Matthew 5: 1-12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Say the name, toll the bell, light the candle. It may seem like a strange tradition, at least from the outside. But the church has been celebrating this day, in some way or another, for over 1700 years. Meta Herrick Carlson writes movingly about this day in her book Speak it Plain and I share her words, call it a prayer or poem, with you this morning.

She writes,

“I listen for it tolling from steeples in the sky. The bells stir the air between here and heartache. For a moment, the mystery satisfies, and we are all together.

I hang onto memories and promises with my fingernails just barely - not because I am certain, but because it is all that’s left. Because if I let go, I will fall and break apart.

Perhaps, someone will speak of my Beloved today and then I will not be so alone. Hearing the name aloud makes it real, shares the weight like a new song I think I’ve always known.

There are candles to light, the quiet resistance of remembering.”

It is comforting to hear something so accurately describe what or how you feel. Carlson does that for me with her description of mourning: it’s sad like heartache, it's a heaviness that weighs on you until tears or tiredness take over; its the griping of memory for dear life, its a loneliness we can’t quite shake.

Yet Jesus says blessed are those who mourn. That’s the thing about a beatitude… it's contrary to what we think its going to say or should say. Blessed are those who mourn is not what we expected.

Mourning doesn’t feel like a blessing. You don’t need me to tell you that. You have lost a loved one before, maybe it was this year or the last or 20 years ago; regardless of when, the mourning is still there. We all mourn but we might not all mourn the same. Maybe you’ve been on the receiving end, hopefully not here, of someone saying “its been x number of years, don’t you think its time for closure?” But that's not really how it works is it? The feeling of loss may not ever leave.

Today though is about the promise of comfort Jesus talks of. Today is a day set aside to speak about your beloved, to remember them, and by doing so, receive a little bit of comfort in the midst of mourning. Remembering may seem insignificant, a way of living in the past and not present in the hear and now.

Frederick Buechner says there are two kinds of remembering. “One way is to make an excursion from the living present back into the dead past.” Like a longing to live in the days already gone.“The other way is to summon the dead past back into the living present. The young widow remembers her husband, and he is there beside her.”

That’s the kind of remembering Jesus had in mind when seated at the last supper, he said to his disciples and to all of us, do this in remembrance of me. In our remembrance of that night, of that meal, Jesus and all the company of heaven, all those we have lost, including your beloved, are right beside you at this meal.

That’s the kind of remembering we are doing today when we say their names, ring the bell, and light the candles. So often we don’t ask about someone else’s beloved, the people or person they’ve lost because we think it’ll make them upset, that it will draw back unwanted memories, that it's salt in a still healing wound. But here, in this community, on this day, to speak the name is not salt but a soothing salve. Because when you say to someone, tell me about your beloved, and a story is shared, we who mourn are less alone. When you say, I remember when they did that or when they said this, you help the weight of grief be shared with another set of shoulders.

“Perhaps, someone will speak of my Beloved today and then I will not be so alone.”

That’s one of the reasons I find funerals so moving. This may sound morbid, but I don’t intend for it to. Some of the most formative, insightful, grace-filled moments in my first year here at Cross of Grace have been the funerals and memorials. I never met Jim Smith, or Chuck Hershberger or Janis Janelsons. And I met with Bev Bancroft and Mike McCoy too few times. I did not have the pleasure to know them as many of you did. Yet, leading up to and at their funerals, I heard many stories and memories, about when they were a child or a young adult, about what led them here and what they did for work, what and who they were proud of.

It gave me a fuller picture of not only that person, but of those who loved them and a deeper understanding of this community. On those days we are unafraid to speak their names and share their stories. And those gathered were comforted.

That's the promise; blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Of all the beatitudes, this is one where you can make that promise happen, here and now.

You can help give someone else that comfort, if even for a moment, simply by speaking of their beloved.

So today ask someone else about their beloved. Invite someone to share that memory they are holding onto with just their fingertips, and share the weight of mourning. Even better, make this a practice throughout the holiday season. It may seem early to talk about the holidays, but don’t act like some of you don’t already have your Christmas decorations out. You know who you are (we do too).

In this season the weight and loneliness can feel acute and overbearing, but you can be the promised comfort Jesus speaks of to someone else. In doing so you too will get a fuller picture not only of that person, but of those who loved them. And if that sounds like you receive a lot of joy in being that comfort for someone else, consider being a Stephen minister. If you need that comfort, consider getting a Stephen Minister, thats what they do!

And while that comfort may only be temporary, today is also about holding on to the promise that one day, we will receive the full comfort of being reunited with all our beloved ones, forevermore. As Meta wrote, our quiet resistance to death is remembering. But Jesus’ quiet resistance was his work on the cross, where, as the spiritual reminds us, he never said a mumblin word. And it’s through his work that we are forgiven and the promise to be with God and loved one’s is made ours.

Receive that promise as a gift this morning. That your beloved is a saint, not because they lived a nearly perfect life, but because as Luther liked to say they are a forgiven sinner. In our tradition that’s what makes a saint, and we can trust that all saints now rest with God and one day so will you. That too is the promise of comfort Christ makes to us in this beatitude.

Today is not simply saying the name, tolling the bells and lighting the candles. It’s much more than that. It’s holding on to our memories, to our beloved, and to Christ’s promise with all we have, if even by the tips of our fingers. It is the practice of quiet resistance to death and all that separates us from God and one another.

So I invite you to practice the quiet resistance of remembering. Who is your beloved? As we sing our hymn of the day, come light a candle for them, remember them, and be comforted by the promise that you, dear saint, will be with them once again.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

John 11:32-44

When Mary came to Jesus and saw him she said to him, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the other Jews with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said to them, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone lying against it. Jesus said to them, “Take away the stone.” But Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone.

And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I’ve said this for the sake of those standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

A few years ago, I preached one of my favorite sermons on All Saints Sunday. It was for my friend, Peggy. Peggy had died over the summer, some of you might remember, and though she was a dear friend of our family’s, we didn’t find out about her death until a few weeks after the fact, when one of the sermons I mailed her every Monday, was “Returned to Sender.” Peggy lived alone. Her mother and sister had both died already. She had given a child up for adoption years before. And so on and so on. The short of the long is she didn’t want a funeral for lots of reasons. So on that All Saints Sunday after learning of Peggy’s death, I preached a funeral sermon for a funeral that never was.

Many of you know Cross of Grace added a new saint to our list just two weeks ago. Don Campbell died alone in his home on October 20th. Like Peggy, Don was without parents or children to celebrate his life on this side of heaven. His lovely wife of 58 years, Charlotte, died about 5 years ago. Like Peggy, Don was very clear about not wanting a funeral service of any kind. I’m not sure about all of his reasons, but I wasn’t surprised by that news. Don was as frugal as he was humble and unassuming. So I’m guessing he just didn’t want to spend the money or receive the attention a typical funeral service requires or assumes.

And I don’t mean to make a habit of this – preaching funeral sermons for or about those who don’t want funeral services, I mean – but since we were all going to gather anyway, and since I would have had to preach something this morning, I don’t think Don would mind. And, more importantly, I think there’s something to learn about “all the saints” thanks to the life and likes of Don Campbell, on this All Saints Sunday.

You might not know it – and I wouldn’t have guessed it – but Don served in the US Army during the Korean War as a staff sergeant in Psychological Warfare. How cool is that?

One of his greatest joys in recent years was the trip he took as part of one of those Honor Flights, to Washington D.C., to visit the memorials there for military veterans.

Don was a CPA who served the state of Indiana, private clients, larger firms and hospitals. And he used all of that wisdom, experience, and expertise, to volunteer for a variety of the Lutheran churches he and Charlotte were a part of over the years, too.

Don worshiped with us every week at Cross of Grace. He sat in the back – right about “there,” most of the time. And, even though he was 90 years old, he gladly learned to join us for worship, online, via Zoom and YouTube, without complaint when the COVID-19 pandemic demanded we keep our distance.

In addition to learning that new technology, Don wasn’t afraid to make new friends, either. Not only did he follow many of his pals from Greenfield to this new congregation at Cross of Grace several years ago, but he was charmed by the Blachly family and he became buddies with Linda Duff, too, after joining our ranks. Joining new churches and making new friends isn’t nothing when you’re 90 years old, I’m guessing.

And, of course, there was Charlotte. I visited her often in the nursing home over in Greenfield before she died. She was in the Alzheimer’s unit there. And I can’t think of a time when I showed up, unannounced, that I didn’t see Don already there, too. Sitting with her. Reading the paper. Helping her eat. Or just asleep in a chair. He was a steadfast, patient, loving presence for her, even though she didn’t remember who he was or why he was there a lot of the time.

So, cheers to Don Campbell, our most recently minted “saint” on this All Saints Sunday.

We talked about “saints” and “sinners” last Sunday in our Faith Formation class, with the Junior High kids… about that very Lutheran/Reformation notion that we are – each of us – at the same time on any given day, both “saint” and “sinner.” (“Simul Justus et Peccator,” for those who remember the Latin or who had stricter Lutheran Confirmation teachers than me.) It means we’re both broken and redeemed. Both sinful and forgiven. Both lost and found. Both dead to our sin and promised new life again, in spite of it.

And as part of that discussion with the kids, I rattled off the names of some saints – the ones who’ve garnered some notoriety over the years, who have festival days named and claimed for them in the life of the Church, and whatnot – people like St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa – or St. Joseph who some believe is great for real estate sales.

But the thing about Luther’s understanding about “saints” and “sinners” is the holy reminder that we all are … each of us is … a saint in the eyes and by the grace of God. And we are “saints” in the eyes of God, precisely because we were created in love and created for love and created by the love of our Creator.

Don Campbell was and is a saint, not because he served our country, or because he volunteered in the Church, or because he loved his wife well. Don was – and is – a saint because the love and grace and mercy of God created him as such and declared him to be so, in baptism. And Don lived a saintly life in response to the truth and promise of that Good News.

Likewise, we are, each of us, “saints,” not because we gathered for worship this morning, or because we did a good deed yesterday, or because we voted this way or that, gave this much money to so many churches or charities, or whatever. We are – and will be – saints, you and I, in the eyes of God because God wants it to be so. And we are called to live our lives in righteous, faithful, saintly ways on this side of the grave, until we realize the fullness of God’s promised grace on the other side of heaven – whatever and wherever and however that comes to pass, I don’t pretend to know the details of that.

When I think about Don Campbell, and my friend Peggy, and every one of those “saints” whose names we spoke just moments ago… (take a minute to be mindful, again, of the saints who have blessed your own life and times) …those faces as you remember them… those lives for which we are grateful.

And give thanks for their memory, for the blessings they shared with this world, for the source of the love they were and are, and for the way that love surrounds us, still, and calls us to live with joy and hope, with purpose and peace, in their honor, for their sake, and in the name of Jesus, who does for us what he did for Martha and the crowd outside of Lazarus’ tomb: he calls us to believe in this kind of surprising, unmitigated, amazing grace. And he promises that we will see the glory of God – on this side of heaven and the next – when we do.

Amen

Comfort for the Mourning

For All the Saints and Don Campbell