All Saints Sunday. November 1, 2009
St. David’s Episcopal Church, DeWitt NY
The Rev. James C. Bresnahan
Remembering

Today is All Saints Day - a day we remember with grateful hearts those who have gone before us in faith, hope, and love, people known to us personally and lovingly, and others whose recorded words and deeds have inspired us. We remember them.

What is more beautiful than memory? So asks the Jewish poet Howard Schwartz.

He writes,

Our angels
Spend much of their time sleeping
In their dreams
They tear down the new houses by the sea.
And build old ones in their place.
No matter how long they may sleep
One hundred two hundred years
The first to wake up
Takes the torch that has been handed down
Adds a drop of oil to the lamp
Blesses the eternal light
And then recalls the name
Of every other angel
And one by one as they are remembered
They wake up.

For them
As for us
There is nothing more beautiful
Than memory.
-Howard Schwartz, “Our Angels,”  from Vessels

Nothing more beautiful than memory.

Of course, soon after the death of a loved one, remembering is less beautiful, mixed as it is then with gut-wrenching pain.  We are too close to the loss.  Our heart is broken. 

But in time, as the pain of loss becomes less intense, remembering becomes so much more beautiful as we reflect on the gift another was to us, and the joy of having been with them over years of our life.  Remembering is how we hold on to someone.  Remembering is how we share someone with others through storytelling. Remembering is a holy act and a holy obligation that preserves the significance of another’s life. 

In his dying, the thief on the cross next to Jesus, asked this of him: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."  All those who die want to be remembered. All those who love do remember.

Today is a day for consciously and intentionally remembering. Today we read aloud names of members and family members who have die, whose names have been submitted.  We do this as a holy act of remembering, as affirmation of their life and in the hope of the resurrection.

We read aloud as well smattering of other names – chosen from among all Christians of times past, who in one or more particular ways have left an enduring legacy - musicians, reformers, leaders, lovers, martyrs, artists, dreamers, poets, philosophers.

Our reading aloud these names could go on endlessly had we an an eternity to read every name.   For, unlike as in Roman Catholicism, where saints refer to a group of select people, whose sainthood is attested to by miraculous deeds, for us who have been informed by Reformation theology and the witness of the New Testament, saints refer to all Christians.

All of us baptized into Christ, called to discipleship, fed at a holy table, commissioned for service, and striving to serve God in this world. All of us saints.

From that endless number of saints we name but a representative sample to illustrate the rich heritage that is ours through those who in times past used their gifts to the glory of God and the good of God’s people.

Personally, besides giving thanks for family and friends whohave been dear to me, I give thanks for three towering figures that have shaped my thinking, my piety, my actions.

I thank God for Johann Sebastian Bach who composed music of sublime confidence, and deepest faith, and joyful gratitude, even when reflecting on death.

I thank God for St. Paul of Tarsus, whose letters sparked reformations, whose intellect combined with fiery passion, who dreamed big dreams and followed them to the end, fearing nothing save not pleasing God.

I thank God for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who when the world around him was crumbling and fanaticism reigned in the minds of the bad, and cynicism in the minds of the good, found a way to live faithfully and courageously, and who was honest to God about himself.

You, I am sure, have saints of times past you remember as well.  Give God particular thanks for them today amid the remembering and celebrating of all the saints we do today.

For angels,
As for us
There is nothing more beautiful
Than memory.