In the conclusion of his novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder says:
"Soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth. We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough…There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." (Copied)

Today we celebrate All Saints Day, a day when we remember with both joy and grief those who have gone before us and are with us no more. As with many Christian holidays, this originated, it is believed, in Ireland. It was later co-opted by the Christian Church. The ancient Celts held a celebration at the end of the harvest, the dying of the year, called Samhaind or Soween. This was a fire festival, and, it was believed that on the Vigil, or night before, witches and demons went wild in the night and needed to be placated with food and sweets. The unseen, the unknown, was frightening then as it today and was treated as evil or dangerous.
In contrast, ancients also felt that the next night the dead departed returned to their old homes to be invited to the fireside to be warmed and fed by the living. By bringing the unknown into light and warmth, by naming the concern, fear was diminished. The Celts believed that this was the time when the "veil between the human, living world and the spiritual world was the thinnest and that conversation between the two worlds was most possible." (Copied)
It is, therefore, easy to see the origins of the traditions we practice today on Halloween. The fire festival becomes the candle in the pumpkin, the witches and goblins the trick or treaters and their placation with food and sweets.
The more I am with people in their dying; the more profoundly aware I am of the thinness of the veil between the living and the dead. So often the dying person sees loved ones in the room who have died, beckoning them to follow. Study of those who have had near death experiences indicate some common phenomena – the loved ones in the room, the sense of being drawn to the light, and the experience of joy, love and peace. This provided me incredible comfort when my mother was dying. I had the sense then and now that we are connect over a chasm that is not un-crossable. In addition, I believe with all that is in me that death is an extension of life, in which the two are connected by love.
As Christians we believe that we are created in love by God, live on earth sustained by God's love, and return, at our death, the boundless extravagance of God's love. There is a (probably) mythical story that illustrates this. Seems a little two year old girl had a new baby brother. She begged and begged her parents for some time alone with him. They were finally worn down, so placed the baby monitor next to the infant and allowed the little girl to go it. She went to the crib and leaned over to speak into the baby's ear. "How's God? I miss him so!"
It is always frightening for us, the living, to contemplate death. It is the ultimate unknown, and, often we try to domesticate it in order to diminish that fear. Back in the late eighties, Nick Clooney, the brother of Rosemary Clooney, was a local celebrity in Cincinnati. He invited people to call in what they would like as their epitaphs. Charlie Mechem, the formed head of Taft Broadcasting, shared his: "Dear God, thanks for letting me visit. I had a wonderful time!" (Copied)
So what are those saints we honor today? They are those of every generation who have loved and served God. Some are remembered, some forgotten, but God has forgotten no one. This is an important day, also, in the life of the church and our particular congregation. We name those who have died in the past year and honor those who died prior to that time by placing their names in a basket to be brought forth and blessed. As God's community we are called to love one another as well as to grieve with one another. Our interactions with one another are illustrated by the Beatitudes that form our Gospel from Luke for today.
What do they tell us? The word 'blessed' comes from the word for happy or a cry of joy. As they are listed they alternated between diving love and human hope. They are addressed to the community and provide a model for what it means for the entire community to live the Christian life and bring about the Kingdom of God. Unlike evangelical Christians, we believe that we are saved in community, not individually, so it is critically important how we live, how we pray, and how we treat one another and those around us. William Stringfellow has defined saints as being "those men and women who relish the event of life as a gift, and who realize that the only way to honor such a gift is to give it away." (Copied)
The beatitudes call us to a radical vulnerability to God and to one another. This is fundamental to sainthood. By such vulnerability, transparency, the light of God can show through us into the world. They have been called 'outrageous expectations of an extravagant God.' It has been said that sainthood is a paradox. On the one hand it is a pure gift of grace. On the other it calls us to put ourselves out there; it requires a response from each of us. This reminds me of the old story of a little girl in church with her father. As they looked at the stained glass windows the father asked her: "Who are those people in the window?" She replied: "They are the people the light of God shines through."
This is a day when we remember those whom we have loved and who have died with joy and sadness. It is also a day when we are reminded that we live on a continuum, one in which death does not have the final say. As Christians, we believe that Christ's death and resurrection define who and what we are as God's people Our ending is just a beginning with all those who have come before.
Our charge, therefore, is to discover through love our own sainthood and to put that love into action. We are called to care for this place and our fellow worshippers and to keep our doors open wide with a radical hospitality welcoming all into our loving community. We are called to remember and to honor all those who have gone before us, knowing that love never dies, but is merely transformed for the moment. We are to know in our deepest souls that we are loved and called to a holiness grounded not in our perfection but in the fallibility of our humanity. We are not alone, for we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses: loving, sustaining, rejoicing and welcoming. AMEN