Through eyes that have cried

“Through eyes that have cried”

All Saints' Sunday, November 3, 2024, Adam J Shoemaker

 In the name of the lion, the lamb, and the dove. Amen.

My imagination was first captured by what the church sometimes calls the communion of saints when I was a teenager attending a Roman Catholic High School in Long Island, New York, for it was here that I first came to appreciate St Francis's simplicity of life and his care for all of creation, especially the animals. It was here that I learned to pray to St Anthony, the patron saint of lost things when I misplaced my keys or something important to me. It was here that I learned to sometimes turn to St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, when my beloved Mets were in the doldrums—which let me tell you happened more times than not when I was a kid. It was here that I learned about the lives of all the saints. So many of the saints of God, like our own Patron Saint Stephen who was recognized as the first Deacon and Martyr of the church. On this All Saints Sunday, we are invited to celebrate and call to mind all of these notable figures, formally recognized as Saints, even as we also celebrate those saintly figures in our lives, those people of God represented by the images that surround our worship space in the windowsills. I invite you to take a look at them, if you're near one of our windowsills. These people—family, friends, loved ones, co-workers, fellow congregants here at St Stephen’s, who have gone before us and made all the difference in our life, who have shaped us and molded us and made us into the blessed and beloved people of God that we are today.

But you know I also believe deeply that All Saints Sunday challenges us to locate ourselves amid that great cloud of witnesses and claim our calling to be a saint, which can seem daunting on the surface. Dorothy Day, a 20th century Saint, if there ever was one, for her tremendous work with the poor, call her a saint because of the way that we so often sanitize saintly figures, put them up on pedestals. But a saint in the early church was simply a part of the body of Christ. So a saint, as I once heard it said, might be better described as simply a sinner who keeps on trying, a human being of flesh and blood, just like you and me, just like all those who have gone before us who strive, however imperfectly, day by day, week by week, month by month, to walk in the way of Jesus and, in so doing to participate in God's ongoing work of resurrection and new life in this world.

Which brings me to our wonderfully provocative Gospel reading this morning from John, which is one of my favorite stories in this version of the good news of God in Christ. John's gospel is the latest written of the four canonical gospels that we have in the Bible, meaning it's the furthest removed from the historical Jesus. So it shouldn't be that surprising then that the Jesus we encounter in John is far more Divine than he is human. But this this story is a notable exception for this story is full of humanity, full of human emotion beginning with Jesus's friend Mary who comes to him grief stricken at the death of her beloved brother Lazarus who was also a dear friend of Jesus. In her grief, she gives voice to a sentiment, that has no doubt been shared by many down through the ages, that has no doubt been felt by many of us at one time or another. She says, “Where were you, Jesus? Where were you? If you had showed up, if only you had showed up when I needed you most, well then my brother would not have died.” My loved one, my child, my friend, my spouse, my companion on the way, if only you had showed up, well then they wouldn't have had to suffer and die.

And the text tells us today that Jesus is deeply moved in his Spirit by this show of grief not just by Mary but by others who gather around the tomb of Lazarus. This brings us to a profound moment of scripture the shortest verse in the Bible. In some translations, we read very simply that Jesus wept. Jesus wept—a moment that should remind us first and foremost that it is all right to be vulnerable during difficult times. It is all right to grieve, to lament, to cry. But a moment that should also remind us that God Is With Us in these moments. God is not just with us in the good times, in the celebratory times, when everything is going our way. No, God is also and perhaps especially with us in times of suffering and loss. When the bottom falls out, God is even with us in our tears and because of that friends we can believe by faith that these tearful moments are not the end of the story, not for us, not for our loved ones, not for our world. We can believe by faith that these tearful moments can be revelatory for as the late martyred Archbishop of El Salvador Oscar Romero once said. St Oscar Romero, the former Archbishop of El Salvador was martyred, during his country's brutal Civil War, as he celebrated the mass behind the altar. As St Oscar Romero once said, “there are some truths in life that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.” There are some profound truths in life that can only be seen glimpsed and understood through eyes that have cried. When we do not turn away and stay open to the suffering of our own lives and the suffering of our world and indeed in our gospel today, this tearful moment ultimately gives way to Resurrection—to the resurrection of Lazarus that in John's gospel foreshadows the ultimate resurrection of Jesus. For we see Jesus come to the tomb and call his dead friend out. Lazarus comes out still bound in his burial cloths (in a scene that I'm sure would be fitting for a Halloween movie).

But on this All Saints Sunday, friends, I would invite us to pay special attention to the very end of this story, to the very last line. For I would argue that here we see Jesus invite the crowds around him to participate in Lazarus' resurrection. For as the dead man comes out still bound up, Jesus says to the crowds, “Unbind him and let him go.  Unbind him, release him, liberate him, and let him go.” This for me encapsulates our calling as Christian disciples in this world, a calling that we find in the waters of baptism, a calling that we'll be reminded of in a short while when we baptize Lauren Moore into the body of the church. Our Calling to be people of the Resurrection Easter people living in this Good Friday world of ours, a calling that we live into by striving to believe with everything we've got in the ultimate victory of God's love, that hate, violence, bigotry, fear mongers will never have the last word in this world. God's love will. We are called to go out and live like it in our work, in our witness in the world, and what we advocate for, yes, and how we vote. When we go to the polls, we are called to strive to embody the love of Jesus trusting that as we do so we participate in God's ongoing work of resurrection in this world, amid a world that is so desperately in need of it.

So on this All Saints Sunday, friends, let us rejoice and celebrate all the saints of God, that great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us, our ancestors in the faith who push us on. But let us boldly claim our calling to be Saints. Let us claim our calling to strive, however imperfectly, with open and compassionate hearts, to walk in love as God and Christ loves us, trusting in the power of God to make all things new and trusting that our work will help to pave the way for all the saints who will come after us. That unfolding story of God's salvation continues to be told all across this world. May we strive to do this, Saints, today, tomorrow, and always, and may the Holy Spirit always be our companion and guide. Amen.

© 2024 Adam J Shoemaker