This year we had a short sermon as part of our All Souls service when the choir sings Faure's setting of the Requiem at an actual requiem Eucharist. It is a really special service, and includes the opportunity for those present to light candles and remember those they have loved and lost.
This was the sermon I gave on that occasion. It was such a hard one to pitch, and I struggled over it whilst preparing. I am grateful to Katharine Smith for providing a sermon which unlocked some of the issues I was struggling with and helped me crystallise an Anglican approach to All Souls.
---------------------
All Souls is a beautiful commemoration, and yet one that historically has sat in an uncomfortable place within Anglican culture which has often forged a middle pathway between Catholicism and Evangelicalism. For Roman Catholics and those who believe in Purgatory the reason for having a Mass for the Dead at All Souls is really clear: to release souls from their temporary stay in the realm of healing and purification, that place called Purgatory, into the eternal bliss of Heaven. Evangelicals have always been warier of praying for the dead, and often prefer to simply remember them.
But when the first world war caused such awful bloodshed and carnage, and when hardly a person in England existed who hadn’t lost a friend, a son, a brother, a sweetheart, the new 1928 version of the prayerbook wanted to help meet the pastoral need of that sea of grief and this prayer was written and approved by the church
FATHER of all, we pray to thee for those whom we love, but see no longer. Grant them thy peace; let light perpetual shine upon them; and in thy loving wisdom and almighty power work in them the good purpose of thy perfect will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
But it seems to me that the most natural thing to do when someone has died is pray for them.
Psalm 139 says:
If I fly to the heavens you are there. If I make the grave my bed you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
God is there with them, even if we can’t be, and so we ask God to look after them, to take care of them, to help and heal them, just as we always have done when they were alive.
Jesus called God, "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" and told us that "He is not the God of the dead but of the living." Jesus said this because although to us Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are long gone, to God they are alive, for God is the source of all life and all love. God doesn’t stop loving us when we die, and we don’t stop loving our dear-ones when they die.
But another reason we might want to do this, is we may have unfinished business with those we love and miss:
Perhaps there were things we wished we had said, or things we wished we hadn’t said. We might still be angry about things and feel we can’t share that anger with anyone or we may simply feel there is unfinished business...
that there was so much that could have been, which didn’t happen. Or perhaps we simply couldn’t mourn properly at the time for some reason and simply packed our grief away to deal with it later.
So now is the time, if we are ready, to share that with God, who is simply waiting for us with arms outstretched. This is the same God, who in Jesus, stopped and wept outside the grave of his dear friend Lazarus, even though he knew he was about to raise him to life. Jesus holds out his hands (his wounded hands that went through death themselves) and invites us to place all those things, even if we find it hard to even describe them, into those hands.
And then he invites us to join in communion - and when we share communion we don’t simply share communion with those present here: We share in communion and join ourselves to each and every Christian who has ever lived.
In a mystical way we are united with those we loved and lost who are held safely in the arms of Christ. We are one within that wondrous thing called the Communion of Saints and nothing can ever separate us from that joining.
As St Paul said: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So whatever you feel today, whatever you believe or don’t believe,I pray that you will experience this thing. That You are loved, and that love is stronger even than death. Amen.
