On
Sunday, my grandmother, Shirley Lenahan, joined the saints at rest. She died at
the age of 89 from Alzeimers disease.
When
I was seven, Grandma was my next-door-neighbor.
I had a new bike without training wheels that I could not ride. Mom and dad’s idea of bike training was to
push me down a small hill in our front yard and hope I didn’t hit a tree. So,
after falling a few times, I became frustrated enough to suggest we sell the
bike. I also packed a bag and ran away
from home. My journey as a homeless and
angry 7-year- old ended at Grandma’s house.
At Grandma’s there were wafer cookies and milk, and count chocula
cereal, which turned the milk into chocolate milk. Grandma always had sugar
cereal and cookies. Grandma and I did a puzzle, played a board game, and then
dad showed up. I’m not sure what
happened next, but I ended up going home with him. Eventually, I learned how to ride the bike. All the way to Grandma’s house. If she was home, the door was open. And she always had sweets, cookies, cake,
pie. She could make entire buffets
appear out of nowhere. Her house was a
curiosity shop with trinkets and old pictures and religious Kitch; you know,
Mary’s and Jesus’s. A house from some other decade. The 50s or 70s. She watched Lawrence Welk and Judge Wopner
and Wheel of Fortune. She liked to play
Hi-Ho Cherry-O, Chinese checkers, and Parcheesi with us. She was our babysitter
and her house was an occasional refuge. Grandma was a quiet presence. Never too
stern or scolding. But you knew what behavior
was acceptable. She was a devout
Catholic; prayed the rosary daily, went to mass weekly. She loved to play
bingo. She enjoyed her grandkids and
liked when we visited her. I have childhood memories of grandma. In adulthood, I moved away. But she was still there. Until the disease took her away, little by
little.
Grandma was
a significant part of my childhood. And
no doubt she influences my adult life, in ways I have not known until now.
Grandma and I never talked about faith or God. But she came to my ordination to the Lutheran
ministry in 2001 and she received communion from me the first time I presided
in worship at the Lord’s Supper. She, a devout Roman Catholic, her grandson a
Lutheran pastor. We shared something deeper than a devotion to empty religious
habits, contrary to what some may think about the Christian life. She had faith, a gift from God that she
passed to her children and her grandchildren. I am faithful, because my parents
are, because she was. This is what we mean when we say, "we
believe in the communion of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." Something invisible is happening within us and for us that transcends our experiences and our reason. God has become present to us in our lives.In her life, as in mine, she found comfort
and peace in the promise of eternal life with God; that death does not separate
us from God’s love or from one another.
All Saints Day is not about ancient
saints or their miraculous deeds. It is a day to celebrate ordinary saints---the baptized holy one’s, God’s chosen
people, the faithful. So we remember
those who have died. It is through the
demonstration of their faith in God, in loving service, worship, generosity, and
prayer that Christ is made known to the world.
The story of Lazarus in John 11 is a sign to us of the future that
awaits all who believe. All the ones we remember today, will rise again to a
new and glorious life. In the story of Lazarus is the confirmation of our
hopes; death cannot bind God’s people forever.
“He will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all
people, the sheet that is spread over all nations, he will swallow up death
forever…” “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed
away.”
It takes faith to accept these things. A mystery,
faith. Who gets it and how? Why do some embody faithfulness and others
cannot? Why do some share their faith
and others hide it? It is a gift from God.
But faith is not exclusively a personal connection with God either. Even in the story of Lazarus, he does not
unbind himself or tear off his own grave clothes. Nor does Jesus unbind him. Lazarus’ family
and friends are invited to unbind him and set him free. Faith in God binds us to one another and calls us to life, beckoning each of us from the grave, from the darkness, from the abandoned loneliness and silence. "With a loud shout he commanded, Lazarus, Come out!"Out we must come, if we are to be the church. Out from fear and insecurity and self-protection. Out from comfortable systems and behaviors that benefit some and hurt others. Out from family systems that wound us. Out from addictions that overwhelm us. By faith, we are being called out. Out of this life and into the next. Some of us are already there. The rest of us are on the way...Amen.
