Preacher: The Very Rev Dr Valori Mulvey Sherer
En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.
I love the feast of All Saints because it reminds us that our experience of reality in this world is only part of a larger picture. The larger picture, for Episcopalians, includes heaven and earth and all that is in them: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island
Included also are those in the communion of saints, like the ones we remembered in our solemn procession. In that larger picture, the will of God is the only reality, and that will is most simply and most accurately described as love – and all things, all people live united in and by that love.
In our earthly lives, however, we witness and experience a reality that teaches us that the world can’t be trusted to be safe for us, that few if any people can be trusted not to hurt us, and that God can’t really be trusted to care for us (so we have to take care of ourselves). The Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ ends up too often reduced to a set of beliefs or practices that function more like ecclesiastical fire insurance (you know, staying out of hell) rather than as an invitation to live our lives transformed by the truth of our reconciliation to God in Christ and sharing that truth until it becomes that the reality of the world around us.
When we are baptized, we are baptized first into the death of Christ, and everything we think we know about God, the world, even ourselves dies there. We are also baptized into new life in Jesus Christ and we emerge from the baptismal waters (or our renewal of our Baptismal vows) already living a new reality – one that is in unity with God, with one another, and with all creation.
I read a book recently called, “Proof of Heaven.” It was written by neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, M.D., who contracted E.coli and had a near death experience (NDE). Dr. Alexander had been a C&E Episcopalian, and admits he wasn’t particularly spiritual prior to his NDE. He also wasn’t really sure he believed in God. But after his NDE, everything he understood about everything was changed. He was transformed by the Love he encountered in a place he calls heaven while his earthly body lay in a coma in a hospital bed.
Dr. Alexander describes his experience of heaven like this: “Seeing and hearing were not separate in this place… I could hear the visual beauty of the silvery bodies of those scintillating beings above, and I could see the surging, joyful perfection of what they sang. It seemed that you could not look at or listen to anything in this world without becoming part of it – without joining with it in some mysterious way (45) … Everything was distinct, yet everything was also a part of everything else… “ (46)
Dr. Alexander goes on to describe other worlds, higher worlds that “aren’t totally apart from us, because all worlds are part of the same overarching divine Reality. This overarching Divine reality, as Dr. Alexander called it, is what the world witnessed for the first time at Jesus' baptism when the heavens opened and the voice of God declared Jesus the beloved Son. It's also what we continue to witness today at this and every Baptism, in fact, at every Eucharist we celebrate.
Our earthly experience that we are separated from God is replaced by the reality of our eternal reconciliation to God in Christ, and that transforms how we live in the world. In his sermon from the gospel of Luke, Jesus says: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
To love in this way means putting the world’s priorities and warnings aside and making room for the love of God to redeem, in fact, being agents of that redeeming love. In the face of an earthly reality that teaches us that the world can’t be trusted to be safe for us, that few if any people can be trusted not to hurt us, and that God can’t be trusted to care for us, living this way will inevitably cause some people to hate, exclude, revile, and defame us – as they did Jesus. When that happens, Jesus says, “Rejoice,…and leap for joy, for …your reward is great in heaven.”
Episcopalians don’t see this reward as something we collect when our earthly lives are over. We understand it to be an eternal reward, one that is part of our lives now forevermore, one that enables us to look beyond the circumstance of the moment and see the working out of the will of God on earth as it is in heaven.
Our Catechism reminds us that when we profess our belief in God, the Creator, it means we believe, despite the apparent earthly reality, that “the universe is good… the work of a… loving God who creates, sustains, and directs it. It means [we believe] that the world belongs to its creator; and that we are called to enjoy it and to care for it in accordance with God's purposes. It means [we believe] that all people are worthy of respect and honor, because all are created in the image of God…” (BCP, 846)
Living this larger, this heavenly reality, in the face of a very different earthly reality isn't something we can do on our own – it's something we must do as members of the church – the mystical body of Christ on earth in communion with the saints in heaven. Today, we have the great joy of baptizing Anna Marion Howell into this body.
If Anna and her sponsor will join me at the Baptismal font, it’s time to invite the heavens to open up as we all declare Anna a beloved daughter in the body of Christ.
Amen.
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