The Sunday after All Saints' Day-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

The Sunday after All Saints’ Day

The Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg

November 5, 2023

 

    Today, the church is given the option to transfer our observance of All Saints’ Day to the Sunday following, which we are doing.  We’ll renew our baptismal vows, because this is one of those Sundays the BCP says are especially appropriate for baptism.  We’ll remember the saints and the faithful departed who have influenced our lives or faith.  And we’ll name those members of this portion of the body of Christ who have died in the last year in the Eucharistic prayer.  Plus, there’s the beatitudes for our gospel—what is known in Matthew’s gospel as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  It’s a lot of different threads to knit together. 

        A couple of weeks ago, one of our Wednesday congregation reference the beatitudes in her comments for that week, and she said something like, “The beatitudes are the path of our becoming.”  (I’ve carried that around with me in my soul, occasionally rubbing my fingers over it like one of those polished rocks with messages on them that you can carry around in your pocket.)  The beatitudes are the path of our becoming. 

        It reminds me of a saying that we learned about baptism back in my seminary days.  That is “baptism is becoming who you already are.”  Baptism is becoming who you already are. 

        We are all of us on this path of becoming together--created by God to be the best version of ourselves.  But sometimes the world trips us up.  Sometimes we trip over our own feet. The saints are those who walked before us or walk alongside us and inspire us in the different ways that they have grown into their belovedness, in how they continue to become better versions of themselves through their relationship with God. 

        If the beatitudes are the path of our becoming, then what might they have to teach us about how God is calling us to deepen in our faith, to grow further into who God has created us to be? 

(And who has God created us to be?  Each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, created as an outpouring of God’s love and made to share that love with others.  You were made in the image and likeness of God.  You were created as an outpouring of God’s love, and you were made to share that love with others.)

        One way that the beatitudes can be translated that may help us unlock the invitation of these so familiar words is to read them as “you are on the right path…”  You are on the right path if you mourn, for you will be comforted.  You are on the right path if you hunger and thirst for righteousness for you will be filled.  You are on the right path if you are merciful, for you will receive mercy.  You get the picture.

        And what if we expanded on what these simple, complex words and ideas capture to try to make them a bit more tangible by writing our own in keeping with the spirit of what Jesus is teaching?

        You are on the right path if

you allow your heart to break wide open at the news   

of the world and refuse to let it harden back

 for you will find compassion there.

        You are on the right path if

               you don’t allow pain to unmake who you are

                       holding onto the best of yourself

                              for you will find respite.

You are on the right path if you question

               for you will invite

(and find) meaning.

 

        You are on the right path if

               you decide that if you will err, you will err

                       toward mercy

                              for you will find mercy in the erring.

        You are on the right path if

               you stay in touch with your gratitude

even when you are suffering

        for you will find joy.

        You are on the right path if

               you look for peace and lift it up around you

                       for you will embody peace.

        We’re going to take some time today to contemplate, and I’m going to give you two options on how to think about this.  The first option is to continue contemplating this path of becoming that Jesus lays out for us in the beatitudes.  What words in the beatitudes capture your attention today?  Where might God be inviting you to deepen in your becoming in this moment on your path of faith?  

        Or, you can think about the path of becoming that you have witnessed in one of the saints of the church or in someone whom you love who has entered the communion of the saints or it can even be one of God’s faithful saints who live and walk among us now.  What has their path of becoming taught you about the life of faith?  How might you be called to emulate that on your own path of faith?