Sermon All Saints' Day 2012 Lessons Daniel 7: 1, 9-10, 13-14 Revelation 7: 9 17 St Matthew 5: 1 12 Prayer of Illumination Let us pray. Help us, O Lord, to hold fast the faith delivered to the saints. Remove from our minds and hearts all unfounded and senseless beliefs, all anxieties and obstacles that would hinder us; and inspire us with such thoughts as are true, and wise, and pleasing to You; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Yesterday I attended a couple of sessions at the Global Leadership Summit held in Edinburgh. The summit is an annual event which is hosted by Willow Creek Community Church in the United States. The summit itself takes place in the United States but, through the 21st century technology, it is possible to watch the talks on DVD and, at times, interview the speakers live from the US. One of the speakers this year was Carly Fiorina. In 1999, Carly was appointed as Chief Executive of the computer giant Hewlett-Packard and she managed the merger with the computer company Compaq. In 2001, she was named one of the thirty most powerful women in America. In 2005, after a disagreement with the Board, Carly Fiorina was forced to resign. She was given 'a golden parachute', a parachute which cost the company $20m. During an interview at the summit, she was asked what she did 'after she was released from Hewlett- Packard?' She said, 'I wasn't released. I was fired.' I don't pretend to understand the details of her disagreement with the Board of the computer giant; the Board members will have their own story to tell. What I found most 1
moving about Carly's story is her faith journey and the some of the things that happened in her life since leaving the company. Carly began by saying this: When I was a child I had faith in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but after growing up my faith began to become more abstract. I still prayed everyday, believed our souls outlived us, and thought good could triumph over evil. I had a picture of God as a some sort of super-ceo. The ideas in the Bible were powerful allegories and profound ideas but not actually real... At a Christmas Eve service I asked God to help me figure out my continuing questions. I awoke on Christmas morning with a clear mind. I saw the evidence all around me of God, much of it coming from the world of science and technology where I had made my career. I figured, why not an immaculate conception. Every time I turn on my GPS I marvel at its ability to track exactly where we are. God became instantiated in a weak body, not because he needed it, but because we did. In 2009, Carly was told she had cancer. She said, 'I battled my way through 11 surgeries, 4 months of chemotherapy, and 2.5 months of radiation. But that sweet peace stayed with me.' She goes on: My ordeal with cancer paled in comparison to our daughter's battles with her own demons. Two weeks after I finished my radiation, Lori died alone in her apartment. People at her funeral told me she was in a better place. For the first time I believed it. I realized she had not been truly alone. Soon afterwards, my husband Frank told me he had lost his faith. He could not believe Jesus loved him and God let such a terrible thing happened. I prayed he would be given a sign and his faith restored. 2
No one is immune to grief and fragility; no one is immune to illness, tragedy and loss. Carly said that throughout it all, she held on to that sweet peace of the One who knows our every movement, who is closer to us than our heartbeat. Carly said that people at her daughter's funeral told her that she was in a better place. A better place? Today is our Service of worship for All Saints' Day, which is 1st November. Carly's daughter went to a better place. What do we mean when we speak of the saints? The Gospel lesson for All Saints' Day is the Beatitudes from St Matthew. In the Book of Revelation we read the vision of John, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. In the Book of Daniel, in the vision of Daniel, we see God, the Ancient of Days, seated on a throne with a garment was white as snow and one like the Son of Man comes to Him with the clouds of Heaven. All dramatic, breath-taking imagery! In heaven, in God's nearer Presence, there is a multitude no one can number. Carly was told her daughter was in a better place: what does that mean? What is All Saints' Day? A Church of England priest, Richard Coles, has just released his new book, which is called The Lives of Improbable Saints. Did you know, for example, there is a patron saint for looking for a parking space. She is Mother Cabrini. The prayer you need (are you taking this down?) is 'Mother Cabrini, Mother 3
Cabrini, please find me a space for my parking machinery.' There is also a saint for second-hand shops, chicken farmers and disappointing children! There is a story of a saint dancing in front of dragon and the dragon strangling itself and quite a number of saints are depicted as levitating. In the 20th century, one saint would levitate up to the ceiling in order to kiss Christ on a crucifix. In defence of such stories, Coles says, 'In all stories, there is a grain of truth but tradition acts like an oyster to change it into a pearl.' May be so, but what do we mean when we speak of All Saints' Day? What does 'a better place' look like? In the Middle Ages, the Church described itself as a threefold Church: the church militant, that's Christians in this life, the church expectant, that's purgatory for those who died but are not yet in heaven, and the church triumphant, that's the saints in heaven. Leaving aside the church militant, the Christians who are alive in this life, let me say a word about the church expectant and the church triumphant. The church expectant or purgatory is that place, according to Roman Catholic tradition, to which most people go, at least in the first instance. In the Middle Ages, the unbaptised and the unbelieving went straight to hell. Purgatory fits well into mediaeval imagery. Imagine a country peasant arriving at the royal court. The biblical scholar Tom Wright says: 4
These Christians have come in from the country, with ragged clothes and muddy boots, and they need a good scrub and change of outfit before they are ready to enter the king's presence. The good scrub... is purgatory. To his credit, the present pope has revised the doctrine to a point where it has disappeared in all but name. Pope Benedict argues that, at death, Christians see Christ and, like the criminal on the cross, we see Christ in paradise immediately. In the New Testament, all followers of Jesus are referred to as saint. There is no difference between Peter, Paul, James, John, Mary, you and me. In the Anglican tradition, there is both All Saints' Day and, on 2nd November, All Souls' Day. The first is the day on which the church celebrates the heroes of the faith and on the second the church remembers 'ordinary Christians'. The pastoral reason for this division is that the day of celebration may not be the best way to minister to those who have lost loved ones. It is a slightly uncomfortable division because the heroes of the faith had their sense of grief and loss and 'ordinary' Christians are also heroes of the faith. What now can be said of the church triumphant, the saints in heaven? The physicist and theologian, John Polkinghorne, says of life beyond this life: God will download our software on to his hardware, until the day comes when he gives us new hardware on which to run our own software once more. 5
For myself, I believe that we live in the Mind of God. We were conceived there and He holds us and will love us for all eternity. The scholar, Tom Wright, wonders if people can be so bad, so evil in their thought and deeds, that they lose the image of God within them; he wonders if people can go to hell. Certainly, when we think of evil deeds, it is a fair question to ask, 'Can such a person enter the Presence of God?' For myself, I have heard testimony again and again of a mother who stands by her son, even though he has been convicted of an horrendous crime. Disgusted and broken, she loves him still. Would God be less loving? I believe we live in the Mind of the Eternal and, in passing through death, we enter another reality. I'm not sure that we will be at rest in death or that we will know God fully: it seems to me that, as a creature of God, God will always be beyond our comprehension. It was good that Carly Fiorina was told that her daughter Lori was in a better place. Carly's husband, Frank, lost his faith shortly after Lori died. He could not believe in a God who would let such a terrible thing happen. Yesterday, at the conference, Carly finished her story with this: A few days after Father's Day [Frank] came in with a look of relief. He had been in the garage [changing oil in his car] and pile of boxes caught his eye. For no particular reason he decided to open one of them and found four Father's Day cards from Lori. He opened one of them and found a letter written many years ago when Lori had written how much she loved him and what a fine father he was. In that moment he knew that Jesus loved him, and I knew that God hears us and answers our prayers. 6
With gratitude, she said, 'The peace of the Lord passes understanding.' God holds our loved ones departed as surely as He holds us. In heaven, said Jesus, there is no male or female. What we mean by a better place we can't be sure but we must learn to trust and trust more deeply our experience of God in this life. Trust it: God will not let you down. Amen. 7