Weep no More

AllSaints’SundayC, Sullivan Park Care Center, November 3, 2013

                “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”

I begin this sermon with the words of Yentl as sung by Barbra Streisand.  This movie is about a young woman who is caring for her elderly father.  Her father teaches her with the books that a Jewish father would use to teach his son, not his daughter.  She falls in love with the scriptures and the instruction from her father to such an extent that she wants to become a rabbi.  Her father dies. The only problem is this: she cannot become a rabbi, because she is female and no females in Europe are allowed to become a rabbi.  Her solution is to cut off her long hair and dress as a man and run away from the village to school where men become rabbis.  This is the song of grief she sings in the woods. Our Heavenly Father, O God, and my father, who’s also in heaven, May the light of this flickering candle illuminate the night the way your spirit illuminates my soul. Papa, can you hear me? Papa, can you see me? Papa, can you find me in the night? Papa, are you near me? Papa, can you hear me? Papa, can you help me not be frightened?
Looking at the skies I seem to see a million eyes: which ones are yours? Where are you now that yesterday has waved goodbye and closed its doors? The night is so much darker. The wind is so much colder. The world I see is so much bigger now that I'm alone.
Papa, please forgive me. Try to understand me.
Papa, don't you know I had no choice? Can you hear me praying,
anything I'm saying, even though the night is filled with voices?
I remember everything you taught me, every book I've ever read. Can all the words in all the books help me to face what lies ahead? The trees are so much taller and I feel so much smaller. The moon is twice as lonely and the stars are half as bright.
Papa, how I love you. Papa, how I need you. Papa, how I miss you kissing me goodnight.

          These words belong to a spirituality that I had not previously considered. I don’t know if she is addressing God, her own father, or both.  Is her own father fused somehow into God? What happens to those whom we love in this world?  In one of our discussions, our deacon made the point, simply stated, “…we don’t know.  We die, and then, poof!  We really don’t know what happens.”  However, the fact that we don’t know has certainly not stopped the speculation over the years.  In fact, Paul himself claims to have been caught up into heaven.  It sounds nice, but it is hardly the proof that our scientific minds can wrap themselves around. A priest I know tells us that he talks to his father every day.  But I think that for most of us, we believe something somewhere in between.  I think of the story of the rich man and Lazarus and that is pretty much my belief.  I believe there is a chasm between the living and the dead.  I also believe that when we are grieving, we are in a different state of mind to where our minds may be open to suggestions that may or may not be true in reality.  Each Sunday, I recite the Nicene Creed in which I state that I believe in the communion of saints. I listen to the Eucharistic prayer where the presiding priest says, “And therefore we praise you, joining with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and with all those in every generation who have looked to you in hope…”

          Christians have long believed that there is intercommunion of the living and the dead.  They have believed that those who have professed the faith in the past continue to live in God and near God.  The Church has made a distinction between saints in the colors on the altar.  The commemoration color of the saints is either white or red.  Red is reserved for those who were martyred for their faith.  The Church decides through various criteria and procedures who is a saint and who is not.  Some saints are local and some are remembered worldwide. These are the identified saints which we recognize on All Saints’ Day November 1 or on the designated transfer of All Saints’ Day on this, the following Sunday.  Everyone else, like our grandfathers, is relegated to the day after All Saints’ and it is called All Souls Day.

          Except the Protestants came along and decided that they would side with Paul who said that basically we are all saints and sinners simultaneously.  We are all living into the grace of God in Jesus Christ by virtue of our baptisms and the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives who perfects us in that grace, transforming us day by day to be the people of God we are called to be.  If there is just one thing that I believe Paul got right, it is this: we may strive all we want in this world to be like Jesus, but we continue to struggle with sin.  Sin is ever before us in what we say, do and think. We really and truly are dependent on God’s gracious gift of life.

          Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.  Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem.  Peter wept when he realized he denied being a follower of Jesus three times. Jesus understands fully about humanity.  He understands that deep, grieving sorrow about someone we loved in life who died.  Only a person who has loved much will grieve much. As healthcare workers, we are not allowed to show such emotion.  We are taught to insulate ourselves from such emotional involvement.  We are not allowed to have favorites.  There are consequences if we do.  My sister-in-law once told me that the reason she does not make a good veterinarian is that she wants to take all the pets home with her!  Jesus did not insulate himself, but became immersed in humanity. Jesus wept over the death of his friend, Lazarus, brother of Martha and Mary. Jesus grieved in much the same way as either you or I. Jesus’ grief was borne out of love for us, those of us left here on earth who daily struggle to make sense out of a world that frequently does not. He demonstrated for us what it meant to love others with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, yet when we try that, it is ever so hard to let go.

          When we are in the midst of grief, we are looking only at death.  We cannot see beyond our grief.  We mourn our loss and, like Yentl, we feel lost and alone in that grief.  We cry to God and each other, but the pain persists.  The pain of that abandonment remains like that of an open, infected sore that won’t heal.  Our crying seems to go nowhere but into an empty vacuum.  Just where are those who would have helped us and guided us, who cheered us on in this life, those whom we still love and cherish?  We remember those who are gone from our lives by death sometimes like it was just yesterday when they parted.  Where are they now?  Luke has little to say on this subject.  He says only, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”  He doesn’t tell us specifics in a way that we might hope for.  He tells us only what he has been saying in his gospel all along: your status will be reversed when you live into God’s kingdom. Those who laugh at you and mock you for your belief in Jesus now, will mourn and weep. God will turn everything upside down.  This is the point of it all in Luke: what you see now will become the opposite.  There is a power in Jesus that is way beyond what anyone had seen before.  We are told in the verse just preceding this one, “And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”

          Hang on, dear little ones who are mocked by those who do not believe in Jesus, for your life in Jesus gives you the power to overcome even the deepest grief you could possibly imagine.  And do not fear your own death, for Jesus has gone before you and led the way.  He who also knew the agony of aloneness and abandonment on the cross has gone to prepare a place for you, you who have loved much and grieve much.  God knows your pain and your sorrow as you bid goodbye to those you loved in this life. God remains forever with open arms to welcome you home where you shall weep no more.