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All Saints' Day Nov 1, 2003
H o m
i l y G r i t s
All Saints' Day
November 1, 2003
[All Saints Day may always be observed on the Sunday
following November 1, in addition to its observance on the fixed date.]
Copyright
Grant Gallup - permission given for free distribution in fair use or
quotation )
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and
fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us
grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living,
that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those
who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the
Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
¶ Book of Common Prayer Lectionary:
Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10, 13-14 But there is a list of generous folk, whose
good works have not been forgotten
Psalm 149 Cantate Domino - Sing to the Lord a new song!
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-17 I saw another angel, rising where the sun rises
Matthew 5:1-12 How happy are the poor in spirit: theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
¶ Revised Common Lectionary
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 The souls of the righteous are in the hands of
God: no torment shall ever touch them.
or Isaiah 25:6-9 Yahweh Sabaoth will prepare for all peoples a banquet
of rich food and fine wines
and Psalm 24 Domini est terra - The earth is the Lord's, and all that
is in it
Revelation 21:1-6a Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth
John 11:32-44 He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, here! Come out!"
¶ Lutheran Book of Worship
Isaiah 25:6-9 as above RCL
(or Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9) as above RCL
Psalm 24 They shall receive a blessing from the God of their salvation.
(Ps. 24:5)
Revelation 21:1-6a as above RCL
John 11:32-44 as above RCL
¶ Norman Pittenger: The Communion of Saints (1)
"The purpose and end of life in the Church is not in the first instance
the production of morally admirable persons; it is the production of
saints. Léon Bloy once said that 'there is only one sadness: not to be a
saint.' . . ."But what is a saint--in the sense in which we are employing
this term, and in this particular context of the fellowship of the Church
which is the body of Christ? In answering this question, I must refer to
the Hebrew conception of holiness, which is far removed from the usual
modern notion of an ethical quality, moral goodness, and that alone.
Obviously there are moral implications in holiness, as the Jew saw it;
but the primary meaning is something else. The primary meaning is
separateness from 'the world,' or the nations of the world, which comes
as a consequence of God's call to His people that they be in fact His
people. The mysterious energy of God, of which, as Isaiah says, the
whole earth is full (or rather, of which the whole earth is the
over-flowing) is somehow imparted to, and shared by, the people of God.
For the Christian community, the calling is into the company of Christ,
and carries with it the imparting of the Spirit, whom Christ sends in His
name and with His power. The Spirit is charity, charity in its God-given
sense. It is no achievement of man, although for its flowering it
requires that man shall be the humble recipient of grace; and in this
passion, which in the most real sense is a supreme action, God transforms
the believer, through the Spirit, into the likeness of His Son. To be a
saint, then, is to welcome the principle of God's mysterious charity
within oneself; but one can have this only because one belongs to the
company in which the love of Christ is shed abroad.
¶ Joy and Triumph Everlasting (Superne matris gaudia) - from the Hymnal
1940 (2)
Sequence hymn by Adam of St. Victor, 12th century, for mass on any
Saint's Day. Translation by Robert Bridges, 1899..
Joy and triumph everlasting hath the heavenly Church on high;
For that pure immortal gladness all our feast days mourn and sigh;
Yet in death's dark desert wild doth the mother aid her child;
Guards celestial hence attend us, Stand in combat to defend us.
Here the world's perpetual warfare holds from heaven the soul apart;
Legioned foes in shadowy terror vex the Sabbath of the heart
O how happy that estate where delight doth not abate!
For that home the spirit yearneth where none languisheth nor mourneth.
There the body hath no torment, there the mind is free from care,
There in ev'ry voice rejoicing, ev'ry heart is loving there.
Angels in that city dwell, them their King delighteth well:
Still they joy and weary never more and more desiring ever.
There the seers and fathers holy, where the prophets glorified,
All their doubts and darkness ended in the Light of Light abide.
There the saints, whose memories old we in faithful hymns uphold
Have forgot their bitter story in the joy of Jesus' story
[There from lowliness exalted dwelleth Mary, queen of grace,
Ever with her presence pleading 'gainst the sin of Adam's race
To that glory of the blest, by their prayers and faith confest,
Us, us too, when death hath freed us, Christ of his good mercy lead us.]
¶ "Spiritual Seniority" by Jelaluddin Rumi. (3)
A camel and an ox and a ram
were ambling along a road, when they saw
a fresh tuft of barley grass
that they all wanted.
They stopped, and the ram said, 'If we divide this,
none of us will be satisfied. Let us do
as Muhammed advised and give it to the eldest,
honoring his superior experience.
No one honors their elders these days
without some ulterior motive. The young
invite them to taste the food first
only when they suspect it's too hot.
They invite them to cross the bridge ahead of them
only when they see dangerous cracks in the arches,
and no one bows to a Teacher in these times
without some scam in mind. So let us each
declare his age and settle this matter.
As for me, I don't know my exact years,
but I was once pastured with that ram
that Abraham sacrificed instead of Isaac.'
The ox, 'Well, I can beat that! I was yoked
in the team that Adam plowed with when he left Eden.'
'The camel listened silently to their amazing lies,
reached his long neck down, plucked the luscious tuft,
and as he held it over their heads and ate it,
he said, 'I don't know much about this chronology,
sweethearts, but I know I'm taller than you two,
and that has obvious spiritual significance.'
(Mathnawai VI, 2457-2463-2474-2483)
Once long ago I took a cheap round trip voyage to Antioch, in the
Turkish arm-pit of the Mediterranean, on the S.S. Ruben Tipton, a rust
bucket freighter on its last voyage before the junkyard. One of its many
pleasures was to stand at sunset one evening and look out to sea with a
young sailor from the ship's crew. I had met him at the Sunday mass
which a priest from Belgium and I had concelebrated out on deck for the
passengers and crew. The sailor was from the South, so he had a Bible in
his hand, a paperback Today's English Version. He wanted to know why
Jesus had cursed the fig tree. You remember the story from the eleventh
chapter of Mark. Jesus had stayed overnight in the Jerusalem suburb of
Bethany with his disciples, and in the morning on their way back into the
city before breakfast, Jesus passed a fig tree. (I had with me my Book of
Common Prayer and the Authorised Version of the Bible.) "And seeing a
fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything
thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for it was
not the season of figs. And he answered and said unto it, No man eat
fruit from thee hence forward forever." And they went on into the
city." And as they stayed in Bethany every night after Jesus had taught
daily in the Temple, they would pass by the fig tree once again. And as
they passed by they saw the fig tree withered away from its roots. Peter
called Jesus' attention to it: "Rabbi, behold, the fig tree which thou
cursedst is withered away." And Jesus answering saith unto them, "Have
faith in God."
The young sailor wanted me to tell him: Why did Jesus curse a fig
tree for not having fruit when the story plainly says "it was not the
season of figs." It was only the season of leaves, and this was not the
fault of the tree. It seems that people never bring me any but the
stickiest of texts to explain to them. I stood there pole-axed and
thought for a moment or two--not too long, for fear he might think I did
not have an answer, but I really was no more ready for his question than
the fig tree was ready for Jesus. Then it occurred to me that its
unreadiness was precisely what got the fig tree cursed. As I was not
ready with a fig for the sailor's figgy pudding, so the tree hadn't been
ready to satisfy the Lord's hunger for breakfast.
At every Church convention, no doubt the ones convoked to ratify Gene
Robinson's election as Bishop Coadjutor of New Hampshire, and the rump
parliaments seated to upset him, the Chair eventually calls out, "Are you
ready for the Question?" Are you ready to give an answer to this, the
Question of the moment which is the Question of the Age. And those who
are ready shout out together, "Question! Question!" while the others
who want to continue debate say Nay.
And sometimes the Chair will say to those found Unready: "You are out of
order!" You had your chance in fair and open dialogue, in the years and
years of "study" set aside since Hector was a Pup for you to ask
questions, parry answers, hear witnesses, listen to experience, and You
Blew It. Your point was dulled along the way, and there was nothing in
your tool-kit to sharpen it with. Now the vote has been called for and
has been fairly taken. The hour is late and we will not stay for your
acrimony.
Then I saw another angel coming up with the Rising of the Sun having the
seal of the living God and she cried with a loud voice to the four angels
to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying "Hurt not the
earth, neither the sea, nor the trees till we have sealed the servants of
our God in their foreheads."
So I told the questioning young sailor: "The fig tree was cursed
because it wasn't ready." Just as the Scripture tells us that the
Kingdom of heaven comes as a Thief through the window at night time, so
the four angels come to judge the earth and the sea and the fig trees and
all the other trees, so the opportunities to serve the Kingdom come
jumping at us when we least expect them, or where we least notice them
growing, as in the parable of the mustard seed growing so secretly that
it goes unobserved until the birds one Spring day plant their nests in
its new coiffure, ready or not. Perhaps all of our Lord's parables sound
the note of emergency, blast the last trump of opportunity, call for
figgy pudding now in pudding time..
The "Day of Visitation" is the "Day of episcopé" -- is cited in the
Wisdom of Solomon: "In the time of their Visitation they will shine
forth. and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble. . . God tested
them and found them worthy." The saints are those who are found ready in
the day of their visitation, and will be like sparks kindling the stubble
when called upon to set fire upon the earth. The world's timetable is
never on time for the saints, who are never "moderates", never
"centrists", who never call to postpone the action until the Cows Come
Home. They are always ahead of time, and ahead of their times. Jonathan
Daniels, Martin Luther King Jr., Oscar Romero, Janani Luwum, Mother
Thresa--examples of those sparks among the stubble of our time, who were
ahead of our time. . They have always been with us, always pioneers of
the future: Antony, Abbot in Egypt in the third century, living in the
solitude of monastic life centuries before the implosion of the old
civilization during which his brothers and sisters kept hope alive in
hermitages, as Noah had done in the Ark, Saint Augustine his mother
Monnica did in north Africa and Italy, Agnes and Vincent, Polycarp and
John Wesley and James DeKoven, Leo the Great and the many martyrs in
Uganda and Japan--wherever the saints have been, they have been women and
men ahead of their time, and ready for the future which they grasped the
hems of and pulled her to themselves and to us.
The time comes when the Angel Rising from the East says "Let's move
on. The canons have been honored, the rubrics cited, and set to chant.
The servants of our God have been sealed in their foreheads. The oil of
chrism has been poured, the hands laid, the vestments bestowed. The
pudding is in the oven, figs or no figs" Though the earth be removed,
and the mountains thereof be cast into the midst of the sea, God is our
refuge and strength.
While those honored upon earth are the subject of the first reading,
for the book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, called
Ecclesiasticus, teaches us that what we consider fame and celebrity (the
contemporary substitute for sainthood) are not the only marks God will
look for in their foreheads. There are those also who are the subjects
of the second reading from the Revelation to John: who saw another
Angel in the East, the direction to which believers-- Jews, and
Christians and Muslims-- look for the coming of the day of judgment, the
direction to which we turn for our prayers, to which we look for the
Final Curtain: There comes the Angel with the seal of the living God,
the marking device, the branding iron, the designer logo, whereby the
genuine article will be designated, which preserves the servants of God
through the day of visitation. The angel of the East warns the
judgment angels from the four corners of the earth to hold up and hold on
and not to start the overture for the last act until all have been
"sealed" in our foreheads. All of us--all 144,000 -- twelve times
twelve times a thousand, a symbol of a multitude no one can number.
These are they, says the Angel, who have come out of the great
tribulation. Not for fame, but for having come through the time of
trouble. And because of us all the whole company of heaven falls on
their faces before the throne of God, with an Amen like all the Ummah of
the earth come to Mecca.
In John's ecstasy he saw the vision, all the saints before the throne, in
their burkahs and dishdashas and choir roes and albs, with palms of
victory in their hands, and one of the priests asked him "what are these
which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?" And John says,
"You know who they are."
GRANT GALLUP
Apartado RP-10
CASA AVE MARIA
Managua, Nicaragua C.A.
Tel. 011-505-2662165
gallup@tmx.com.ni
GRITS 3rd series now on-line:
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits
(1) From Theology and Reality: Essays in Restatement, by W. Norman
Pittenger. Greenwich, CT. Seabury Press. 1955.
(2) From The Hymnal 1940
(3) From Delicious Laughter: Rambunctious Teaching Stories from the
Mathnawi, versions by Coleman Barks. Maypop Books 1990