All Saints Sunday, Nov 4, 2018; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; Eccl 3: 1-8
“To everything, turn turn turn. There is a season, turn turn turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to reap…”
“When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed, to turn, turn will be our delight, til by turning, turning we come round right…”
The season has turned. Here we are, in the beginning of a new season in Mazatlan… leaving behind the turning of the leaves, the turning of the sun from the North and arriving here, in the sunshine.
Steve and I left home just over a week ago and all the trees were bare, except a few of the oak trees, holding on to their last rusty brown leaves and the tamarack trees with their golden needles reflecting off the early morning ice on the stream by our house. We drove south, and bit by bit the seasons turned back, more leaves on the branches with each hundred miles until we emerged from the mountains by Durango into the newly rained-on greenery by Villa Union.
I love fall, and we stay up north just long enough to enjoy the falling of the leaves and the brilliance of maples fading as the leaves whirl in the air, drying up and losing their color on the ground.
Before we left I collected some leaves, and pressed them into wax paper, like the elementary school craft I remember doing with my children when they were small. I tried another method of preserving the leaves too—soaking them in glycerin, a sort of embalming fluid for leaves. As you can see, it doesn’t really work. You can’t stop the passing of time, the fading of life, it turns, turns, turns. We can artificially hold on for a time, and it works to some degree—but not really. To everything there is a season… a time to be born and a time to die. A time for a leaf to be green, then red or yellow, and then it falls and the turning starts again.
A leaf is a real miracle, it takes in the sunlight and water and feeds the tree, producing wood, fruit, nuts, and giving off oxygen to feed us too. It takes in energy and transmits it to others in more usable forms. Something about fall in the north woods of Wisconsin or Minnesota makes my mind spin back, through the life cycle, marking the passage of time. The green is gone, the decaying leaves show the end of a season of life, moving into a period of resting before new life emerges again.
Having lived most of my life up north, it has always seemed appropriate to me to celebrate All Saints Day during the season of ending, of maturity and completion. We set aside this Sunday to remember those from our midst who have died, to reflect on how we are all united in the community of faith, the saints who have died along with the saints who are still alive.
As Steve suggested in his opening remarks, we tend to think of saints as extraordinary people who have died, …people unlike us, St. Paul, St. John the Baptist, St. Luke the Evangelist, St. Francis of Assisi, or Mother Theresa. But another way of thinking of a saint is simply a person through whom the light of God shines or has shined. A saint is a believer in God. We all have saints who have shown us about God, through their words and their lives.
Saints, like leaves, transmit light to others in forms that can be used. Instead of transforming sunlight and water into oxygen, wood, fruit, and nuts, saints soak in the light and love of God and then transmit that to others in words and actions. I invite you to remember and thank God for the saints in your lives and for the saints of all time, those who have kept the faith alive, passing it on, transmitting the light of God.
But there’s more to this… It’s not just about memories and those whose lives shaped us. I invite you today to consider your own role as saints, transmitters of God’s grace. The church is always only one generation from possible extinction. If we do not take our role as transmitters of faith seriously how will the message of Christ’s love spread. We all have neighbors and friends who might want what we have– a relationship with the Holy One who calls us friends, children, saints. We have good news to share, love to give, and the light of God to transmit in words and action.
I have leaves for each of you today. You can think about your role as a transmitter of the grace of God to others, and remember your own personal saints, those who shaped you in faith. When you come forward for communion please take one.
Lighting candles in memory of those who have recently passed away is another traditional practice on All Saint’s Day, so after you’ve received communion—feel free to light a candle in memory, too.
The Scriptures promise that we are not alone, that the community of life in Christ is vast. It gathers people in, saints from all times and places.
I want to close today with a poem by Mary Oliver that I just love. It’s titled In Blackwater Woods.
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.
Amen.