s plan for us—that we can never be separated from those we love and that life is stronger than death.
We can mourn those whom we do not share our earthly lives with any more. We can give ourselves permission to miss them. And in time we will not only miss them but remember them with great fondness, and we will look forward to the time of reunion.
In the meantime, we have more life to live and more people to love. Life and people are to be treasured in each and every moment. Happy New Year.
Here is a beautiful prayer from the collection of Celtic prayers called the Carmina Gadelica I would like to read to you. It would be sung in procession as the body of a dear one was being carried for burial.
Thou goest home this night to thy home of winter,
To thy home of autumn, of spring, and of summer;
Thou goest home this night to thy perpetual home,
To thine eternal bed, to thine eternal slumber.
Sleep thou, sleep, and away with thy sorrow,
Sleep thou, sleep, and away with thy sorrow;
Sleep thou, sleep, and away with thy sorrow;
Sleep thou beloved, in the Rock of the fold.
Sleep this night on the breast of thy Mother,
Sleep, thou beloved, while she herself soothes thee;
Sleep thou this night on the Virgin’s arm,
Sleep, thou beloved, while she herself kisses thee.
The great sleep of Jesus, the surpassing sleep of Jesus,
The sleep of Jesus’ wound, the sleep of Jesus’ grief,
The young sleep of Jesus, the restoring sleep of Jesus,
The sleep of the kiss of Jesus of peace and of glory.
The sleep of the seven lights be thine, beloved,
The sleep of the seven joys be thine, beloved,
The sleep of the seven slumbers be thine, beloved,
On the arm of the Jesus of blessings, the Christ of grace.
The shade of death lies upon thy face, beloved,
But the Jesus of grace has His hand round about thee;
In nearness to the Trinity farewell to thy pains,
Christ stands before thee and peace is in His mind.
Sleep, O sleep in the calm of all calm,
Sleep, O sleep in the help of all help,
Sleep, O sleep in the love of all loves;
Sleep O beloved, in the Lord of life,
Sleep, O beloved, in the God of life.
God bless you in your remembering and in your healing and in your being gifted with new life, each and every day of your portion in the world.
Amen.
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online Sermons