God, Grief, and Remembering the Saints

2024-58
sermon preached at Church of the Good Shepherd, Federal Way, WA
www.goodshepherdfw.org

by the Rev. Anna Lynn, Deacon
All Saints Sunday (Year B), November 3, 2024
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 ; Psalm 24 ; Revelation 21:1-6a ; John 11:32-44

I wonder if any of you felt grief that you may be carrying bubble up to the surface as I proclaimed the Gospel this morning? I know that I have felt grieved, as I prepared my sermon this week for All Saints’ Sunday.

That might be because of the 44 verses in our Gospel reading today, 42 of them are about grief.

We have two sisters, Martha & Mary from Bethany, who are in deep shock and lost in grief due to the death of their brother Lazarus.

Earlier in this reading the sisters had sent world to Jesus that his friend Lazarus was ill. Upon receiving the message, Jesus waited two long days before leaving…. and by time he arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days.

Jesus enters a town where there is a deep sense of loss and sorrow and since Jerusalem is only 2 miles from Bethany, many of the Jews from within this community, had come to also grieve Lazarus’ death and console his sisters.

Martha is hurt when she sees Jesus. She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Mary, then comes to Jesus and repeats the same accusation, and when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.

He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Then John tells us that, Jesus began to weep.

This is more than empathy that Jesus feels, he is filled with sorrow, as he grieves for Lazarus and experiences firsthand the pain that the others within this community are feeling.

And because Jesus feels real grief through his humanity, that also means that in Jesus, God also feels grief. 

Jesus loved Lazarus and he weeps at the grave of his friend. We too weep over the graves of those we love. On this All-Saints Day we remember not just the great saints of the church, but also the saints in our own lives, we remember those we love who have died.

That remembrance most always comes with sorrow, but within this community it is our shared sorrow, as this is a safe place to feel your grief. There is no judgement or requirements here, only love.

The communal cup from which we all drink. It is ours to hold and gradually empty. We do this together, as we enter healing ground.

Psychotherapist, writer, and soul activist Francis Weller has said, “My grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being and find a home in my heart. Grief is akin to praise; it is how the soul recounts the depth to which someone has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.”

As your diaconal intern, postulant and finally deacon, I have prayed and prayed for you and your loved ones over the past two years. We have experienced many losses together since my time at Good Shepherd began and I have been honored to have spent time with some of those folks who have gone on before us and to have also served at several of their memorials or celebrations of life.

I have been proud of the way that you all love and show up for one another, especially when there is a loss in this community and I would also like to include my gratitude in the way that you have shown up for and loved me when I have suffered loss. 

One of my favorite traditions of this congregation is the hanging of the Memorial Ribbon with your loved one’s names on it.

I happen to be here in the sanctuary on the day that this memorial ribbon was last taken down and witnessed the great care that is given to the ribbon, to gently lay it out and place it back onto the reel so it is stored safely.

I wanted to help those putting away the ribbon this last time, so I held the ribbon strait, as it went back onto the reel and I paid special attention to each of the names as they went through my hands. I felt such a sense of love and honor for all the names who had come before, members of this congregation who have passed, or your family and loved ones and I even saw the names of folks that I loved and had their names added to the ribbon. It was defiantly a holy experience for me. Seeing the names, filled me with a deep sense of history, community, and remembrance.

What a beautiful way to honor and celebrate our loved ones beginning on this sacred feast day of All Saints’ each year.

Another way we can honor those who gone before us, is to live like the Saints. To remember the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. and his call for nonviolence or the voice of John Lewis when he called for Good Trouble.

We have a very contentious election taking place in our country in two days.

There will be many grieving because their candidate and ideology have not won.

Our own Bishop LaBelle, sent out a message on social media regarding the elections, Bishop LaBelle said, “If we are feeling fear or anxiety, to remember the scripture when God says, “Do not be afraid”. God reminds us again and again that we need not be afraid because God goes with us. Because Jesus is indeed Emanual, walking along side us, even in the most difficult or troubling times.”

Bishop LaBelle went on to say he is also reminded of the words from the 1st Letter to John, reminding us that perfect love casts out all fear. That it is love that is the thing that allows us to counter act that of which we are afraid.

I have spoken a lot today about love, community and honor, And Good Shepherd we are blessed to have all those things right here inside the walls of this sanctuary and we will be here for one another no matter what the outcome of these elections.

But we also need to be prepared and ready to be the light and love of Jesus Christ out in the world. We are called to love our neighbor whether they are republican, democrat or from any other voting bloc. Our work of love and reconciliation in this country will begin anew on election day.

I would encourage us all to pray for peace and calm in our country. The Episcopal Church FB Page even has a Live, Election Night Virtual Prayers Program if you would like to pray with our new Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, that live stream begins at 5PM PT.

In closing:

By becoming human, God was and is with us in Jesus in a way that caused him to experience the depths of human pain and loss. God is not distant and reserved. God is close, caring, and compassionate.

Our reading today from Revelation tells us that the time is coming when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and that death will be no more.

Jesus calls, “Lazarus, Come Out!” Come out from the grave. Grief is real, but loss is not the end. Grab hold of the sure and certain hope of the resurrection that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, “Unbind him and let him go,” to those around Lazarus, and he says the same thing to us. We are to be unbound, set free from the power of death. For even as we find death in life, we find life in death. We know that Jesus is resurrection and life, and those who believe, even if we die, we live.

Amen.