All Saints Day

November 1st is All Saints Day, All Hallows Day, which gives parentage and life to All Hallows Eve, Halloween. Lilly's parents took her to a Halloween party last night, returning about nine-thirty just as I had settled down and pulled up the bedcovers. It's dark early morning now, but, looking around, I see no bag of candy to burglarize.

This coming Sunday, we, and I reckon most Episcopal Churches, will be celebrating All Saints Day. In the BCP the RCL propers for Year B are

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9
or Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

It's not my Sunday to preach, but already a fan of Revelation as it is, my favorite text for All Saints is just that, which for this day this Year B would be 

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 

"And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." (Rev. 21:1-6a, KJV)

Though I do not appreciate that the NRSV, from which our reading will come, "smooths out" the writer's Greek to eliminate what Felix Just, SJ*, in analyzing Mark's gospel, calls parataxis, the writer's repeated use of "kai" the Greek word "and," which seems present as well in this Sunday's text from Revelation. The smoothing out and "improving" that is done for modern day readers also may have the effect of shading the writer's personality, style, and situs, which can be as intriguing for discussion as the text itself, what the writer means to say. But of course even the modern smoothing-out is good for discussion, so it's all good.

Our text for All Saints Day is among those suggested and commonly heard at funerals, when the church wants to bring comfort to those left behind, the assurance that for the one who has died, indeed for all of us when comes our own time to die, there'll be no more death, sorrow, crying or pain. This in fact concisely states my own belief, theology if you will, of what happens when we die: a mystery of absence, or at least of silence. I am not into walking on Revelation's streets of gold, an earthy and earthly metaphor; rather, somewhat a Jewish viewpoint, Being no more except for those who remember us, we become part of history for those who do remember us as long as we are remembered. As Edwin M. Stanton is reputed to have said upon President Abraham Lincoln's passing, "Now he belongs to the ages."  

In the current news as long as the media can stretch it out, just so with Kashoggi, just so with Whitey Bulger. 

The image above I lifted from this online article, which I thoroughly appreciated: https://catholicexchange.com/saints-day-means-holiness. How're you doing? Worse, how am I doing?

Unretouched photo from balcony at 6:45 just now, Panama City Beach, Florida. Windy, angry Gulf of Mexico anticipating the day as is forecast for us.

T 

* http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Mark-Literary.htm