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ALL SAINTS SUNDAY, November 7, 2004 |
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. GETTING MORE THAN WE ASK FOR Somewhere, at some place in time, someone first thought it proper to memorialize the dead. Archaeologists have taught us much about burial practices and tombs, which make statements about how ancient people mourned and lionized their deceased. Throughout the world, there are tombstones and monuments that speak reverently about those who have been left behind. The Valley of the Fallen in Spain remembers the 50,000 who died in Spain’s Civil War from 1936-39. We are still having endless public conversations in the U.S. about how appropriately to memorialize those who died on 9/11. In the earliest days of Christianity, many were those who died as martyrs, heroes of the faith, suffering in unimaginable ways to cruel torture, but whose valor had no time and place to remember it. In 610 A.D., the emperor Phocas, now a Christian, gave away the famous Roman Pantheon (because he could no longer afford the upkeep) to Pope Boniface who re-dedicated it as a chapel for Christian martyrs. In the 800s the celebration was changed to November 1 to allow Rome sufficient provender from the harvest to provide for the pilgrims who would come to remember not only the martyrs, but also all Christian saints. Years later, on the eve before this All Saints Day, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses because he knew that many would come to celebrate the day and see his document. Oddly, for many in Protestant churches today, it is the posting of the theses, Reformation Day, which is remembered, rather than the great celebration of All Saints. Remembering by Looking Forward For centuries already, the lessons set aside to remember the martyrs and the saints, in other words, all those who have gone before us in the faith, have been forward-looking lessons. The Gospel lesson is the famous section on the Beatitudes, in this year, those found in the Gospel according to Luke. These are favorite passages of many and one wonders why. Usually these are passages that are committed to memory, if one commits any of Scripture to memory. However, they are among the least-followed passages of any because they seem so impossible to achieve. One thinks that they are for the “saints,” a word written in quotes, the supermen and superwomen of faith who alone were perfect. However, in reality, these are words which point us forward to a way of life for which all of us long, a lifestyle we may never fully achieve but which we know in our heart of hearts is more fulfilling than that which we choose on our own. It is the kind of life God has in mind for us because in and through it we rise to the full stature of humanity’s potential. They are words to be used on All Saints Day because they celebrate what we are in the process of becoming and will never completely realize until we are fully within God’s Kingdom. The details of this Gospel lesson are too complex for us to explore in their entirety, but it worth taking two overviews of them to grasp how dynamic the vision of Jesus was. In these words, he tells us how to be satisfied with less and how appropriately to resist evil. These are shocking messages because they run completely counter to the way in which we think we ought to act if we are to do what is in our best interest. They are messages for All Saints Day because they represent what those who have died in the faith now know to be true because they who live on, live out the truth of these insights. Being Poor and Thanking God The four beatitudes each in their way deal with a form of poverty. Beatitudes were common literary devices in the Jewish heritage. Blessing someone or celebrating the blessing of an action or lifestyle was a way of calling a profound spirituality into an everyday setting. “Blessed are you for caring for that widow in the village” was not just a kind thought. It implied that God would grace you for your generosity. In Jesus’ four beatitudes, he addresses real people in the Capernaum area. Often their crops failed. The fishermen didn’t bring home a catch. Illness ravaged without a cure. Early deaths left widows and orphans. Hunger and sorrow resulting from having little control over one’s circumstance was real. In their midst stood one who had experienced this personally. He also knew that God was closer to people in their poverty than he was to those who had abundance. For this reason, he who himself was poor, rejoiced with them because they depended so completely on God’s mercy and love. Sometimes it’s very difficult so enter into the reality of mere words. Let me give an example of how that may be true. You are as familiar as I am with a famous treatment in art called the Pieta. Typically, it pictures Mary holding Jesus after the crucifixion on her lap, in her arms. I had never fully understood this depiction, although I have seen many including the famous one by Michaelangelo. Recently, however, I learned that this representation of Jesus and Mary spoke in a powerful way to women in the Middle Ages. Because of children dying in childbirth, from diseases, from accidents, it was highly unlikely that a mother in the Middle Ages reached old age without having held more than one of her dead children in her arms. This depiction of the Pieta for women was more powerful than the depiction of the crucifixion because it said, “here is something you know about. Here is death at a level of pain and sorry with which you can identify.” For this reason, it became a very popular and meaningful art form. We in our affluent societies may find it hard to identify with words like hunger, sorry and poverty in Capernaum, but we have seen with our own eyes pain, sorrow, loss, worry, illness, death. We know that life can have its dead ends leaving us wanting and hoping for that which only God can bring. We also know that our loved ones who have gone before us in the faith, whose hopes are now fulfilled in ways we could never imagine, are beyond all pain, sorrow, loss, worry, illness and death. They are on the other side of poverty and the words of Jesus are for us words of promise and hope. The fulfillment of these words will be ours as they are now already for our loved ones. The words of Jesus give us cause to thank God here and now already because the grace and love we poor sinners experience in having our sins forgiven and our future assured wipes all tears from our eyes. These are not mere words for we have lived this understanding. Being Angry and Summoning Gentleness The next section provides a more radical challenge to our humanly-developed lifestyle. There is a divine element in this we could not invent. Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us. If you read the Internet forums and hear how people talk to each other, how they talk about their political leaders, how they speak about people of other religious perspectives, you know they do not practice the words of Jesus. If you, for that matter, listen to some sermons in Christian churches or the rhetoric of professed Christian leaders in our government, neither do they! Ghandi once said, “Everyone knows that Jesus teaches non-violence—except the Christians!” What can this possibly mean to us? That we are to call ourselves Christians, but believe something totally different? Is Jesus calling us here to become doormats for God, to allow the world to walk all over us? This is not at all what Jesus is saying. Walter Wink ( The Third Way, Message to the CSEC, 1993), a New Testament theologian who has long struggled with these words of Jesus, says there is a big difference between saying “resist evil, but don’t react violently” and saying “just walk all over me, I’m not anything important.” For example, when Jesus says “turn to him the other cheek” or “give him your tunic as well,” he is saying, “don’t’ let your opponent dictate the terms of your opposition to him.” If he seeks to be inhuman, you have options. If the spiral of violence insists that each country develop more sophisticated weaponry to assure that the other has less, then consider new options. Jesus wants to break the spiral of violence by teaching us not to turn into the very kind of people we hate. Do not return evil for evil! Of course, you and I know that people can literally lose their heads in practicing such non-violence. And we can also retaliate and kill 100,000 non-combatant casualties, as we have done in Iraq. However, it’s worth remembering that in the last decade, thirteen nations were involved in non-violent revolutions, fully one-third of humanity. There are other ways to resolve conflict. Christians don’t always have to be the ones who bring up the rear. Those who have gone before us in the faith often practiced with us violent solutions to human conflict, and they paid lip service, as do we, to these radical words of Jesus. Now, covered by the grace of the loving Lord Jesus, they know the truth of all that they struggled to understand. The world they longed for, but did not know how to bring into being, is theirs for the asking. What God always had in mind for them is theirs for good. And we celebrate in faith today that what we so feebly undertake and support is in fact God’s plan for us all—even if we will never fully realize it until we join the saints in light. Sharing in the Gifts given to Saints I suspect that many of us are willing to settle for what we know—that if we don’t fight to defend ourselves, we may lose everything—that if we settle for poverty instead of success and affluence, we may be miserable all our lives. That after all is the American way—even if it is not a particularly Christian way—no matter how we may like to call ourselves a Christian country. Perhaps we have misunderstood what Jesus is saying all along. He is not advocating poverty! He is saying that when we suffer loss, and all of us do, God is our refuge and strength. We should rejoice in that. He is not advocating non-resistance. He is asking that we become more creative in taking our stands, in dealing with conflict, realizing that escalating violence is a dead end. These are the gifts given to the saints, those whose failures and miscalculations have been covered by the redeeming love of Christ. Today, our Gospel lesson asks that we remember all the saints and martyrs not because they were perfect people but because through Christ, in their poverty they have become rich, and in their struggles they have discovered the peace which passes human understanding. You and I are left behind not merely to look ahead, however. We do know that what the saints now have, awaits us. Yet we also know that the wisdom of God which triumphs in the end has a place in our daily lives as well. We can learn how to rejoice in our weakness and sorrow, how to love even our enemies, how to find creative alternatives to violence—at personal and national levels. When we discover how such faith and insight can change us for the better, here already, now already, then we get more than we asked for as Christians. Then the life of the saints, which beckons us, is not merely some pie-in-the-sky promise, but a contemporary reality. Then All Saints Sunday celebrates our own lives as well as those whose memories we cherish today. Prof. Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus
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