All Saints Day - 2023
I realize that many of you believe I either can't or won't utter the phrase, "I don't know." Many of you have heard me say, "I could be wrong", but it is far less often that I will admit to not knowing something. Part of it is the way my memory works and that I can either remember the answer to the question or I can think about related issues and potentially answer your question from a different angle.
One thing I am pretty sure of, though, is that no one wants to hear their pastor start an All Saints Day sermon with the things she doesn't know. If any day calls for certainty, it's this one. In this time of remembrance, stirred loss, and shared grief and hope, we all want me to lean hard on what I do know. This might even be a day to exaggerate a little and make sure the words about grace, mercy, inclusion, and holy reunion are spacious and comforting to blanket any and all doubts.
So, let's get out of the way what I don't know. Despite the movies, books, poems, and even personal narratives of life after death, I don't know what heaven is like. You would be correct to point out that I'm generally considered something of an expert on the book of Revelation, so surely I know something about heaven. An expert on Revelation knows about... Revelation, not heaven.
The imagery in the book is meant to be a consolation to the Christians of the late-first century. A significant portion of the book uses images from the Roman Empire and turns them on their head. I find it difficult to believe the God of all creation is employing the same interior and exterior decorator as some mid-first century two-bit Roman emperor just to make a point for eternity. The actual descriptions of heavenly realms- the pearly gates, the sea of glass, the gemstones- are meant to awe the minds of John the Revelator's audience and remind them of their ultimate home in this place of unparalleled beauty and splendor.
I don't know what heaven is like and I don't know how we will get there. To the criminal who asks to be remembered in his kingdom, Jesus says, "Today you will be with me in paradise." How does the corporeal body of the Messiah go to the tomb and the spirit of the Savior descend to the dead and the essence of the second person of the Trinity greet someone in paradise all on the same day? I don't know.
Jesus promises paradise on the day of death to that man, but St. Paul tells the Thessalonians that those who have died in the faith are patiently waiting for Christ's return. They will not be forgotten on the last day and they will be caught up in the blink of an eye. Are the dead waiting for Christ or are they already with him? The Bible tells it both ways (and more). I don't know.
I don't know when the life of the world to come will become the life of now. Even Jesus himself tells people that only the Father knows. It is a mystery. It is, in fact, so mysterious that I'm always surprised and dismayed when people claim they know when it will be or how to make it happen. If it was even above Jesus' pay grade, I think it's definitely above ours. We wait, we pray, we hope, we trust. But the truthful answer to the question, "When", is "I don't know."
I don't know when. I don't know how. I don't know where. I kind of know what- that God will wipe away all tears and there will be no more pain or dying.
For me, and I hope for you, the two things I do know and trust are enough. I know who and I know why.
I trust that God who made all things and who promises to make all things new, in some way, somehow, beyond our understanding, knows and holds all those who have gone before in light and peace. The scripture points to God's creative nature, God's renewing power, and God's grief over destruction. The entire book of Jonah is not meant to awe us with a narrative about a whale who gets indigestion but to help us more deeply understand the God who has no desire to see a city full of people and animals destroyed- either by their own bad behavior or someone else's. That is a preserving God, a saving God, a healing God, a seeking God- a God who would choose to pour divine love into a human form and come among us so that we might have a deeper and better understanding of that renewing, restoring, and then resurrecting nature.
I know that God has provided for our beloved dead and even those who have been forgotten by this plane of existence but remain remembered and cherished in another.
Knowing who and why get tangled together in my mind because I cannot separate the who of God from the why of the nature of God. 1 John tells us in the next chapter that God is love. Not God loves or God loved or God will love, but God IS love. The bedrock source of the universe, of all that is seen and unseen, known and unknown, spoken and unspoken is Love. A holy parent, defined by love, will always welcome home all of the children- whether they die of old age or in tragedy or from illness, whether they are prodigal in deed or spirit- they have a place in the mansion with many rooms.
On this day, I could have given you a sermon on the many things I do know- on the Greek translations of meek, peacemaker, or mourning and their applications in the life of faith. I could talk about these verses in Revelation being the image of Gentiles surrounding the throne of God, the expanded vision from the earlier verses in the same chapter which affirm God’s keeping of promises to the 12 tribes of Jacob who also surround the throne. I could speak about the history of All Saints or the reason we put a time of remembering the dead in close proximity to harvest festivals and a clear change in the seasons. Those are all things I know.
But on this day, on this day of remembering and questions and hope, those are not the most important things to know. The things we don’t know are also irrelevant.
Here is all we need to know: there is not a person remembered today in this space, or any other, who was not made, known, loved, and saved by God.
There is not a person remembered today in this space, or any other, who was not made, known, loved, and saved by God.
Each person we remembered was known first by their Creator and that Creator is love. Love does not end. Love does not relinquish responsibility. Love does not stop welcoming. Love keeps a perpetual porch light on- not in hope, but in certainty. That light will remain on until everyone comes home and is at the table.
I don’t know how, when, or exactly where.
But I know Who and Why. And that’s all I need to know. Amen.
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