ALL SAINTS AND ALL SOULS – 2020
MATTHEW 5:1-12A
MARIAN FREE
In the name of God in whose loving care are the living and the dead. Amen.
‘Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”
The Beatitudes, one of the best-known New Testament passages, are a reminder of the upside-down world that Jesus preaches and which he encourages us to embrace. In a world that values success and happiness, Jesus promotes humility and sobriety and assures his followers that, contrary to popular opinion, grief and poverty are blessings[1]. Over and over again, Jesus contradicts commonly held values and aspirations. Through his choices and his actions, Jesus demonstrates that it is not necessarily those whom society values – the rich, the powerful and the healthy – who have precedence in the kingdom of God. It is the poor and the marginalised who are the focus of Jesus’ ministry – those who have nothing and who have no opportunity, those who by virtue of their disability, their poverty or their powerlessness demonstrate to the rest of us that it is possible to exist in this world and to have faith without the trappings that many of us find indispensable.
Luke’s version of the Beatitudes is even more stark than Matthew’s:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.”
Jesus knows, as we often do not, that absence makes presence even more special and that the acceptance of one’s current situation frees us from striving and stops us from thinking about what we do not have but rather of what we do have allowing us to live in the present and not in some imagined the future. He reminds too us that this life is only a part of the story.
For many hundreds of thousands of people this has been a year of unbearable grief and loss, often compounded by the inability to visit a dying parent, or even to attend their funeral. Rituals that have existed since the beginning of human existence are forbidden or limited and those things that provide comfort and allow us to properly farewell those whom we love are being denied us. I cannot imagine the agony and anxiety which countless families have endured, and nor can I conceive the ways in which their grief might have been amplified by COVID restrictions.
The Feasts of All Saints and All Souls which fall on November 1st and 2nd respectively provide an opportunity, as best we can, to express our loss for the souls of the departed but also to affirm our confidence in the commonwealth of heaven and the belief that not even death can separate us from those whom we love.
On All Saints day we honour the lives of all the faithful and on All Souls’ Day we give thanks for and pray for the departed. We do both in the company of other Christians throughout the world. This year, whether we are confined to our homes or able to worship with our faith communities, we can be both comforted and supported in our common prayer and in the knowledge that we are surrounded by “a cloud of witnesses”. As we remember before God those whom we grieve, we can be confident that we do so with countless others who have known loss and in fellowship with all the saints, both living and departed. We can take advantage of these two days to begin to make peace with our grief and lay to rest those whom we love despite the opportunities that we have been denied.
This year and next and for however long it takes, the feasts of All Saints and All Souls can be an occasion to fill the vacuum created by the COVID restrictions on caring for the dying and farewelling the dead. If we have not been able to say “farewell” in the way that we would have liked – with full churches, families and friends – let us say our farewells in a different but vastly greater community of saints – living and dead.
Remember too that the Beatitudes remind us that however difficult our current situation, stiving for that which is not possible will only lead to discontent and misery. The truly blessed are those who can acknowledge and sit with the present, accept things as they are and to place their trust in the God of time and history.
[1] I like to think that he doesn’t mean grinding poverty but rather the absence of excess, of the things that we don’t need.
Swallowsrest 