Sermon for All Saints: Not a memorial, a happening
All Saints
Sunday
3 November
2019
Lutheran
Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem
Grace and
peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
On Thursday afternoon a few hundred people (including a
few of you) gathered in the main sanctuary here at Redeemer for a tri-lingual,
tri-congregational, international, ecumenical celebration of the 502nd
anniversary of the Reformation. It was a grand ceremony: 29 clergypeople were seated
around the altar. Bishops, priests, sisters and brothers from various church
bodies joined in the pews. The Brass for Peace provided festive entrance and
exit music. And there were two choirs: the adult choir of Redeemer’s German-speaking
congregation and the youth choir of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Beit
Sahour.
This is my 6th year serving as the English-speaking
pastor here in Jerusalem, and therefore the 6th reformation service I’ve coordinated and
managed, a task I often describe as “cat-herding”. I can report that things
went just as expected:
We started 10 minutes late because of traffic around the
Old City (and also because a few participants needed to smoke cigarettes before
the service...)
The clergy processed in chaos through the street from
the office doors to the door of the main sanctuary, at which point we all suddenly
remembered our manners and our priestly callings.
We sang a hymn. We confessed our sins. We prayed.
Scripture lessons were read in English, Arabic, and
German.
And then…
From behind me, I started to hear a noise. A rustling.
A disturbance in the force.
I couldn’t see what was happening behind me, but I
knew the sound well. It was the sound of 20 or so youth choir members getting
bored.
A few of our local pastors, who knew the kids
well, turned and gave them what my dad always called “the hairy eyeball”, which
quieted them for a bit.
And then, thankfully, it was time for them to sing. The
choir stood up. The electric piano began with a few chords. And their voices
sang out the words of the Lord’s Prayer, in Arabic:
Abana alathi fi ssama…
It was beautiful.
When I heard their voices, I was instantly grateful.
Grateful for their wiggles. Grateful for their restlessness.
Grateful for these young people brought life into an
otherwise fairly stiff and formal and (to be honest) somewhat lifeless service.
A few more prayers
and a long sermon in German later, and it was time for the adult choir to sing.
They stood up in the balcony high above us.
The massive pipe organ began with a few chords.
And the choir began to sing:
Abana alathi fi ssama…
Yes, the German choir also sang the Lord’s Prayer…in
Arabic.
It was the very same tune, and the same words, that the
Palestinian youth choir had sung just minutes before.
As I looked around the altar at my fellow pastors—American,
Palestinian, German, Swedish, Danish, Finnish—I noticed everyone had a smile on
their faces.
We were smiling because it was awkward, and funny, and
it was beautiful.
We were smiling, because we recognized that finally,
something was happening.
Now, as the coordinator of the service, I could have been
distressed about that little musical planning mishap. But instead, it got me
thinking how all too often we think of worship as a kind of memorial service.
We gather on Sunday or on Reformation Day or even Christmas
and sometimes we think that the goal is to remember how God was once upon a
time with us,
how God once
upon a time spoke to the prophets,
how Jesus once upon a time walked beside us and
shared our burdens,
how once upon a time the Spirit of God was
active and moving in the church and the world.
But every once in a while, thanks be to God, we have a
moment—like when both choirs in your church service sing the same song, and that song reminds us to pray "Our Father, who art in heaven!"—when we’re
awakened to the fact that God’s presence with us is no fairy tale and Christian
worship is no memorial service. Christian worship is a happening.
When we gather as the people of God, whether in Jerusalem
or Strasbourg or California—we aren’t memorializing anything, because through
water and the Word, through bread and wine, and through the community of faith
we call the Church, the love of God for YOU is happening right here,
right now, in this place, in your hearts, in your lives. Amen!
This morning, we began this Christian worship service by
lighting candles in honor of our loved ones who have died. And to be fair, in
spite of all that I just said about worship not being a memorial to things past,
it’s true that All Saints Day, of all days, can feel like exactly like a
memorial service, because of course we are remembering today those who are not
in the pews with us, those who could not join you on your holy land pilgrimages,
those sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, best friends and loved ones we
miss dearly.
But here’s the thing:
On this day, of all days, we have the blessed opportunity
to experience worship as a happening and God’s love as active in our
lives,
Because on All Saints day, when we light candles and sing
songs and (in some churches) burn incense, our bodily senses are awakened to
the mysterious, immediate presence of the whole communion of saints. On this
day, our eyes and ears are opened once again to the great cloud of witnesses
who walk with us on our journey of faith… not only on All Saints Day, but
each and every day.
One of my seminary professors once described how he loved the way some
older churches were built with a wooden rail in front of the altar, often
shaped in a half-circle. He said it reminded him that every time we gather at
the communion table, we make up only one half of the circle. The other half of
the circle—which we cannot see—is in heaven, and this means our loved ones are
joining us in this meal, each and every time we gather to receive Jesus in the
bread and the wine.
Writer Evelyn Underhill, a master of the spiritual life, writes:
“Christian worship is never a solitary undertaking. Both on its visible
and invisible sides, it has a thoroughly social and organic character. The
worshipper, however lonely in appearance, comes before God as a member of a
great family; part of the Communion of Saints, living and dead. His own small effort
at adoration is offered “in and for all.” The first words of the Lord’s
Prayer are always there to remind him of his corporate status and
responsibility, in its double aspect…(the worshipper) shares the great life
and action of the Church, the Divine Society; however he may define that
difficult term, or wherever he conceives its frontiers to be drawn. He is
immersed in that life, nourished by its traditions, taught, humbled, and upheld
by its saints.”
Hear that again: the first words of the Lord’s Prayer remind us of
our corporateness. They remind us that we are not alone. Through baptism,
through the love of God in Christ Jesus, we are community—even with those who
have already died.
Which got me thinking about that the church choir debacle from Reformation
Day…
Our Father, who art in heaven, our choirs sang. Abana
alathi fi ssama…
Whenever you pray these words, be reminded that you never pray alone.
We always pray alongside all our ancestors.
We pray alongside Mary Magdalene and Peter,
Paul and Silas, Dorothy Day and Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa,
And my Grandmother and your beloved friend.
We pray with the whole communion of saints,
to the one God, Our heavenly parent, who has loved us all the way to the
cross,
Who has moved the stone away from the tomb,
Who has raised Jesus from the dead,
And has sent the Holy Spirit to live among us,
Whose love is happening in the lives of the saints, and in our lives today, and each day that we
that we still have breath.
Dear siblings in Christ, I know it’s not easy to be a follower of Jesus today.
It’s not easy to be a Christian in a time when extremists are trying to kidnap
the church and make it captive to fundamentalism, judgement, consumerism, and partisanship.
In fact, it’s not easy to be human (and stay human) in these times.
And so we say: Thanks be to God for the communion of saints.
Thanks be to God for the great cloud of witnesses who not only pray with
us but walk with us and strengthen us for this journey,
Whose lives of faith help us to understand how it can possibly be to
live the Beatitudes, for example…
Who help us understand what it means that the poor are blessed,
That to be hungry is blessed,
That when we weep we are blessed,
Who help us understand how it is possible to have joy even in the face
of persecution, struggle, pain, and loss.
Thanks be to God we are not in this journey of faith and life alone! We do not walk alone. We don’t
worship alone. We don’t pray alone. We don’t fight for justice alone or make peace
alone or speak truth to power alone, or love God and neighbor (and enemy…) alone.
The love of God is always with us,
and so are the saints, the faithful of all times and places.
Thanks be to God for them,
And thanks be to God for Jesus, crucified and risen, whose love for this
broken world just keeps on happening…
May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep you hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
(below: the children of the Evangelical Lutheran School in Beit Sahour sing "Our Father"...though not during the service mentioned in this sermon!)
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