A reflection on the lectionary readings for All Saints’ Day.
Today is All Saints’ Day, the day in the Church Calendar where we celebrate all who have come before us who by their lives revealed the Love of our Life-giving, liberating God. Some have been officially recognised by the Church and have their own day in the calendar and so many who were only known to those with whom they did life. I have two of the latter category who even though they had both died before I began the journey to become a priest, I give full credit for me being able to see and hear God as God called me for this life: my paternal grandmother and one of my paternal uncles.
When I was a child and teen, I wanted to be just like my grandmother and I wanted to spend all my time with her. I felt safe and loved with her like no one else in my life. She talked freely about God and Jesus and how we are to live when we commit ourselves to following Jesus. She was strong, courageous, and compassionate. She let me ask all the questions I wanted and answered them the best she could. Knowing her made me want to be the best me I could, with God’s help, and a lot of guidance from her.
As I moved into adulthood I came to know I couldn’t be just like her, that I had to be the me God created and was always calling me to be. Because of her I knew who and Whose I am always becoming even as I had to walk away from the church of my childhood. As I walked away, my uncle, who had walked away from the same church for similar reasons as I, guided me to the Episcopal Church. Even though he was someone the church of our childhood wanted to exclude, he revealed God’s Love in this world better than anyone I’ve ever known (except of course his mother). I am better enabled to be who God is calling me to be because of these two saints.
I watch so many in our world today excluding everyone they possibly can from their ‘us’ group in the name of Jesus, and I have to wonder if they’ve every truly known what it is to be unconditionally included themselves. And I wonder how any church group can read and study and discern God’s word and will and come away with the idea that God is about excluding rather than including? The vision John has of the throne room of God is of every nation, all people, all languages praising the Loving, Life-giving, Liberating God.
In giving us what we’ve come to call the Beatitudes, a list of ‘blessed are’ statements that describe life in God’s Kingdom, Jesus is showing us that The Kingdom is about bringing others in not throwing them out. God’s Kingdom isn’t about being in the proper ‘us’ group but about being Image Bearers who reveal God’s Love to a hurting and broken world. Attempting to define who’s out and who’s in is not our’s to do. We are all called to see the Image of God in all people, not just those we like or are like us, and we are to reveal the Image of God within ourselves so that others come to know they are God’s Beloved, too. Our role in God’s Kingdom isn’t to be gatekeepers but to discern for ourselves if we are revealing God’s Love by the life we live. Do our lives bear witness to who God is and whose we are so that others know they, too, are Beloved?
I invite you this coming week to spend some time with these verses from Matthew’s telling of the Good News. If you are able, look at different translations (bible.com is a great resource as you can look at 100s of different translations and compare how they interpret the original languages of the texts). Some use ‘happy’ instead of ‘blessed’. In this episode of the BibleProject podcast, the hosts attempt to help us get away from our twenty-first century, Western World understanding of ‘blessed’ so we can get a sense of what Jesus is really saying here. Think flourishing, the good life, abundance (not excess), thriving, delighting in God’s Way, being who God makes us to be …
The Beatitudes aren’t a checklist of possible rewards if we suffer enough. They are a description of the life God invites us into in the Kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven. Jesus invites us to follow him into this life here and now. When we struggle with finding our way, God says ‘let me show you The Way.” When we’ve lost what we cherish most, God says “find comfort in my love.” When we find our identity as God’s Beloved, we have gained everything. When we desire a relationship with God more than anything, we come know what true satisfaction is. When we are other-focused, we will find ourselves in a community where we are cared for, too. When we live from the Image of God within us, we move through this life as God made us to. When we work to make peace in this world, we know what it is to be in God’s presence always. And none of this means we won’t suffer or that life won’t be hard at times. We will and life will be. But that is the world’s doing, not God’s. God is with us through it all and as we keep our eyes on Jesus, we grow deeper in our relationships with God, others, and ourselves, and this is the greatest satisfaction of all.
The Saints we honour today, all who have shown us how to follow Jesus into God’s Kingdom here-and-now, revealed God’s Love to the world with the lives they lived. They let their relationship with God guide all other relationships. They kept their eyes on Jesus even when life was a struggle, for some even when it cost them their life. They fought against the injustices of this world in big and small ways. They invited others into God’s Way of Love. They shared in John’s vision of God’s throne room that included all people rejoicing and praising together in God’s presence.
This is why we come together on a regular basis to pray and hear scripture and praise God and receive the holy gifts of the bread and wine. These actions sustain us, remind us who and Whose we are, encourage us and give us the strength to move through this world as if God’s Kingdom were already here. Jesus tells us it is just within our reach if we can let go of what blocks God’s Image from shining from within us. Entitlement, resentment, and bitterness fill us so that we cannot reveal God’s image nor can we see it in others. A life bound up and tangled with these ways is a life of keeping others out not inviting them in and it is not the life God made and desires us to live.
Today, on All Saints Day, and every day, we must ask ourselves whether we are inviting others into God’s Kingdom or working to keep them out. And we pray for God’s help to let go of what is stopping us from knowing ourselves and others as God’s Beloved. We are all beloved by God and made in God’s Image. Together, let’s remind others who and Whose they are, too.
Keep Lovin’ louder than the hate, Y’all!
