The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 32, Year A

Remembering

Readings: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; Psalm 78:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

The Israelites after years of wandering in the desert were settling into life in the Promised Land. Life was good. It was easy to forget the struggle that had brought them there. So Joshua did a very wise thing. He assembled the people. He reminded them of the gracious acts of God toward them throughout their history. He reminded them of Abraham’s relationship to God and of the covenant that God had made with the people. They remembered the time of slavery in Egypt. They remembered God’s faithfulness to them in the wilderness. It was a reminder to put away the foreign gods, the false gods, that had arisen among the people and to turn back to God. It was a reminder that they could not follow the crowd and still be God’s chosen people.

Paul is speaking to the Thessalonians who are grieving for loved ones who have died before the return of the Lord. He calls on them to remember that we all live between the life of Jesus and the coming of Christ, and that all of creation will, with the coming of God’s realm, belong once again to God.

And there is the parable that Jesus told. Five foolish bridesmaids took their lamps with them to the wedding, but didn’t bring any oil. Five wise bridesmaids on the other hand came prepared with enough oil for any contingency. The bridegroom was late in arriving. The wise bridesmaids were able to trim their lamps and meet the bridegroom. The foolish ones asked for oil from the wise ones. Their request was met by refusal. It does seem rather mean-spirited that those who brought oil did not simply share what they had, but the point of the story is that we are to be ready to serve God wherever and whenever God appears. Once again, it points out to us a choice we must make between the way the world lives and the way our Christian faith calls us to live. It calls us to remember how God has been with us in the past, and how God will continue to be with us.

Remembering is so important to us as humans. Whether it is a story of love, of tragedy, of faithfulness, of generosity, our human story needs to be remembered. Something forgotten does not function any more in our conscious life. It plays no conscious role in our decision-making. If it appears to us in a dream it is not understood. It goes over our heads. The tragedy of life is that everything can be forgotten. This Remembrance Sunday calls us to remember so that war will end and peace will prevail.

I have to admit to having some difficulty around Remembrance Day. I am at heart a pacifist. So when it comes to this celebration I am reminded about the tragedy of war, the loss of life, the inhumanity. I consider how we have glorified war. I consider how all sides in war have asserted, “God is on my side,” And I know that the truth is that God weeps for all of God’s children. I look back at the person closest to me who was in the military. He was my uncle, a medical doctor who rose to the rank of Brigadier General, whose whole career was in the military, but who never bore arms. He served on the Italian front in the Second World War and in Korea where he ran mobile units. I remember him recounting his stories to us when he returned from Korea. What stands out in my mind is that he considered that the bravest soldiers who served in the army were the conscientious objectors who refused to bear arms, but went onto the battlefields to carry the wounded back to military hospitals. And so, yes, I hate war, but not the soldiers who believed in their cause. I hate the cost to human life, not just in loss of life, but also in the unseen costs. We hear of veterans who come back from war suffering from Post Traumatic Stress, and I know how much they need our compassion and care. I see the events we have experienced over the last few weeks, as misguided individuals act out their hostilities on the military. And once again, I know that God weeps. And I am convinced that we need to remember. We need to remember so that it does not happen again.

Remembrance Day can be a meaningless ritual, which we continue to observe out of some sense of duty to people who are for most of us nameless individuals. Yet they died in a cause, which has benefitted us. What of the society they helped to form? As we ponder the events of the past few weeks, as we face the fact that we have moved from a country largely untouched by terrorism into one that knows the sorrow of senselessly losing young soldiers, as we begin to awaken to how quickly our peaceful society can be torn apart, let us consider how it has changed our sense of peace and well-being.

Pacifist though I will always be, I find what moves me most on Remembrance Day is something so familiar that I would have thought it would become trite. And yet, it never does. It is the poem, “In Flanders Fields”. I can recite every word of that poem. I memorized it back in grade school, complete with every nuance. Then I spent many years as a teacher preparing classes to recite it at assemblies. And yet pondering on the familiar words, I find myself reflecting on it in a new way, hearing things I have never heard before. At this stage in my life, it has less to do with the task of completing the unfinished work of those who died, of taking up the torch; rather it makes me consider just what has been taken away through war. What greatness has been lost over the centuries? What greatness did Canada lose through the death of Corporal Cirillo? We can never know. So I believe the greatest memorial we could possibly offer is in the continued struggle for peace and justice everywhere and for all people.

So let us remember. There is a sense as we gather on this Remembrance Sunday, of a kind of passing of the torch, a passing of the collective memories, of those successes and failures of the previous generations. What we may forget is that when you are the one carrying the torch, you can easily be burned. When you are the one standing alone torch in hand, there is nothing brighter. But that too can be a terrifying realization.

As we remember, we may feel a sense of grief and loss. But above all, I pray that we feel a sense of faith, a sense of hope. Faith that God gives us, faith in the promises that God makes, hope with the allaying of our fears, the uplifting of our hopes, the forgiveness of our anger, the strengthening of our faith.

As generations pass and we come closer and closer ourselves to being the older generation, the responsibility falls more and more to us. Finally it is ours completely. There is no one else to blame for the human condition. We alone bear the responsibility.

That is the time to remember that the kingdom of God does not come overnight into our lives or relationships or societies. We need to live out a sustained, lasting faith. We do not need some sudden outburst of ecstatic spirituality. We need something that will go the whole distance. We need a “for better or for worse” spirituality that will sustain us through difficult times. We need the wisdom to prepare, to have enough oil in our lamps to keep the flame alight. Let us remember that we are called to live each day in expectation of the approach of God. Let us remember to have peace in our hearts and to keep fanning the flame.

24th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, Proper 32

Remembering

Readings: Haggai 1:15b-2:9; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38
 
An Indian Chief named Crowfoot once proclaimed most eloquently, "A little while and I will be gone from among you, whither I cannot tell.  From nowhere we come, into nowhere we go.  What is life?  It is a flash of a firefly in the night.  It is a breath of buffalo in the wintertime.  It is a little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." 
 
Those are the words of one who has pondered the meaning of life, one who has reflected on his sense of mortality and faced it with wonder and hope.  He sees death as an extension of life.  Is he not reflecting on a question that we all think about? "What happens after death?"  We all think about it, but most of us don’t talk about it.  In fact, we avoid talking about it.  We don’t even use the word.  We say that someone has passed over, or passed away, or my personal favourite, ‘shuffled off this mortal coil’. 
 
One thing is certain, as we travel through life, we are all confronted with the inevitability of death.  We must all face it, difficult as it may be to look at.  We fear what is beyond our experience.  A friend of mine once described it to me this way.  "It is like looking at the sun.  You look and then you look away."  It causes us to question.  It makes us uneasy and fearful.  We don't like to talk about it, even, or especially when we know someone is dying.  And yet I think perhaps the most tragically lonely way to die must be when one is unable to talk about the experience because there is no one ready to listen.  
 
I experienced that with my father when he was dying.  He shared with me that no one would talk about what he was experiencing.  I said that I would.  We began to talk about the whole process of dying.  Just then my sister, a nurse by profession, entered the room.  She immediately changed the subject.  He said to me, “See! I told you.”  I let him know that our conversation wasn’t over.  It was some of the best sharing I ever had with him. 
 
As we celebrate the Feast of All Soul's and Remembrance Sunday, that question about what happens after death comes to the forefront.  What we really want to know is what is life all about?  What has happened to those I love who have gone before?  How can I walk in paths that lead to life, now and eternally?  What is my place in the whole scheme of things?  Such questions are important, in fact, basic to our existence.  It is probably the most universal question known to humanity.  People of all ages and in every culture ask it.  If you question whether or not it is relevant to the average person, you need only consider the number of books that have been written about near death experience and about the afterlife. 
 
It is a universal question because death touches each one of us.  How is it possible to wipe away our first childhood experience of death?  How can we forget when it invades our family circle taking away one we love?  As we approach Remembrance Day, how can we forget the obscenity of war with the death and destruction it causes? I find it especially poignant as we hear of more and more casualities of the war in Afghanistan. We have a whole new generation of Veterans to remind us of those who have died serving their country.  
 
The questions arise from the uncertainty of the world in which we live, a world where war and violence still exist, where people die unnecessarily.  But I wonder if the real questions are the deeper existential issues, the issues with which philosophers have grappled throughout the ages.  "Why are we here?"  "What is life all about?"  "Is there purpose to our existence?"  Hopefully an underlying concern is "How should I live my life?"  Many want to have reassurance.  "I'm not certain I can buy into this religious stuff,” they seem to be saying, “but ... just the same, I want to cover all the bases.  How can I make sure about what is to come?  That I'm in on it?"  This is all part of what we are doing today as we remember those dear to us who have died and as we remember those who have died in war.  I see it reflected in the readings for today. 
 
The exiles returning from Babylon certainly questioned their existence.  They come back to find total destruction; Jerusalem has been turned to rubble.  They begin the task of rebuilding the city.  Yet it is a city that most of them have never seen before.  They have lived their whole lives in exile, dreaming for the day they would be ‘home’ yet knowing nothing of that place.  They have no memory of its former glory.   Not only that, it is a period of terrible drought.  Money and resources are in short supply.  The constant barrage from enemies hampers progress.  They question their very existence.  The job grinds to a halt.  Through it all, the prophet Haggai maintains his sense of vision of what is possible if they trust God.  He assures them that they are not alone, that God is with them as they persevere.  Of course, his prophecy did come true.  The temple in Jerusalem was restored even beyond its former glory.  It became a true memorial to those who were not able to return. 
 
Paul has a similar situation with the people of Thessalonica.  Life has been difficult for them.  It is not a temple that they need to build, but a community of faith.  Rumours about the end times abound. Such rumours are always frightening.  They cause us to examine the fragility of our lives.  They remind us that death comes to all of us.  For these early Christians there is always a sense of hope, for they have been taught that before the end times come, Jesus will return. The hope keeps coming to them that they will be spared death through some special intervention; Christ will return during their lifetime.  They look for miracles.  They look for an end to the misery and hardship around them.  Yet time passes.  Hope begins to dwindle; the rumours become more prevalent.  Paul reminds them that God has chosen them, that they are part of God's purpose.  It is a reassurance and also a challenge as they come to terms with their part in God's plan of salvation.   
 
The Gospel begins with an argument about the resurrection.  Although the intention of the Sadducees is to entrap Jesus, concern with the afterlife is certainly behind their question.  They did not believe in the resurrection.  If you don't believe that there is anything to look forward to after this life, then those deep concerns about what does happen become even greater.  And so they ask that convoluted question about whose wife the woman will be in the afterlife.  Despite its underlying agenda, Jesus answers it in a very pastoral way.  What he says in effect is that all life consists in friendship with God.  Nothing less is worthy of the name of life.  Death in no way severs that relationship.  It merely puts an end to physical existence.  Relationship is eternal.  People may lose their friend by death, but not God.  It ends with a wonderful affirmation. 
 
“He is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” What reassuring words those are! Christ involves himself in human life.  He offers an eternal quality of life, not a quality that begins after death, but one that carries us through all of life.  It begins when we look at life through our Lord’s eyes, when we try to reflect in our lives what we see in his, when we see how his birth, life, death and resurrection offer us a lens through which we come to see meaning in our human experience. 
 
Today we remember those who have died, but are alive in Christ.  We celebrate their lives of faith.  We remember everything in which they were great.  I invite you if you have not already done so to prayerfully light a candle as a memorial for those who have died having touched your life.  On this Remembrance Sunday let us lift up also those who died in the great wars and those who continue to die in service to their country.  Let it be more than just words.  Let us be mindful of our need to be advocates for peace and justice everywhere and for all people.