All Saints 2020
Thumbnail image: Bonifazio Genovese “St Michael Vanquishing the Devil;” Illustration by Picture by M0tty, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
November 2, 2014—All Saints
Rev 7:9-17; Matt 5:1-12
Sometimes this life feels very fragile. Sometimes our family, our work life, our health, our future, our community, our nation … whatever it is that feels precious to us, whatever it is that we count on for stability and happiness and well-being … sometimes, it feels very, very fragile.
There are days, there are months, there are years. Years like this one.
And also, years like the one in which I originally wrote these words, which comforts me, oddly. That this is not new, and that whatever brought us forward to today can carry us into the future. Still, it helps to hear the words again.
Because there will always be days, months, years. When it is just one thing after another. Years when you realize that things can often be repaired, but that damage to people and the relationships between them are more complicated. Heart attacks and cancer can’t be fixed by general contractors. Depression and addiction and division destroy in hidden, hard-to-get-to places, and we feel helpless in the face of it all.
It can feel like an assault on all sides, in the places we are most vulnerable. From the outside but also from within. Like those tribulations spoken of in Revelation (the ones that shook the multitudes who worshipped before the throne of God), much of which was the persecution suffered by early Christians under the Emperor Nero … but some surely came from within the body itself.
There are tribulations. There are misunderstandings. It is, unfortunately, part of being human. And it can feel like a threat to our very existence. Can feel like it will tear us apart. That this, this will be the moment when it all falls down. This is the long dark night of the soul, and we fear that we cannot survive this. We will not survive.
And in a way, the fear is true. There is always the possibility of collapse, of falling apart, of ending. Endings, in fact, are a part of life. But you know what? The fear is also a lie. It is the voice of the evil one, whispering in our ears. Just as it is his voice whispering in the ear of the church, telling us that because we are small, and because we are in uncertain, changing territory, that we are weak. That we can be brought down.
And that is a lie. I don’t know about you, but I need that reminder, right about now. It’s a lie.
I know, I know. The “evil one” is a concept we modern people don’t use. But today, today on this feast of All Saints (following on Halloween and preceding All Souls) … at this time when we recognize how thin the veil is between the living and the dead, between this world and the world beyond our perceptions … surely THIS day, we can speak this truth!
The evil one whispers that we are weak, because we are flawed. That we are small, because there are only 52 of us here on any given Sunday morning. But … the evil one LIES.
The evil one wants us to forget that we are not just made up of the people who are here. That this place throngs with all the saints who built this place. And that this place is part of a much larger body: the Body of Christ … across time, across space … across the divide that does not, in reality, separate this world from the divine world.
We are NOT small, because we have Ed and Amy Jacques, and Ruth Burns, and Jack Hodges, and Norma Samuel, and Chuck Tuffley, and Josie Pesta, and seriously, Mr. Evil One, you’d better step off!
We are not small, because we are followers of Jesus, and we bear the imprint and the power of the God of all things!
We are not small.
We are not weak, either.
Not weak, because we know where our fault lines are. We know our weaknesses, and we know our fears, and we admit our limitations. And so, we will NOT back down. We are built with broken people, with hurt people who have found a home, with fallible people who do not need to believe that they are perfect.
And so, we believe in mending. We believe in admitting we have been hurt, and that we have hurt others. We believe in mercy, we believe in forgiveness, and we believe in the kind of “I’m sorry” that can truly transform things.
We believe, that is, in healing. And so you cannot hurt us, by accusing us of being broken. Of being imperfect. Of being weak. Seriously? You’re the Evil One, and that’s all you got?
We’re not impressed. We’ve lived through worse. We’ve lived when everything suggested we should die. And we’re still here, living out the life and truth of Jesus: Walking a way of pain and healing, of repentance and transformation, of being cast out and then being brought home.
We were BUILT on that foundation of weakness and brokenness. So you can’t beat us with that.
You didn’t expect that, did you? Didn’t expect a community in which we know the truth that all those who have been brought low in the world’s eyes are actually blessed? The meek and those who mourn, the persecuted and the poor: all of them strengthened by having known what weakness is … and having survived it!
We are the Saints, and we have come through tribulations you can’t even imagine. We have known desolation and it has brought us to our knees. We bear its wounds and some of them are still bleeding. But all of them, ALL of them, will someday be part of our beauty and our strength. Even those belonging to the departed.
The evil one wants to use our smallness and our weakness to break us. To break us apart from each other. To drive us away from God.
But we are not small. We’ve got your great grandmother, and my grandfather, and your dad. We’ve got the apostle Paul, and Sojourner Truth, and St Francis, and Martin Luther King, Jr. And we’ve got Mark Pelech with a twinkle in his eye, alongside Jim Smith with a song in his heart! We are anything but small!
And as for our weakness? Our weakness is actually our strength. So seriously, O great Evil One, you’d better step off. Because we’ve got this. And you don’t stand a chance. Amen.