Teams of Light

Yesterday the Church observed All Saints Sunday.  This is the day when many congregations say the names of those who have died in the previous year and ring a bell and light candles and it has always, always, always been one of the most meaningful of liturgies to me. 

And we sing.  We sing For All the Saints and maybe When the Saints Go Marching In and I Sing A Song of the Saints of God (really, ELCA, how did we leave this gem out of our hymnal?) 

The Gospel reading this year (Year C for you Revised Common Lectionary people) are Luke’s Beatitudes, which I prefer to Matthew’s because Luke is bold enough to name both blessing and woe.  Which, let’s face it, is exactly right.  Life is filled with blessings and woes – with joyful days and season and events and people and with betrayal and disappointment and injustice and struggle.  And so the writer of Luke describes Jesus naming just this truth.  Blessed are you and Woe to you.  Only, of course, the blessings and the woes are upside down from what the culture would have us believe.  The blessed are the poor and the hungry and the sorrow filled and the hated.  And woe to the rich, the sated, the carefree, and the well considered. 

In this season, Jesus’ words are a comfort to me.  For all of the obvious reasons.

I stayed home yesterday – entrusting the people with whom it is my great privilege and pleasure to serve to the care of my very gifted colleague and my very pastoral Bishop.  But I’d decided that I would light candles and sing songs and remember Bruce in the sanctuary of the home we created together. 

I also did some reading and in doing so, came across an author who suggests that those we have loved deeply and who have loved us and who have died, make up our “Team of Light”.  Her idea that these saints are watching from across the veil is not a new one, in fact it’s ancient enough to appear in stories from antiquity and in folk tales and sacred texts across traditions.  Still, to read her naming it in this way on All Saints Sunday felt like something of a glowing reminder that in the pain of losing so many dear ones, I am blessed (word choice intended) with a radiant team of light on the other side.  My particular communion of saints.

I have shared often with people who are grieving and with congregations and communities I’ve served a practice that I believe came from the Rev. Barbara Crafton.  She suggested that when we begin our communal prayers with “The Lord be with you” (as we do in my tradition and in hers) that we imagine the very voices of our saints responding with “And also with you.”  And I’ve done that since then.  I hear my Nanny’s midwestern voice and at least two friends (Lynette and Amy) who would add an endearment: “And also with you, honey”.  I hear my mentors Jane and Bill.  Bill would respond as any good Anglican would “And with thy spirit”. 

And I hear my Beloved.  Who would have certainly responded gently.  Many of you know that Bruce’s faith was crafted out of the vastness of his varied religious exposures.  Baptized Southern Baptist, raised in Protestant military chapels, traveling the world and finding the holy in Buddhist monasteries, Bruce married a Lutheran pastor.  (He loved to tell the story of how THAT came up in conversation).  He rejected any forms of exclusion or nationalism, (making him a better Jesus follower than a lot of ‘Christians’) and he was in Church almost every single week.  Because he was there to support me.  (Join your life to someone like this).  And he sang the hymns with GUSTO and he listened to the sermons and asked questions and he came with outstretched hands to the Table and received Christ, looking me square in the eye in what was as intimate a moment as any we shared.  And on one of the bad days in the hospital, returning from a procedure, he took my hand from the gurney and declared softly, but surely:  “God is real”, naming this truth in a way I have yet to understand.

So I imagine my Team of Light there together, just over there….watching me and rooting for me and singing together.  All of my grandparents are there.  And my dear friend Rob.  And Lynette and Amy.  And Jane and Bill. And Viv and Mary, such wise women. And Poncho, because of course pets are there.  And Jenny, whose loss is still so fresh, but who is holding her infant daughter.  And Peggy, Bruce’s mom, who loved and supported me like a daughter ought to be loved and supported.  And my Beloved, who is the Captain of my Team in that life, just as he was in this one. 

For All the Saints

1    For all the saints who from their labors rest,

      who thee by faith before the world confessed,

      thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.

      Alleluia! Alleluia!

2    Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might;

      thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;

      thou, in the darkness drear, their one true light.

      Alleluia! Alleluia!

3    Oh, blest communion, fellowship divine,

      we feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

      yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.

      Alleluia! Alleluia!

4    And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

      steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

      and hearts are brave again and arms are strong.

      Alleluia! Alleluia!

5    The golden evening brightens in the west;

      soon, soon to faithful servants cometh rest;

      sweet is the calm of paradise the blest.

      Alleluia! Alleluia!

6    But then there breaks a yet more glorious day:

      the saints triumphant rise in bright array;

      the King of glory passes on his way.

      Alleluia! Alleluia!

7    From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,

      through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,

      singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:

      Alleluia! Alleluia!

Text: William W. How, 1823-1897