Today we
reflect on and conclude a 3-day Autumnal festival
about mortality, those who have gone
before, and each other.
That kind of
3-day festival happens around the world in different cultures
and different religions, but pretty
much the same three days.
In
Christianity, the first day is about evil and mortality.
We laugh at
the scary stuff and play with it.
Halloween is
a great victory of the frontal lobes
where humor resides over the
reptilian brain,
which is the seat of fear.
That’s why
fear based religions don’t like Halloween.
The next
day, All Saints, we commemorate the Communion of All Saints.
The Saints
are heroes of the faith, but they their heroism is rooted
in the Communion.
It is the
network that valorizes them, not individual strengths.
Thomas
Merton said, “The saints are saints not so much by virtue
of their own sanctity as their
capacity to appreciate the sanctity
of each other.
All Saints Day reminds us that in spite of our personal limitations,
by virtue of being part of that communion,
we are all capable of that kind of heroism.
The third
day, we recognize that the Communion of All Saints
is rooted in something larger and
deeper,
the Communion of All
Souls.
That is the
connection based, not on heroic achievements,
but on our common humanity,
characterized by
mortality, frailty, brokenness,
squierreliness,
and occasional
obnoxiousness.
That brings
us to the story of Thomas Merton.
When he was
a young man,
Merton lived an undisciplined,
aimless life
in
New York City.
That life
left him lonely and empty.
So he
started reading about Christianity.
It
fascinated him, attracted him, puzzled him.
It was like
something from another place and time.
But he knew
it was going to change his life.
One day he was
taking with his best friend, Sachs.
Merton
described his sense of being called to something different
– not just to do something new, but
be someone new.
His friend
said, “Tom why don’t you just say it?
You want to be a saint.”
Merton
immediately disagreed and tried to dismiss the idea.
But it
wouldn’t go away.
Years later
he admitted his friend was right.
Once we
accept the gospel of Jesus,
we are called to become saints.
Did Merton
become a saint?
He became a
monk.
But he was a
grouchy monk with irritable bowel syndrome
and authority issues.
He wrote
books that changed countless lives.
But he
struggled with pride in his writing.
He was a
bold voice for peace and justice.
But he
struggled with rigidity and moralism.
Thomas
Merton wasn’t perfect.
But he was
entranced by the perfection of God,
and he longed to be made whole.
He wanted to
become who God intended him to be.
I believe he
was a saint.
None of the
saints have been perfect.
Paul was
overbearing, tempestuous, and used dubious grammar.
Peter was unstable.
The list of
saints includes masochists, misogynists, and misanthropes.
St. Bernard
was a warmonger obsessed
with destroying the career of Peter
Abelard,
the greatest theologian
of his time.
So what
makes a saint?
One of the
greatest novels of the 20th Century
was The Holy Sinner by Thomas Mann.
It’s based on
an epic poem from the 12th Century.
Mann tells
the story of Gregory, a young man born
of an incestuous relationship and
given away
to hide his parents’
shame.
When he
learned his origins,
he set out to overcome his birth
by doing good in the
world.
He tried to
do good out of his own good will.
He not only
failed.
He repeated
his parents’ mistake
by engaging in incest himself.
That’s when
he gave himself over to God,
and wound up as a Pope Gregory the
Great.
The author’s
point is that Gregory was holy
not because he was without sin,
but because of how God
turned his sin
into humility, wisdom,
and gratitude.
There are two
lessons for us here.
First,
holiness is not for a few super heroes of the faith.
It’s for all
of us.
We are all
called to holiness of life.
The name of
this Holy Day reminds us
that we are all called to be saints.
The second
point is that holiness isn’t something we do.
It’s what
God does in us if we just allow it.
God finds us
in our broken state
and makes us new people.
As one of
our prayers says, “God works in us that which
is well pleasing in his sight.”
God does it.
We just do our best to stay out of the way.
God makes us
into better people than we could have been
if we had not been morally and
spiritually broken.
When we
consecrate the bread, when we make it holy,
we break it.
The breaking
is a part of the act of making holy.
Our
brokenness is part of how God makes us holy.
God does
that by joining us in it.
In his book,
Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller repeats a
story
he heard from a folk singer.
Miller
doesn’t know if the story is true.
It really
doesn’t matter.
What matters
is the point.
It’s about a
hostage rescue.
A commando
team of Navy Seals was sent to rescue
hostages who had been held captive
by terrorists for a long
time.
The Seals
broke into the dark, filthy basement
where the hostages were cowering in
a corner,
huddled together,
shaking.
The sounds
of gunfire had not given them hope.
They were
sure they were about to die.
The Seals
broke open the door.
They had to
hurry to evacuate the hostages.
So they
stood there in commando gear
carrying semi-automatic rifles
and shouted orders to the hostages
“We’re here to rescue you.
Come with us. Now!”
But the
hostages did not move.
The Seals shouted
louder. “Come with us now. Hurry.”
The hostages
did not move.
They thought
the commandos were just more terrorists.
So one of
the Navy Seals took off his helmet.
He put down
his rife.
He went over
to the hostages and sat down with them.
He huddled
together with them in the darkness and the dirt.
No terrorist
had ever done that.
No terrorist
would ever do that.
After awhile
he said, “It’s ok. We can go now.”
Then they
followed him to safety and to freedom.
Brothers and
sisters, we are not heroes.
Saints are
not heroes.
Saints start
out as hostages to sin, addiction, fear,
and all the pain that makes being
human so hard.
Is there
anyone here who is not such a hostage?
I know I am.
But then
Jesus comes into our prison.
Jesus joins
us in the darkness and the dirt.
Then after a
little while, he says,
“It’s ok. We can go now.”
So we get up
and follow him.
He doesn’t
bark the order “Follow me.”
He says it
gently, as an invitation.
He says it
kindly as you might say it to a child, “Follow me.”
Saints are
just hostages who have followed Jesus.
But look who
we are following.
We are not
following a Savior who leads us out of our human muddle.
We follow
Jesus who joins the human muddle.
He “shared
our human nature, lived and died as one of us.”
His way is
not out of the human predicament but deeper in,
because that’s where the love is.
It is our
human limitation that makes compassion possible.
I want to
share with you a few lines from Czeslaw Milosz’s poem,
“In A Parish.”
It’s about
the flawed people buried in a parish cemetery.
He writes,
“Had I not been
frail and half broken inside
I would not think of them, who are
like myself half broken inside. . . . .
Crazy Sophies.
Michaels who lost every
battle,
Self-destructive Agathas
Lie under crosses with
their dates of birth and death, And who
Is going to express
them?
Their mumblings, weepings, hopes, tears of humiliation ? . . .
Their mumblings, weepings, hopes, tears of humiliation ? . . .
The answer, of course, is: we will.
We can, not because
of our strength but because of our weakness.
We share the
crazy mixed up vulnerable state of being human.
And we share the
vulnerable state of being mortal,
which leads to a few verses of Ted
Kooser’s poem, “The Mourners.”
Describing the conversation
after a burial, he writes,
“After the funeral, the mourners gather
under the rustling churchyard maples
and talk softly, like clusters of
leaves . . .
They came this afternoon to say
goodbye,
but now they keep saying hello and
hello,
peering into each other’s faces,
slow to let go of each other’s
hands.”
So
today, this Holy Day, I invite you to the
Communion of All Saints
and the Communion of All Souls,
a communion based not on spiritual heroism
but on our shared human
vulnerability and mortality.
Let us
peer into each other’s faces
and be slow to let go of each other’s
hands.
