Sermon for Sunday, November 7, 2004  

REMEMBERING THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE US

by

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture: Psalm 90:1-6, 12 - Good News Bible Translation

¹ O Lord, you have always been our home. ² Before you created the hills or brought the world into being, you were eternally God, and will be God forever. ³ You tell us to return to what we were; you change us back to dust. ⁴ A thousand years to you are like one day; they are like yesterday, already gone, like a short hour in the night. ⁵ You carry us away like a flood; we last no longer than a dream. We are like weeds that sprout in the morning, ⁶ that grow and burst into bloom, then dry up and die in the evening.

¹² Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.

Last Monday was the official day called All Saints Day in the church year; it is called the day of the dead in Hispanic culture. It is the time when we honor those who have passed from this life to the next, and it has become a very important day in our congregational life each year.

When the church called it All Saints Day, the word saint did not mean someone who was perfect and flawless. In the New Testament, the saints are just the church members, the people in the congregation who have given themselves to be instruments and servants of God.

One small boy in another church during this week of All Saints Day was sitting up front for the children’s sermon when the minister asked what a saint is. The child, thinking about the pictures of church leaders depicted in the stained glass windows, said, “I know what a saint is. A saint is a person whom the light shines through.”

Today we are remembering some people who have been important in our lives, people whom God’s light was shining through to us.

We are giving thanks for them, and we will express our thanks as we name them and remember them even through our tears. We are saying here that God understands our tears and that God understands our grief and sadness in losing them. And we are saying that our church is a place we can bring all of our feelings, even our tears.

Ken Medema has a profound song about this, about the kind of place each church needs to be, and we probably ought to have these words very visible on a wall in our new building: “If this is not a place where my spirit can take wing, where can I go to fly?  If this is not a place where my questions can be asked, where can I go to seek? And if this is not a place where my heart cries can be heard, where can I go to speak?” 

The first line in his song, however, is this: if this is not a place where tears are understood, where can I go to cry?

We can share all of our feelings in this place, even our tears, and we remind ourselves today in this service, that it takes us time to grieve the loss of someone close – a couple of years for a loved one who is close, and we remind ourselves not to rush through the grief and to take the time we need.

Secondly, today we are remembering and thanking God for the gifts and strengths and good examples of those who have gone before us – not only the ones whose pictures we will see, but others who may have been deceased for a while and we are still aware of our debt to them. We stand on their shoulders. They have contributed to who we are able to be today.

I remember a story from 20 years ago in Colorado Springs of a man who was very successful in his business and who felt very self-centered as the Thanksgiving holiday approached. He told a friend, “Why should I feel thankful to anyone? I have earned and deserved everything I have. I am a self-made man.”

Today’s service reminds us that we owe a great deal to people who have loved us, who have befriended us, who have helped us be who we are. We remind ourselves that we all stand on the shoulders of others and we will name them aloud and in our hearts and give thanks for their lives.

Thirdly, we remember again today how fragile life is, how temporary life is, how each of us has a beginning and an end, and how we are to enjoy and embrace and seize each and every day because we do not have all the time in the world, all the time that we think we have. The psalmist said it well for us: God, you are eternal and, compared to you, we are like plants that are here for a while and then gone.

And the psalmist ends our reading telling us to so number our days, to value and cherish our days, so that we may become wiser, for we are only wise when we remember that we have come from dust and will return someday to dust and that life on this earth is a gift to us only for a while.

We also celebrate today the communion of saints as we remember these friends and loved ones. We believe that they are still with us in powerful ways – that they are not only with God but also still with us in their good influence. Someone said, “Death may end a life but it does not end a relationship.” So my relationship with my mother and father, though they have been deceased for many years, is still true and present in my life.  I felt that in new ways with my father as our family was in his birthplace island in Greece a few months ago and I thought about his life and his example. Your relationship with your loved one goes on even though their life in this realm may have ended.

Finally in this All Saints Day service we commend the lives of these persons back to God. We thank God for them and we give them back to God for God’s eternal care.

Tom Lynch is a funeral director in Michigan and is also an eloquent writer. He learned the funeral business from his own father. He tells in his book about how his father, after preparing the body of a townsperson would speak to the deceased person as he was about to close their casket. He would say things like this to the town grocer: “Norman, my friend, you did a good job.”

This is something like what Christ also says to these whom we remember today: Well-done, good and faithful servant. Enter now into the kingdom that God has prepared for you since the beginning of time. Amen.

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