The Feast of All Souls, Year B

If Only …

Readings: Wisdom 3:1-9; Psalm 116:1-8; 1 Peter 1:3-9;

John 11:21-27

“If only...” Can there be two sadder or more futile words in the English language? ‘If only I hadn’t been so angry...’ ‘If only we hadn’t let her go out...’ ‘If only it had been me in the car...’ ‘If only...’

It’s what Martha said to Jesus. “If only you had been here my brother would not have died.” What a good friend he must have been for her to be able to lay the blame on him for the tragic death of her brother. Jesus was a friend you could blame. He would understand. He would know what to say to make it all right. That is what Martha needed to help her deal with the grief and the anger and the sense of betrayal. It is what we all need when we face the tragedy of death in our lives. The death of a loved one cannot help but cause us to question. We feel betrayed by God. We need to lay blame. We need to feel grief and anger and frustration. We need to gain a sense of control over the situation. And so we say ‘if only...’ But somehow it is only when we get beyond the “if only’s” that we truly begin the process of healing.

We gather here in this place to do just that. It is an opportunity to remember those who lived among us and have died. We look back at their lives of faith, at their contributions to the world, at all they meant to those who loved them. We remember their successes and their failures. We share in their joys and their sorrows. We look back with pain at their suffering. We mourn their absence with us. It is our need as those still on the journey to do that kind of remembering, because the alternative to remembering is forgetting.

I was seventeen when my younger brother died. At the time of his death, I became almost obsessed with remembering things about him. It was as if I had to remember every detail of his life and of the way he died in order to keep him alive in some way. Some of those things can still trigger memories of him after all these years. I simply cannot hear someone whistle through their teeth without remembering Patrick. Yet at the time I worried that I would forget what he looked like, the funny things he did, the songs he loved to sing.... It was so important to me to remember him.

As I reflect on my need then, I realize that it is important to remember. Something forgotten never comes into our consciousness. It no longer plays a role in our decisions. It does not inform our relationships. If it comes back to us as a dream, we may not even recognize the symbols that help us to understand the significance of the dream. It is lost. And so it is a human need to keep memories alive. We hold the memories of those who have meant much to us in life and are now dead. That is a powerful reason for celebrating All Souls Day.

There is a sense as we gather, especially since we are approaching Remembrance Day, of a kind of passing of the torch, a passing of the collective memories, of those successes and failures of the previous generations. What we may forget is that when you are the one carrying the torch, you can easily be burned. When you are the one standing alone, torch in hand, there is nothing brighter. But that too can be a terrifying realization.

As generations pass and we come closer and closer ourselves to being the “older” generation, the responsibility falls more and more to us. Finally it is ours completely. There is no one else to blame for the human condition. We alone bear the responsibility. We go back to our plaintive cry, “If only...”

And there is Jesus saying to us, “I am resurrection, I am life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” What a wonderful promise that is! Even more astounding is that what Christ has promised has already been granted. The atrocious event of death that threatens and appears to destroy what God has created becomes the servant that swings open the gates to everlasting life. We are citizens of the new kingdom. It remains a mystery to us; but the guarantee is that we will experience fully the splendour and beauty of the new kingdom where we can live and serve in supreme joy without the limitations and temptations of mortal life upon this planet.

And so we look for the connecting points to that mystery. We do it by looking to the faithful who have died and now know God’s glory. There are many such people in my own life that I remember as people of faith and for whom I will light a candle today. There is Maud who never came to terms with the Revised Version of Scripture because of the passage, “In my Father’s house are many rooms.” She lived in boarding houses until quite late in her life. Her first apartment was a real joy to her. She was not about to settle for a room in Heaven, when she had been promised a mansion.

The summer I was doing CPE (Chaplaincy) there was the elderly woman I was visiting. One day as I was leaving the ward, she said to me, “Get out my brown shoes. I’m going dancing tonight.”

There is Alice from my curacy who was dying of cancer. I went to visit her each day in that last week of her life. On the day she died I went in as usual. “How did you get here?” She asked me.

“I came in my car,” I told her.

“I didn’t think you could get here by car,” she went on. “Wherever did you park?”

“Just out in the parking lot,” I said. Finally I clued in as she began to describe in wonderful detail the world she had already left behind and the one that awaited her presence. What a gift it was to be with Alice as she died!

There is my brother Patrick. His quirky smile, his happy go lucky attitude to life, his laughter, his musical talent. There is my mother, “my little red” my dad always called her because of her flaming red hair and short stature. She may have been only four-foot eight, but she stood six feet tall. She could stretch a dollar further than anyone I know. Her Welsh heritage came out in her beautiful singing. And my father, his quick wit even at ninety-two, his charismatic personality and his love of God! I remember them all, and in that remembering take comfort.

Let us spend a moment or two in quiet reflection. Let us remember with joy the communion of saints. Let us remember those who died serving their country. Let us remember those of our loved ones who have died in the peace of Christ. For we live as they do in a sure and certain hope of the resurrection. It is the promise of God. God's promises are sure. Amen.