"Come out and live" -- All Saints Sunday Sermon 2018

ALL SAINTS’ DAY SERMON 2018

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

John 11:32-44

The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

A number of years ago, when I was interviewing for the position as Senior Pastor at a large congregation in the Chicago suburbs, one of the questions I was sure to ask was how many funerals the church averaged per year. I asked this, because my first call was at a small country church with an aging population, and funerals were a main part of my ministry. It’s not that I didn’t want to do them – it was just that I looked at the membership number at the new church – 1,500 members—and wondered how on earth one pastor could handle all the potential funerals.

The head of the call committee, Gene, said quite confidently “Oh, don’t worry. We are a very young congregation. Last year we had just six funerals.”

Only six! I had seen that many in a month’s time at least once in my little country church. I sighed with relief at these statistics.

And then, in the first 9 months of my ministry as Senior Pastor at the new church, we had seventeen funerals. Seventeen.

We lost not one, but two, teenagers in tragic accidents; we buried the father of three young children; a star teacher; the church librarian; a nurse who had spent her career caring for others; a young mother who had fought cancer for 14 years (all of her son’s life); and a host of others who lived longer lives, but who nevertheless left gaping holes in our hearts.

I remember standing in the pulpit on All Saints Day that year, looking out at the empty spaces in the pews where those members had been sitting just months before, and thinking that statistics can never capture the love and loss that comes with being a church community. Whether we lose six or seventeen in a year—or many more—our hearts are just as broken, and our grief just as heavy.

When we are grieving—as not doubt many of you are today—All Saints Day can seem like nothing more than a time for us to join in the chorus with Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who cried out, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

On this day, we light candles, and sing, and say the names of those who have died, and it could seem that all we are doing is remembering how Jesus didn’t save our loved ones. Jesus didn’t answer our prayers. Jesus didn’t show up when we needed him.

But if this is all that All Saints Sunday is about, then these candles feel very empty. If today is about death, and failure, and promises not kept, then these rituals are just that—rituals. Traditions. Empty actions, designed to make us feel better, but holding no meaning beyond providing a measure of comfort for our broken hearts.

If this is the case, then All Saints Day is no different from Halloween!

Halloween on the Mt of Olives, Jerusalem 2018

After all, Halloween has its rituals, which we know well: Here in Jerusalem it’s a little different, as we do our trick-or-treating through the olive groves on the Mt. of Olives—but in the US we dress up, go outside, light candles inside pumpkins…and hope to get something good to eat.

On All Saints Sunday, we also have our rituals: we dress up, go to church, light candles…and hope to get something good to eat!

But if this day is only about rituals to commemorate the dead, then the end result will likely be just like Halloween:  we’ll all go home with a stomachache.

In other words, there must be something more. All Saints Day, set apart by Christians since the earliest days of the church, must hold something more for us besides being a commemoration of death and the dead.

And so this morning we look to the Gospel according to John to understand what that “something more” is.

In John chapter 11, the story begins where we began our service today, with Mary crying out to Jesus, “Lord! You forgot us! You weren’t here! I was counting on you, and you didn’t show up. And now my beloved brother is dead. It’s been four days, and he’s already beginning to smell.” 

Jesus, greatly disturbed, arrives at the tomb and yells, “Lazarus, come out!” And out walks the man, still wrapped in his burial cloths. Jesus tells the others to “unbind him and let him go.” 

Unbind him, and let him go! Lazarus was bound, and now he’s free. He was dead, and now he lives.

First, it’s important to acknowledge that if I were grieving the loss of my child, or my spouse, or my mother, or a dear friend today, I might not like this Jesus story at all. I might be asking the question the Jews were brave enough to say aloud: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” And could not this Jesus, who raised Lazarus after four days, also raise my loved one? If he could do it after four days for Lazarus, why not after 4 months, or 4 years—or 40 years? 

But it occurs to me that perhaps we hear the story of the raising of Lazarus on All Saints Sunday, not to be reassured that Jesus raises the dead to eternal life (although he certainly does)—but to be reminded that in all times and places, Jesus calls us out of our tombs, unbinds us, and sets us free to live.

Sometimes, when I stand in the pulpit and look out at congregations, I don’t see people so much as turtles. Yes, I said turtles! Because I know that so much of our lives we go through life carrying around our future tombs, like shells on our backs. We may be followers of Jesus, and may have heard many times the Good News that through baptism we have been gifted eternal life, and still we often go through our days weighed down by fear of death, by fear of something bad happening to loved ones, by fear of losing what we have worked hard for, by fear of disappointing others. This fear we carry around, like shells on our backs—far from providing the protection we think it gives—really just keeps us from living the life we were created to live, the life we’ve been granted through Christ’s resurrection.  

Other times I think we walk through life like a character in a classic American Christmas movie which many of you have surely seen (in the US it plays on repeat from the end of November until Christmas every year).  In this movie, called “A Christmas Story”, there’s a scene in which a small boy, Randy, is being dressed by his mother to walk to school in the snow. First, she stuffs him in a giant puffy snowsuit, then she pulls a hat down over his head, then she forces on boots and gloves, and finally she takes a scarf and wraps it completely around his head until there’s nothing but his eyes showing. We hear a small cry from inside all those layers of winter clothes, so mom unwraps Randy just enough that he can whimper: “I can’t put my arms down!”

Friends, how many days feel exactly like this? How often are we just like Randy—bound up, wrapped tight, immobilized by fear, by grief, by pain, by anxiety. When we’re in such a state, we can’t put our arms down, much less raise them in praise to God, or reach them out to serve others, or wrap them around the ones we love. We may think we’re comfortable this way, or safe—but like Randy (and Lazarus!) we really do long to be free. We really do long to live.

So on this day, this All Saints Sunday, we gather not only to remember the dead, but to hear again how a merciful God, through Christ Jesus our Lord, has called out, unbound, and raised all the saints to new life. All. The. Saints. That includes you!

Yes, Jesus has called our departed loved ones by name, and we give thanks that they, along with the saints of every time and place, have been unbound and set free from every sin, every indignity of cancer or old age, every struggle of mental illness, every injury from terrible accidents, and every imperfection of this life on earth. Thanks be to God!

But dear ones, Jesus, our brother, who knows our pain and suffering, who knows the grief even of losing a friend, stands at the door of all our tombs today and calls our names, saying: “Come out!”

You, who are grieving—come out and live!

You, who doubt that you are loved—come out and live!

You, who live in the darkness of depression—come out and live!

You, who deny your true selves—come out and live!

We don’t have to wait to die to be a saint. Sainthood is not about death—it’s about life. God, who loves all of creation, desires that we have life, and have it abundantly. For this reason, God sent the Son into the world. For this reason, Christ emptied himself on the cross. For this reason, God raised him on the third day, freeing us from all fear of dying and death. And for this reason, the Risen Christ stands at the door of every dead place today, inviting us to live into that freedom now.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.