Article
- Date:
- Sunday 5th November 2023
All Saints' Day - Place:
- Holy Trinity, Cuckfield
- Service:
- Evensong
- Readings:
- Isaiah 65.17-25
Hebrews 11.32-12.2
When I first looked at today's Readings Sesame Street's Oscar The Grouch immediately came to mind with his trademark complaint: "Nothing's going wrong!" I mean, can we really have two totally joyful readings, isn't there even a slight chance that there is something to dampen our spirits~? I am afraid not. This is a joyful day and we will just have to put up with it.
So let us take a few minutes out from the cares of the world and count our blessings. First, we are Easter people to whom the purpose of God in Christ has been revealed. Secondly, we have incontrovertible evidence that we will be saved from death as the consequence of sin by the faithfulness to us of Jesus made concrete in his passion and death. Yes, we must be faithful to Jesus but that is an incommensurably small thing compared with his faithfulness to us in this mutual Covenant of faith. Thirdly, we know that Jesus keeps his promises and, therefore, that by his graciousness we will ultimately be united to God in the perichoresis, the eternal dance, of the trinity. Fourthly, we enjoy our relationship with God within the Church, Christ's gift to his followers on earth, not the gift of beautiful language and music, nor of reassuring comfort, but a Church of perpetual probing into the mystery of God's love for us. And, finally, we have the massive cloud of earthly witness to the culmination of life in God comprised of saints and martyrs of the Church Triumphant in communion with us, the Church Militant which is what we affirm in the Credal Communion of Saints, without, I guess, giving the reality of our privilege very much thought. And I use the word "privilege" here because there are so many who have not heard the good news of the Resurrection of Jesus and what it means. Which, in turn, places an obligation on us, as privileged, to share the good news with those who have not heard it. And it in turn follows from this that it is our duty and our pleasure to proclaim good news with a smile and refrain at all cost from judgment which is reserved to God alone.
Now I admit that this is all very difficult after a thousand years of western Christianity obsessed with sin and our need somehow to cut a deal with God on the terms for achieving everlasting union. It isn't easy to accept that we are to share good news and smile upon those who receive it. We have become so weighed down by a form of egotistical misery that we cannot find the room for the warmth of the Spirit within us; we are like dwellings in Winter too mean to light a fire, too preoccupied to light a candle and put it in the window, too frightened to laugh. How can we expect the indifferent, the ungodly or, more accurately, the ungodded, to take any notice of us when we are so discouraging.
What, then, must we do with our lives? First, we must tell others what we know of the love of god for all humanity, for to know that we will not die but will instead enjoy eternal life with god is surely a message of comfort and reassurance in a difficult world. Secondly, we must be active in sacrificial love for others in imitation of Christ, never discouraged by our necessary shortcomings; we were made to love and not to love is therefore unnatural; happiness is, in spite of what we see around us, a natural state; but true love and happiness are only enjoyed, like a good bottle of wine, when they are shared. Almost always in small, incremental ways, we should build our friendships, render our sacrifices and build and reinforce social solidarity; it is our pleasure to love and to share; and, paradoxically, it is our pleasure to make sacrifices for the good of individuals and society. Thirdly, we should ponder our condition more scrupulously. As with any other long-term preoccupation, it is easy to fall into habits of thinking, to settle into a comfort zone, to simplify the complex, to ~gravitate to the familiar. If we treated our jobs the way we treat our theology we would be sacked. But, again, this does not need to be a grim business. There is a great deal of inspiring, readable theology that will gladden the heart.
On this day when we celebrate the Saints we must remember that they are only us writ large. Some of them lived a life of holy detachment from the world but most of them lived, as we do, in the midst of torment and trivia yet they remained focused on the twin purposes of creation, loving God and each other. They were as different as we are but there are so many that we should be able to find at least one that can provide us with a fitting template. After all, we need all the encouragement we can get. The Church of England has a rather uncomfortable relationship with saints, even with Mary the Mother of god, because there is something undeniably Catholic about the whole system but it would be foolish to deny the three quarters of Western Christian tradition before the Reformation. To affirm, rather than to deny, is a form of enrichment and joy. As we should be positive about saints, so we should be positive about ourselves.
To affirm our good fortune is not to deny the troubles of the world it is, rather, to maintain that our good fortune should be shared so that more people in the world receive consolation in the present and hope in the future. We are to be a light in the world, but I suspect that our problem is that we are wary, if not frightened, of love. love, with all its joys and sorrows, its ecstasy and its tragedy, is quite difficult enough to comprehend and impossible to contain or control without a supreme effort, but when it comes to unconditional love, as taught by Jesus, the prospect is truly daunting. Are we really expected to love unconditionally, to make sacrifices for people we don't like, to act without counting the cost? And then, on top of it all, are we supposed to rejoice?
Yes, we are. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians Paul tells us that the greatest virtue of all is love; but he knows that it is impossible without the solid foundation of faith and the beckoning hope of ultimate unity with God. The saints were not frightened, nor should we be.
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!