Re-Membering
Three years ago last month, I made a new friend. Our friendship didn’t last long. We got to know one another during her final week at Knollwood.
She reminisced about teaching and investing her life and wisdom and uniquely free spirit in the lives of college students. She asked about our church, and I told her of the growing number of youngish adults who’d started attending. I joked that at the rate we were going, we might just have to celebrate communion over pizza and beer. her witty retort: why not? We did it in the 1970s anyway.
Like my time with Cynthia Taylor, I can think of special moments with many others, or stories you’ve shared with me of people you’ve loved and still love today.
And on a day like today, those stories well up a bit more than usual. All Saints Sunday for us follows All Saints and All Souls Days on November 1st and 2nd–those moments when we pause to honor the lives of those who’ve gone on before us.
It is one of the most meaningful services we have, at least for me, personally, but also vocationally. Because I think it’s true of any pastor, that one of the most sacred responsibilities of this role we have is to speak life into the memory of our loved ones. To speak of the hope of resurrection, that comes through our God. To listen to stories and see the impact they’ve had on your lives as you remember.
That word — remember, is tied to memories and stories. Like communion, when we remember the love of God as we know it in Jesus, we do the same with the loved ones we remember today.
That word remember, is significant. Like membering, like re-assembling, re-animating, re-membering their lives by the memories you hold closely, by the stories you tell again and again, by their very names you speak out loud, you breathe life into their memory again and again.
There is power and life in remembering.
Of course, it isn’t all easy or happy. Grief has no prescription, after all. There is no timetable to pain. The only universal piece to it all is that we all experience it. But even still, we experience it differently.
As a pastor, another sacred part of this role, is walking alongside youin your grief. And while I don’t presume my presence makes all that much difference, I believe with my whole heart that God’s presence can make a difference.
I think again to communion. To the body of Christ. And no matter how we understand those elements to be in that sacred moment, it’s nonetheless an image for us of what it means to be the church, to be or to embody the body of Christ.
And it’s our calling, not just as pastors, but as fellow parishioners and members and friends, to embodythe Spirit of Christ in our hospitality, in our friendship, in our presence, in our persistence on hope, that we might be a tangible expression of the body of Christ.
You have friends here today, and elsewhere who love you, like you love them, and while they will never have magic words that make the pain go away, their presence and friendship reminds you of a God whose love and presence will never go away.
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And that’s partly what resurrection is. That even in death, there is life. That even from death, there will be life. That even in loss, there is hope. That even in loneliness we can find friendship. It’s the mystical connection between incarnation and resurrection.
All Saints Sunday becomes this space for us, where we remember our loved ones even as we re-member ourselves into the body of Christ, supporting and loving one another. In doing so, we say with our actions that All Saints isn’t just about those who’ve passed, but also those who are present, now and together, continuing the faith that has been passed on to each of us.
A day like today, then, isn’t just about them, but it’s also about us. About who we are and who we’re going to be, as individuals, yes, but also as a church.
Two thousands years ago, the Church began, but it didn’t end when the disciples died. And it doesn’t end with the passing of our loved ones either.
Because the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is alive and active in the Church, Christ’s body here on earth, and that same Spirit is alive and at work in each of us, in our lives, and in our church.
In our last conversation, I asked my friend Cynthia if there was anything we could do for her as a church. Her reply has stuck with me all this time. “Just grow bigger and better.”
At some point in time, as a church, we decided to remember certain members by tacking their names to a board room or hall or a chapel. But they weren’t the only ones who mattered. They weren’t even the ones who mattered most.
Youare the ones who matter most. Because you are the saints who are still living, perpetuating God’s dream of a better world, of a kinder world, of a more just and equitable world.
So, grow bigger and better.
As a community of faith, as followers of Jesus, as the body of Christ.
Grow bigger and better.
Whether it’s writing notes or making calls to friends who are homebound. Whether it’s joining a friend for a meal or knitting or reading a book together. Maybe it’s helping someone make payments on their debt, or giving someone a ride to appointments, or learning to withhold judgment of others’ circumstances. Maybe it’s finding your voice alongside those whose voices aren’t taken seriously, who are maligned or disadvantaged. You can think of a million small ways to make a difference in someone’s life by your presence.
And in doing so, saints, you are making this world more like the one God envisions.
So let us remember and honor our loved ones by re-membering this world through love and justice, and by the Spirit of the Risen Christ.
Amen.
