All Saints' Day and the Electrician

All Saints' Day
BCP Service II

The Lectionary

Homiliy:

I could talk about a lot of people today - very holy women and men who did great things. But today I want to talk about a holy electrician who taught me about the Communion of Saints.

A year ago, my cousin Bernie died. Well, actually, Bernie wasn't my cousin; his wife is my cousin. But in our family, after an arbitrary number of years, the "by marriage" label dissolves and the person magically becomes blood family. So much so that the family tends to side with the "by marriage" partner in disagreements. It's funny how some families function, you know?

As we approached All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, I thought of Bernie a lot. He certainly qualifies for sainthood:  He put up with my cousin for more than 50 years; he was an absolutely stellar parent to three children living in mental darkness as our former Book of Common Prayer used to phrase it; he was an ardent supporter of our parish for 68 years' he was honest and upright at all times. But all of that isn't why I've been thinking of him so much.

I've been thinking of Bernie because of the experience of the Viaticuum.

Our former rector was asked to come when Bernie's wife, and sister thought "it" was getting close. He is having some problems with his memory but he managed to do a proper liturgy for Bernie. But, at the time of Holy Communion he added something. (You need to know that Father is of African ancestry and there is more than just a little Baptist in him.) Before he placed the Body of Christ on Bernie's tongue and spoke the works we all know, he added, with a voice and 'authority' I had not heard him use before:

Bernie, my brother, the next time we all do this with you we're goin' to be doin' it in heaven with Jesus.

It wasn't a comment, it was a fait accompli. That is the moment I a actually realized Bernie really was going to die. But it was also the moment I fully understood what the Communion of Saints really is: mystic, sweet fellowship and connection with those whose rest is won.

I stayed with  his wife and his sister for several more hours and then I went home. I somehow new Bernie didn't want me there when the chariot came.

But before I left, I had the opportunity to thank Bernie for being such a good husband to Zela and a a good father to his children. And, for loving me when I was pretty unlovable. And I told him I was glad he was my cousin and my brother in the Lord.

What I should have thanked him for was teaching me what "The Communion of Saints" means.

As we approach All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, I sing, "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God..." but I add one wee bit, "and one was an electrician named Bernie who taught me more in his death than he did by his 'good life long'."

O blest communion, fellowship divine!

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

Pentecost XXIII

The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 26

The Lectionary

Homily:

Hookworm. Largely eradicated in the U.S. for nearly a century, these tiny parasites are one of the leading causes of maternal and child mortality in the tropics and subtropics. Debilitating the immune system, they are a known cause of anemia, and hookworm infections can make the body more susceptible to malaria and HIV.

But in 2004, David Pritchard, a British immunologist, applied a bandage to his arm covered in hookworm larva, intentionally infecting himself. This wasn’t an act of self-destruction but was the beginning of years of study into the possible benefits of the tiny parasites.

The hookworm, like all of our earthly co-habitants, evolved alongside us, and in this case, within us, in an intricate balance. As it turns out, hookworms, in small amounts, can work to keep our sometimes overactive immune system in check. A small hookworm infection can serve to prevent certain allergic reactions in humans, to reduce asthma, and eradicate hay fever. Allergies, in their modern ubiquitous array of manifestations, may be, in part, a result of our attempt to sanitize our world and rid ourselves of this and other tiny parasites.

In our culture, we are obsessed with sanitation and control. For many of us, our vision of the reign of God, whether we call it that or not, is one of simplification, where there exist no unknowns, where the world is a mechanical, predictable, responsive, finite network, and where justice is a system of equal give and take.

The signs of this vision are all around us, as are the signs of its destructiveness. In our attempt to groom God’s creation into a controlled environment, we’ve cleared millions of acres of forestland, prairie, and meadows for single cash crops. We’ve dramatically reduced the biodiversity of our most populated areas in order to make them safe for a handful of domesticated species. We’ve developed simplistic systems of labor, talent, and currency equivalences. We’ve envisioned a world as white as individually plastic-wrapped disposable cutlery; the whiteness of a single-use fork to accompany our individually packaged organic spinach salad.

But today’s readings remind us that the world is a complex, messy place. Consider the reading from Isaiah. The Jewish people of the prophet’s time had a vision similar to ours: a world where simple exchanges could right the spiritual disorder, where quick cures would undo long-term spiritual decline and disease. Their hands were bloodied with their burnt offerings, their schedules were filled with church-stuff without really engaging the broken world surrounding them. But the justice of God asks more: “Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

One would think that these commands would be clear enough. Stop doing bad; do good. But God, speaking through Isaiah, admits to the fallacy of any system of symbols, even language. Isaiah, interpreting God’s revelation, speaks the beautiful line: “Come now, let us argue it out.” Or in other translations “Sit down. Let us reason together.” In an invitation, God, through Isaiah, admits to humankind that even God’s commandments, when written in human language, are insufficient to know and envision the reign of God.

God calls us into conversation, even argument, over what it is to follow God’s will, to resist, to listen, to adapt, to contest, to move forward in relationship with God. God speaks to the continuing revelation of God’s will in the world, a revelation dependent on relationship, on placed-ness, on the past and the present realities of human life from which we speak, and read, and act. It is in this “arguing out” of justice that God offers us the possibility of redemption, of the cleansing that makes us “like snow.”

But the whiteness of snow can be a slippery slope into the vision of a dry-erase world, where the past is forgotten in an attempt to not be bound to it. Who has not heard or sang of the cleansing power of the blood of the lamb? We are to be washed as white as snow by the blood of the lamb, by claiming him as our personal Lord and Savior. Sometimes we imagine that Jesus is the ultimate re-start button, that to find and be found by Jesus is to forget the past and simply live by love into the future. But that is not the Jesus we encounter in today’s gospel reading.

There’s a fun children’s song to tell the story:

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.

And as the Savior passed that way, He looked up in the tree,

And he said, “Zacchaeus, you come down;

“For I'm going to your house today, for I'm going to your house today.”

But the story is not quite so simple. Zaccheus is a tax-collector and a rich man. His money had been made through the extortion of the people by the ruling empire, and by his own wickedness, as he tells it, in “defrauding” others. Having welcomed Jesus into his house, having come into personal relationship with him, having not only seen Jesus, but having been seen by and recognized by Jesus, he was transformed. As a result, Zacchaeus took it upon himself to make restitution for his past.

This is not a case of “Go and sin no more.” Zaccheus had to confront those he has wronged, paying them back four times what he has wrongfully taken. The restitution, the resurrection, is in the confrontation with God that results in a confrontation with ourselves, our pasts, and our world. The “arguing out” of God’s justice is a complex invitation.

“Cease to do evil.” What is the evil we turn from?

“Learn to do good.” Who will teach us the good?

“Seek justice.” How will we know justice when we find it?

“Rescue the oppressed.” Who, indeed, are the oppressed and how are we called to rescue them?

“Come now, let us argue it out.”

As a faith community, we have often found it sufficient to say we are “open and affirming” or tolerant or inclusive. We have hung banners and said, “All are welcome.”

But have we truly wrestled with the reality of the experience of people who are oppressed? What might it look like to pay back fourfold what we have wrongfully taken in terms of dignity, social place, relationship, and of life? Not just to this community at this time in this place, but to all those we have wronged and continue to wrong? What might this type of justice look like? We must “argue it out,” with God, with each other, and ultimately with God present in those we have wronged.

The question is not whether we should stop trying to eradicate hookworm or move forward into more inclusive communities. The issue at hand is confronting the reality that we are not operating in the artificial whiteness of a lab, or in the mansions of an imagined hereafter. The vision that we share with the ancient Hebrews, that vision of a sanitized and simple world that can become a productive, predictable, controllable machine operating within the confines of human logic, will always be a violent and destructive dream. At the end of the day, we will always be called from real lives with real relationships to make real sacrifices for the sake of real justice.

The crumbs will always fall to the linen, the wine will always drip from the chalice, and, by grace, the body will always be broken open and shared. Come, let us argue it out.

-- Jason Sierra is a member of the Office for Young Adult and Campus Ministries at the Episcopal Church Center. He resides in Seattle, Washington, and holds a BA in American Studies from Stanford University.