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Nov. 2, 2003 Feast of All Souls
Homily: Nancy

Job 19:23-27
Rom. 6:3-4,8-9
John 6:37-40

During the Marcus Borg lecture a Friday or so ago, there were many quotable phrases and inspiring insights. But the one thing he said that has stayed with me for all these days was actually a quote from someone else. He was speaking of another writer that he admires. He said that this person summed up ALL the Wisdom literature, all the scriptural Wisdom writings into two simple questions: "What is real?" and "How shall I live?" I think I loved this quote as much as Dr. Borg does. It keeps swirling around in my head at the most unlikely times. I keep hearing these two questions and somehow knowing in a new way that they ARE, in fact, WISDOM!

What is real?
How shall I live?

On this Feast Day of All Souls, the church invites us to remember all those who have gone on before us. All Souls Day rarely falls on a Sunday, but when it does, it's so important in the recent tradition of the church, that the celebration of this All Souls idea takes precedence over any other readings they had planned. This Feast Day grew up in the church as a companion day to the Feast of All Saints. If the Saints were celebrated one day, it seemed only fitting to celebrate ALL those who had died before us (who, after all may have ALSO been saints). They should be celebrated in some like manner!

Yesterday was the Feast of All Saints. The definition of a saint, one writer said, is, "One who is baptized and tries to do the will of God." That's almost all of us, I suspect. All of us are saints in the making, with Jesus as the model of our own sainthood. We have, most of our lives, prayed and remembered the "Communion of Saints," and heard the story told and retold about the "cloud of witnesses" that sings around the throne of God in that great "Beyond" we never can quite name for ourselves. The Communion of Saints and this Cloud of Witnesses open all their arms, on a day like today, and welcome us ALL into their midst when it is our time to go there. And in that Cloud of Witnesses, we will join with all the others to cheer on another generation of insecure, humble, driven, questioning, and sincere people who call themselves People of God.
We are the people trying to say, with Job (from the 1st reading), "But as for me, I know that my vindicator lives…"

In the spirit of All Souls Day, I find myself making a list. Oh my, there are so many now, in my memory, whose lives seemed full of strength and power, who died in faithful joy and who are surely in that Cloud of Witnesses even at this very moment. I know for certain my Grandfather is there, and the woman who walked with him who had a generosity that was beyond measure, my grandmother, is there. And my mother is there, probably playing the piano for choir rehearsal. And of course there is Dom Helder, and Ralph Kiefer, and Gene Walsh, and Bob Hovda, Bernard Huijbers, gathered to continue to search for ways to show us living souls the answers to the Wisdom questions: What is real? How shall I live? The more I think of this possibility, the more comforted I become. Paul told the Romans, "…death no longer has power over him." This is a God I can begin to embrace, to try to name.

Friends on the Journey, we are not alone. The mystery we embrace when we try to call out a name for our God is a true mystery. God is a mystery. Death is a mystery. All these in the Cloud of Witnesses now have a glimpse of that mystery. How they lived until they died now becomes a glorious brightness in that land of Light. They are ALL in the answer to our question about "What is real?"

Name one of those souls in your life right now. For me it's my grandfather. In the band of All Souls, he is the short one with white hair and light blue eyes, marching energetically in step with whatever the One-Who-Sent-Jesus-Among-Us is directing them to do. Who would it be for you? Would you like to call out a name, so that all of us can hold them in our hearts, along with you? [All call out names?]

These are only SOME of our Cloud of Witnesses…SOME of the Communion of Saints. These are part of the mystery that is beyond our understanding, but a mystery we hold close to ourselves and embrace as often as our burdened souls will allow. These are the ones who join with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and Abraham and Sarah, and Moses, Joachim and Anne, and Mary and Magdelene, and Bartimeaus. These are the ones who know our God. These are the ones who encounter a God who is extravagant, outrageous, wildly passionate, the heart and essence of creation. These are the ones who started this whole mess which we call "religion."

Fred Buechner quotes Robert Frost the poet, and says: "Religions start, as Frost said, like poems do…with a lump in the throat-to put it mildly…or with a bush going up in flames, a rain of flowers, a dove coming down out of the sky…" He goes on to remind us of our own blessed humanity, "Through some moment of beauty or pain, some sudden turnings of their lives, most people have at least caught glimmers of what the saints are blinded by." And on this day we ask our Wisdom question, "What is real?," and we can catch one of those small glimmers. Because "What is real?" today is that those who have gone before us are in that mystery, in that Cloud of Witnesses, and we are STILL connected to them and to their love and their lives. We are not alone. And we are called to new life by this knowledge. We will rise, all of us, out of whatever darkness may descend on us, because of this glimpse, this belief we hold, about a Mystery that is beyond words. We WILL rise. The gospel today says, "…and I shall raise that believer up, on the last day."

And then we go on, beyond this All Souls Day, carrying the second Wisdom question: "How shall I live?" And we have only to look at THEIR lives, all of them, or pick just one life that you know well, and begin to live NOW, on this very day, according to THAT life and what you know it held to be true and good and whole and right. Jesus is our first model for sainthood. And so we gather to remind each other of HIS human life, so that it can model our own human lives. But in this uncountable communion of saints we are welcome, no matter who we are. We are in conversation and dialogue with vibrant sources of life, guides and partners for us every day. In THIS community, communion of saints, we take no account of that mortal distinction, and it gives us active, timeless friendship between these two spheres of human existence. Death, then, is no ending, and the next life is no static still-life. Across that barrier we can see resurrection dawning for us all. We need only allow ourselves to be caught up, and entangled, attached. Through one another, we human beings, present here, both living and dead, find our way to ourselves and our way to God.