Thinking through Discernment

The other day I found myself in awe of and grateful for an after-dinner conversation with St Francis House students. For my own remembering and for benefit of others, this post is simply the questions and observations in note-form from that conversation, on the topic of discernment.

What is discernment?

From the dictionary:

Noun:	The ability to judge well.
Synonyms:	discrimination - perspicacity - acumen - judgement

Observation: discernment in the Church usually indicates a formal process, most frequently centered around ordination; but the benefit of such a process for those not seeking ordination is also apparent.

What does it mean to be discerning, generally?

Give an example of a time you exhibited discernment.

What role did God and/or faith play in this particular discernment process in your life?

What are some obstacles to discernment?

What scriptural images come to mind when you think of discernment?

How do these images shape us as Christians toward faithful discernment?

What is the role of the community of faith in/for discernment?

What constitutes a successful life?

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"

A hymn-response to our conversation, selected by a student:

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust, ever childlike, no cares can destroy,
Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe,
Be there at our labors, and give us, we pray,
Your strength in our hearts, Lord at the noon of the day.

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,
Your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace,
Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray,
Your love in our hearts, Lord, at the eve of the day.

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm,
Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray,
Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day. 

Did You Know the Sun is Gonna Die?

Grace and peace.

Thank you for the welcome St Andrew’s has extended to St Francis House, to be with you across the morning. It is good to be with friends, and I am especially grateful for all that St Andrew's does to cultivate your relationship with SFH. Father Andy, of course, serves on the SFH Board, many of you have provided meals on Sunday evenings, others of you are alumni of the House or friends through the university. But for those of you who may not know, St Francis House is the Episcopal Student ministry of our diocese to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The students and I will be with you all morning. Some of us were especially keen to learn that Sundays have mornings. We’re very glad to be sharing this one with you.

In the 2009 film adaptation of the popular children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, Max, the boy in the wolf suit who makes mischief of one kind and another, says to one of his monster friends: Carol, did you know the sun was gonna die?

Carol: What? I never heard that... Oh, come on. That can't happen. I mean you're the king, and look at me, I'm big! How can guys like us worry about a tiny little thing like the sun, hmm?

But you and I know that Max was right: one day the sun will die. Moreover, that the sun will die signals, for some, the end of any meaning that finally matters. A friend of mine likes to tease his teenage daughters when they get too caught up in any one of life’s many particulars: “In ninety years,” he tells them, “we’ll all be dead. It doesn’t really matter, does it?” When the same can be said of the universe - though in a few more than ninety years - in what sense does it make sense to talk about meaning?

Of course, the end of the universe does not necessarily signal the end of meaning. A professor in seminary liked to remind us that we Christians worship a God who promises to kill us all in the end. That is, faith in the God of Jesus is not surprised by the fact that there will be an end.

Truthfully, many of us are ambivalent about the end of the world. We know that we do not want to die, but also that we do not have the strength to keep this up forever. For some of us, especially parents of young children, the suggestion that we might, one day at least, rest in peace, is good and welcome news.

So here we are, two more weeks until Advent, almost to the end, at least of our liturgical calendar. And our scriptures come to us this morning preparing us to contemplate the end and also Christ’s coming again in glory.

When Christians think about the end, we think about those things our lives anticipate. Our Old Testament lesson from Daniel reminds us that, as much as we anticipate Christmas vacation, the end of the semester, the next season of American Idol, or Jersey Shore, God’s people are given freedom for a deeper longing:

“...at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”

Over against Dancing with the Stars, Daniel foretells that those who lead many to righteousness will be made like the stars.

When Christians think about the end, we think about those things we anticipate. We learn to confess the paltry substitutes around which, in the absence of meaningful hope, we order our lives. Worship of Red States and Blue States, for example, surely betrays our fear that the end will not end with the conquering Lamb who is King. And how does truth compel Christians to speak about our worship of college football? Perhaps it is best not to ask. Put differently, when you catch me on the street and ask me if I have plans, what I am looking forward to this week, why isn’t my first answer “Holy Eucharist”? And why, if that was my first answer, would the most charitable reading of that answer likely be, “He’s a little eccentric”?

But here, at the Eucharist, we Christians learn to anticipate the prayer “on earth as it is in heaven,” and so we learn to long deeply, like Daniel. When Christians think about the end, we think about those things our lives anticipate, the things for which we long. Daniel frees us for a deeper longing.

To long deeply takes courage. To hope, to lean into the contingent future of God, leaves one vulnerable, especially to things like delay and disappointment. In the gospel lesson, Jesus warns his followers - the same followers who are in the process of being disappointed by the shape of Jesus’ kingship - that the end will not come as quickly as they would like: “Beware,” he says, “that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, `I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.” It seems strange that the most significant thing Jesus says about the end is that this is not it. We are called to long deeply and wait patiently.

That we are called to long deeply and wait patiently leaves us especially vulnerable, Jesus says, to those who would announce the end before we get there.

There are, I think, at least two kinds of unhelpful complacency in life. The first kind happens when you don’t think the promised end will come and the second kind happens when you’re sure that it has, i.e., coasting to the finish. I’m not sure one is preferable to the other. Despair, on the one hand, and presumption, on the other, seem equally at odds with the Christian vocation to holiness. We require both Daniel’s reminder that our hope is true, and Jesus’ warning not to start coasting too soon.

If you’ll humor me a moment: since moving to Madison from South Texas just over two months ago now, I have become something of a Mapquest addict and an expert at getting lost. An iPhone upgrade has recently given me the benefit of Siri’s voice lovingly intoning my every upcoming turn, but prior to the upgrade, I was left reading the direction in printed list form: turn left in 436 feet, another left to take the highway in 0.7 miles. And one day, as I reflected on my many adventures getting lost, I observed that it was almost always for turning too soon. Never the other way around. “It says in 0.3 miles...I know I haven’t seen that street, but surely I’ve gone that far...feels like I’ve been driving for ever.” Pressures of time and lateness get the best of me, I’ve found. I begin to second guess the directions I’ve been given and also my ability to read them. I find that I need a voice next to me, whispering: Not yet. Press on. Don’t give up. Keep going.

I think Jesus is encouraging his disciples along this line when he warns them about the signs that do not mean the end has come. The writer of Hebrews is likewise encouraging us in this manner when he exhorts the baptized faithful to hold fast to the confession of their hope, to remember the faithfulness of God, and then - my favorite part - to provoke one another to love and good deeds (a wonderful phrase!), not neglecting to meet, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Collectively, these voices meet us, we who long for, but have not reached, the promised end for God’s people; they gather around us, surround us, and whisper: press on. Keep it up. Keep going. Go! Stay the good course, don’t let up, trust in God. You aren’t there yet, but that’s because the road is long, not because you missed the exit. Long deeply. Live truly. Anticipate fully. Keep the faith.

Provoke one another in love, break bread as often as you can. Learn to relish the anticipation of the Eucharist. Remember that, though the sun may die and the universe end, you are indwelled by the Love that first moved the sun and the stars and his Kingdom will have no end. Remember your place in that Kingdom. Yes, above everything else, and this is our end, remember your baptism.

Amen.


SFH. 11.18.12.

A Quasi-Muppet Theology of Creation

The story of rediscovering biblical imagination at St Francis House.

Sitting around a table at Union South two weeks ago, the students of St Francis House began an impromptu conversation about the Bible. The presenting topic, raised by one student, was how we might, as SFH, dig deeper in the faith, and in ways that would both build up and challenge. This led another student to ask how the training she received in her home denomination compared to the training of the Episcopal Confirmation process. Still another student chimed in, asking what the others learned in Confirmation classes. She confessed that she remembered little from her own Confirmation training. As we continued talking that night, opening up about what we didn't know, what we wanted to know, and how we might grow towards the goals, a student piped up: "What if we used a children's Bible?"

"Say what?" I asked.

"Well, not to study, but to know what to study." The contention was that children's bibles represent something of a proposed authoritative canon, and I think that's right. Children's bibles make a case for the component stories most essential to the larger arc of Scripture's narrative flow: the narrative of God's self-revelation. (I think here of Robert Jenson who said that, "God is whoever raised Jesus from the dead, having before raised Israel from Egypt.") The students are especially keen to bring in voices from other traditions at intervals along the way to inform their reading and to compare children's bibles for discrepancies, omissions, and agreements.

"Huh," I said.(1)

"That sounds really interesting, actually." I admitted that, as the father of two children, 1 and 3, I consider myself something of an expert on children's bibles, and that I mostly hate them. I tire of improvising around clumsy stories (water into grape juice, anyone?) just before bed and when I am tired and not wanting to keep on my theological toes. And yet, I told them, all the more reason to pay attention to the ways we Christians tell the story to our children. Right?

Last week we started with the story of creation. None of us brought our children's bibles. Oops. We improvised, though, and found this hilarious story of creation.



Afterwards, we turned to the text, where the observation was made that creation happens in two stories in Genesis. And that ex nihilo is probably true, but it isn't in Genesis. We talked about genre, and I shared my Old Testament professor's take on the seven days: that to Hebrew ears this would have sounded a lot like the installation and consecration of a temple. Creation as God's Temple, made for the praise of God. We also talked about free will. I asked why it came up in the muppet version of the story. (I believe in free will, but the snake/God dynamic in the video felt a little like we had skipped straight on to Job.) The students countered with some good points about God and what we learn about God in the creation account.

As we discussed the next week (Noah and the Ark, 7:35 pm, this Tuesday @ Union South), we decided to spend the first few minutes Tuesday writing down all of the things we grew up knowing we were supposed to know about God before we started reading the Bible. If the Bible is primarily about God's self-revelation, are there aspects of our philosophical pre-knowledge that have not been especially helpful? What would be required of us to approach the stories of Scripture with a willingness to be surprised by the God we find in its pages?

To be continued...

_________________
(1) The astute reader will note that the chaplain's formal contributions to the conversation - "huh" and "say what" - reflect the highest levels of keenly sophisticated pastoral skill.

When God's Chosen People Forget

Our lesson from Mark’s gospel is to do with a widow putting her last coins in the temple treasury; the widow’s offering is contrasted with the larger, but proportionately smaller, gifts of the rich folks. This reading has been thematically matched in our Lectionary cycle with the Old Testament reading from 1 Kings, which likewise features a generous (if reluctant) widow: the OT widow is asked to make a cake in order to feed the prophet Elijah, even though it will require, it seems, the very last of her oil and meal. The widow and her son are starving. But when Elijah says, “do not be afraid!”, the widow, like the widow in Mark’s gospel, gives all that she has.

When read together, the emerging message of the two widow stories goes something like this: give to the Lord not out of your abundance, but lay down your very life, all that you have, and the Lord will not let your jar run dry. Enter the stewardship chair with her graphs on per capita percentile giving within congregations; cue the ushers with pencils and pledge envelopes in hand; somebody lock the doors.

And all of this makes sense; it seems to fit - if all too predictably - our expectations for, and disappointments in, the Church. That is, we knew it would come to this. To be clear: that Christians are called to give sacrificially is the prevailing witness of Scripture, the example of the saints, and the clear teaching of Jesus: “...whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it.” That’s clearly the widow. But we look at the widow and this story and something feels off. We had hoped for more. Is this the life abundant? The widow goes broke as the endowment gets fat?

We are clearly called to sacrificial giving as Christians. The question is whether that is what’s going on with the widow at the temple treasury. You may have guessed by now that I don’t think it is. Let me briefly share an alternative possibility.

Locating the story of the widow’s temple offering in the context of Mark’s whole gospel, we make a few, basic observations: we’re in chapter 12. At the end of chapter 11, Jesus chases the money changers out of the temple, calling them a den of robbers. At the beginning of chapter 12, Jesus curses a fig tree, and it withers; some scholars see this as a symbol-cursing of the temple. What follows is an extended dialogue with Jesus, the chief priests, Pharisees, Herodians, and scribes in which Jesus’ authority is openly questioned; for his part, Jesus uses a parable involving a vineyard and its tenants to name the unfaithfulness of the temple leaders and predict his crucifixion at their hands; then a series of additional traps set for Jesus, all culminating with Jesus teaching in the temple courts - and here you’ll recognize the front half of today’s lesson: “As he taught, Jesus said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’”

When the widow finally steps up to the treasury box to drop in her coins, she walks somewhat unwittingly into the middle of this larger anti-temple dispute. To emphasize the point, Mark tells us that Jesus watches the widow as he sits opposite - or literally “over against” - the place where the offerings are made. And immediately following the widow’s offering, Jesus foretells the temple’s destruction.

The “here, there, and in between” of this poor widow and her offering is Jesus’ prophetic challenge to the temple establishment, chiefly on the grounds that it devours the homes of widows; so it becomes increasingly difficult to see Jesus as lifting up the widow’s giving to the temple as an example for us to follow. Indeed, it becomes difficult to imagine that Jesus is primarily talking about the widow at all, except as an illustration of the brokenness of the temple system as it is presently ordered.

It would be as if the slick televangelist on the 700 Club successfully snookered Grandma out of her savings, and the moral of the story was to give like Grandma gave.

But if Mark’s gospel is not about giving all you have to the religious establishment, what is it about?

I think Mark’s gospel this evening is about remembering what it is to be blessed; remembering what it is to be chosen; remembering what it is to be God’s holy people. I think Jesus thinks that the people of Israel in his day, as embodied in the temple leadership, had forgotten what it was to be blessed, chosen, and God’s holy people.

So just what does it mean to be chosen by God? Does it bother us that God chooses some and not others? And what of the Bible’s disturbing trend in which those who are chosen are chosen precisely to share the blessing of God to the ones who don’t appear to be chosen?

Last Thursday night at dinner on the Terrace, the notion of discernment came up. Who is God calling me to be? What am I called to do? These are versions of the question “What does it mean to be chosen by God?” And with it, the follow-up: how do God’s people live that calling out?

The Israel of temple worship was to be a people of praise whose life, worship, and example, pointed the glory of God. Israel has been chosen, blessed, to extend the blessing of God; along the way, Israel struggled to comprehend how the blessing could be shared without its blessing being lost. If I give it to you, what’s left for me? This is the fear that is present when widows’ homes are devoured for the protection of one’s sense of being holy, set apart. It is the fear that there isn’t enough, and that blessings are not true or lasting, that God might be as unfaithful as we know ourselves to be. But God is true. There is enough. And God’s chosen are chosen to share the blessing of God with those who are sure they have not been chosen. And this vocation, this calling, the calling of Israel, is most concentrated, most fulfilled, say the gospels, in the person of Jesus, whose Holy Spirit we share.

Such a vision for blessing out of blessing - the conviction that we, as the people of God grafted into Israel by the mercies of Christ, have been blessed to be a blessing - must form our imagination for the priorities of the people of God and how we live those out: as Mark’s gospel reminds us, the Church must always stand with the poor.

So finally, as you mature in the faith, growing into the full stature of Christ, I do pray you will always give to your church, and generously, but also that you will challenge your church to be as lavishly generous as she wants you to be. That you will prod the Body of Christ to seek out and stand with the lost. To stoop down and anoint, to bind up, the broken. To risk even financial vulnerability. To always ask how the blessing might be shared, the Good News enacted, especially with those who don’t feel much like chosen. There are a great many people out there who don’t feel much like chosen. They are on street corners, in dorm rooms; they are your professors, your friends. They are the strangers; they are your sisters, your brothers; and they are your calling, because they are God’s delight.

You are, too. You are God’s chosen. God’s chosen are chosen to share the blessing of God with those who are certain they cannot be chosen.

Amen.

SFH. 11/11/12

Praise and Politics: Lancelot Andrewes and the Gunpowder Plot Sermons

Two days ago, sneaked between streams of election-oriented Facebook posts, a second, much smaller, stream curiously began to trend: "Remember, remember the fifth of November..." I stared blankly at the screen. I confess that I had not remembered (either the date or the particulars of its significance) and required a quick wiki refresher course on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 (November 5th, of course) in which Guy Fawkes was caught underneath the British Parliament with three-dozen barrels of gunpowder and a set of matches. (Oops.) Fawkes and his fellow conspirators were promptly hung, drawn, and quartered.

[Parenthetically, I was curious: why did this date, which I had forgotten, come so easily for so many of my Facebook friends? I mean, we're talking about a relatively minor event most famous for not happening. St Francis House students have subsequently informed me that Guy Fawkes and the historical non-incident were central to the plot and understanding of the futurist, anarchistic, film V for Vendetta. It's supposed to be really good. Ah.]

Apart from being a significant part of Anglican history (Fawkes and his fellows were conspirators from the Catholic minority), the juxtaposition of November 5th and November 6th (Election Day) both seriously and somewhat humorously named the tension between government and Christian discipleship. Leading up to Election Day, I was struggling to discern a faithful Christian response (see Why Do Christians Vote - and should we?) to the election. I was taking seriously a friend who doesn't vote. Some Americans will tell you that to not vote, while not an act of treason, is not an American thing to do.

The most interesting challenge, I think, of the Guy Fawkes story comes in the epilogue. In 1606 (one year later), Lancelot Andrewes, bishop and scholar in the Church of the England, was commissioned by the state to preach the first of what were later called the "Gunpowder Plot sermons." The aim of the commission was to hold the attempted treason (and the fate of those who tried it) in the collective memory of the people and so discourage future treason.

Where I was wondering if voting represented a compromise of faith, Lancelot Andrewes was asked to preach a sermon for the state to protect its sovereignty. If the American political process can become idolatrous (and it can), so too can the Christian's spiritual wrangling over what to do next. Lancelot's challenge so dwarfed my own that it gave me some humility and perspective. What's a good bishop to do?

And he was a good bishop; this was no Constantinian puppet. Still, he preached the sermon for the state. You can read the sermon here.

Neil Barclay Johnston, in the abstract to an article for which I don't have access, writes that Andrewes' state-commissioned works were distinctive for

what is lacking in the sermons themselves: historical antecedents for the apparent exaltation of the king and the state ground these expressions in gratitude and obedience to God. Moreover, as is seen from the shift in emphasis that Andrewes’ rhetoric takes in these ten sermons, they are much more than anti-Catholic and pro-English propaganda. They are, in fact, sacred epideictic efforts that use the politically ordained occasion for spiritual ends: to give praise to God for the Gunpowder Plot deliverance, to rebuke the treasonous act and the traitors who plotted it, and to issue a renewed call to obedience.

Here is a remarkable thing: in a sermon commissioned to counter national treason, Andrewes exhorts his hearers to praise in ways that repeatedly subordinate the same state who commissioned the sermon under God.

Andrewes' did not refuse the commission. Still, his imagination for faithful engagement with the powers was deep and broad, and he praised his King at the invitation of another king. In Sam Wells' language, he over-accepted the opportunity, with its challenges, and proffered an invitation to praise. That he could do so is surely only possible because he lived the life of praise. I want instincts like that. May we become people capable of over-accepting the powers because our lives have become living sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to God.

Does Voter Apathy Expose the Fiction of a Polarized America?

In a recent post, I asked why Christians vote, and whether, as Christians, we are right to do so. Just now I am praying for the unity of our nation, the coherency of the Church, and the unexpected future of which our control is an illusion.

I am also wondering about popular voting rhetoric and conventional wisdom, trying to understand how it all adds up. For example:

• We have all heard some version of "if you don't vote now, you can't complain later." This is a strange position for a Christian to hold because complaining is not a right most Christians would admit to wanting to preserve. Indeed, once upon a time, I gave up complaining for Lent. It was the single most edifying Lenten observance (next to the weekly walking of the Stations of the Cross) I have ever engaged. The position is also strange because it imagines a time or condition at which point conversation ends.

• Another piece of bizarre conventional wisdom is that one does not ask someone else for whom they are voting. (Admittedly, Facebook is increasingly rendering this dilemma moot. You don't have to ask.) Even in a Facebook world, however, face to face discussions about why one votes (or doesn't) and for whom one votes are as rare as ever and to the detriment, I think, of honest, productive discourse. ('Cuz let's face it, we ain't getting that from the candidates. It's not happening.)

Part of the "don't ask, don't tell" nature of voting respects the individual freedom on which the voting process is predicated. The other part, says conventional wisdom, is that such a conversation would be too polarizing. You don't ask how old people are, if she's pregnant, how much your co-worker makes, or for whom your neighbor is voting.

And in truth, it does look like our nation is polarized. Twenty-four hours away from "the day", every national polling organization has Obama and Romney in a statistical dead-heat. And yet, those same polling organizations are predicting only a 41% voter turnout, a full 11% less than North Korea. The red/blue civil war we imagine appears to be comprised, in fact, of more than a little apathy, or - put another way - a 2 out of 3 likelihood that the person you ask about politics won't be nearly as fierce (or offended) as you imagine. One CNN op-ed contends that the deluge of political ads in recent days target, in part, the disenfranchising of potential voters so that only the most predictable voters (those on the far right and left) make it to the polls. Candidates aren't looking to win popularity contests, but to strategically energize known, friendly-to-them regions. This raises the question:

Does our current political system bank on our inability to speak face to face and charitably with our neighbors across the aisle? To what extent does the prevailing silence make possible the fiction of red-hot passion that, when you look at the numbers, simply is not true. This silence is why I admire those, like my friend Greg, who chose to break it, and who encouraged me to do the same. Like most things in life, political particulars are not as scary when you name them.

Let me be clear: I am not asking anyone who isn't voting to vote (or vice versa). I am asking you to share your thinking (even if undecided) so that your friends and neighbors can learn from your insights and your struggles. And to do so with charity. Be vulnerable. Where are you passionate? Where are you conflicted? What do you admire in the other side? What information do you wish you had for the conversation? Develop a healthy reluctance to tell others what responsible Americans/Christians/Others should do - that is, don't assume the war. Give an honest account of what you are doing. How is your voting a reflection of your life? If you are feeling especially courageous, include how questions of faith bear on your thinking. Where you wish your faith gave you more direction or clarity, name that, too. Even if you don't share it, write it out. But do share it.

The system would tell you that your vote makes the difference. But your vote is not your voice (neither are those insufferable memes, by the way), only one expression of it. Share your full voice with the rest of us. As the robo-calls come to a merciful end, most of us are dying for an interesting conversation.

Resurrection, Carly Rae Jepsen, & Memories of Granny

All Saints’ Day does not always start with the tomb. This year we receive the account from John’s gospel in which Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, but other years we hear “blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful” from the Beatitudes in Matthew’s gospel. Still other years we receive the less spiritual version from Luke: “blessed are the poor, period.” In fact, in the history of the Episcopal Prayer Book tradition, dating back to the first English prayer book in 1549 (463 years ago, for those scoring at home), this is only the third Sunday for which John 11 has been appointed to this feast - all in the last six years and owing to the adoption of the Revised Common Lectionary in 2006. I don’t say this to diminish the appointment of the reading - far less to diminish the RCL, which has Christians across denominations reading Scripture together (always a good thing) - but I want you to appreciate the historical uniqueness of this moment. It is a good thing, I think, but/and the Church is not used to doing this. All Saints’ Day does not always start with the tomb. But because this All Saints’ Day starts with the tomb, I will, too.

When I was little, my Granny took my younger brothers and me on frequent trips to the cemetery. Both of Granny’s parents, my great-grandparents, were dead, and Granny’s husband, my Grandpa Jack, had also died two years before I was born. It is obvious, but still painful, for me to say I never met him. Granny would dress us up, comb our hair, and take arrangements of flowers, sometimes real but mostly artificial, sometimes with flags, and we’d pile into the car; once arrived, she would clean up the plots, usually with some remark about the poor condition of the grounds, and my brothers and I would place the arrangements of flowers at each site, sit back on a bench with Granny for a few minutes in which she would talk aloud to God and Grandpa. We’d walk the grounds a little while, and then we’d all go home.

I remember these visits as some of my earliest introductions to mortality. Grandpa Jack had been buried with his military dog-tags between his teeth, Granny said, which sounded unimaginably horrible to me at the time. And then there was the cognitive disconnect that occurred when I saw my Granny’s name already engraved on their shared tombstone, with an open date on the right-hand side. This was a lot for a five to seven year old to make sense of.

We made these trips with Granny on special occasions: Memorial Day, Labor Day, other times. I think Granny felt a sense of obligation in keeping these dates, and also that she felt she carried the obligation alone. She would sometimes rag on my dad about his not caring to go out to the cemetery with the regularity she would have liked. Remembering family history is very important to my dad - it is a value he has passed on to me - but the grave sites themselves were not as relationally engaging for him as they were for Granny.

One day Dad told me plainly: Your granny goes to the cemetery to meet your grandpa. I don’t know that he’s there; I do know he is present in our worship at the Eucharist. That’s where I meet my dad.

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

asked the men that first Easter morning at the tomb. I think this is my father’s question, too. It’s the question that knows that not all emptiness is empty. There is, for example, the great emptiness of that first Easter morning - the empty tomb - likewise the vacuum left in earth and rock when Lazarus was unbound, set free, the promise that we, too, will be raised; that we, in our bodies, shall see God.

Your granny goes to the cemetery to meet your grandpa, said my dad. I don’t know he’s there; I do know he is present in our worship at the Eucharist...

For empty tomb, resurrection people: the Eucharist, as place of reconnection, place of resurrection, place of eternal life; the Eucharist, whereat we are joined as often as we gather by “Angels and Archangels and...all the company of heaven, who forever sing this hymn: holy, holy holy...”

"Geddes MacGregor in The Rhythm of God tells of a priest who, when asked, 'How many people were at the early celebration of the Eucharist last Wednesday morning?' replied, 'There were three old ladies, the janitor, several thousand archangels, a large number of seraphim, and several million of the triumphant saints of God.' (1)

All the company of heaven...In truth, it is not the heavenly hosts who join us at the Eucharist, but we who join them, for they are always singing this song. So they welcome us here, and we foretaste heaven: the feast of God in which the Lord dries every tear and death is swallowed up. Eucharist as the place where heaven and earth kiss and the prayer “on earth as it is in heaven” finds some grit and grip, anticipating the vision and promise of Revelation: the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God; and in this place of holy meeting we sing the song of new and unending life, praise of the risen Lamb: holy, holy, holy.

And this is the tune the whole created order was made to sing. And heavenly hosts don’t stop their singing, because Communion does not simply name the surprising news that we are not alone, but also the truly Good News that, where Jesus is, resurrection is. We are in the presence of Jesus and so here is resurrection, here is new creation. Only the risen Christ makes it possible for saints to sing, and the song we sing is the victory of God.

On All Saints’ Day, it is fair to ask just what a saint is. Lots of speculation about what makes one a holy one, but I think the simplest sign is this: they sing the song. They sing the song of the Holy One whose joy it is to share the banquet of the Lamb. Saints are all of us who sing the victory of God.

Like any good song, it’s meant to get stuck in your head. We learn it here, in part, so that we might hum it out there, in the world. Like an eternal “Call Me Maybe" (only so much better). We learn the song here so that the tune will suggest itself there, almost like instinct, when we’re not really trying; there, when we we think we might break for the weight of it all; there, when we wonder what it all means; there, when we don’t see the way and feel like giving up; and there, too, when things are good and we imagine that we might not need God or that we could do the job as well of he; there, when the mystery and beauty of it all finally silences our attempts to control the mystery with our words and we fall down in wonder, love, and praise: holy, holy, holy. We learn this song here.

With our ears trained for this song, when we hear an echo of it out there, a harmony, or subtle variation, we remember, we recognize, that we were made to fill the skies with the singing of the song that first moved the sun and the stars and loves us in its being. Saints sing this song with their lives and because death cannot stop the song, neither does death mark the end of God’s holy ones.

It’s a wonderful song. The invitation is to sing it with your life. Dare to sing it not just in showers or automobiles or churches but in your daily life, too, your living and dying, your vocation, let it be your direction. Learn to sing this song out loud with your life and with friends: holy, holy, holy.

Where Jesus is, resurrection is. To sing the song of Jesus is the marvelous work of saints. Sing.

Amen.




SFH. 11.4.12

(1) God in the Moment: Making Every Day a Prayer, Kathy Coffey