The Home of God

Introduction

All Saints is one of those glorious moments of grief and of hope. It is worth a standalone worship event. It is an acknowledgement of the gaps left behind by those we have loved and lost in the past year and longer. But it is also a celebration of the promise of eternity and the sense that even those we no longer see in the flesh are still a part of the foundation of our faith. We give God thanks for their witness of their lives. We ask on this day for a glimpse of the promise. What would it be like to be at home with God? Or to have God move into our neighborhood?

Note: The following resources center around the readings for All Saints in the Revised Common Lectionary, found here.

PLANNING NOTES

A new heaven and a new earth. Mary crying, Martha stoically stating the facts, Jesus weeping and then bringing a dead man back to life. These are our images, our companions, for All Saints. They situate us in the tension between now and what is to come, and they ground us in the glorious truth that God has made, is making, and will make God’s home among us. God is in the business of moving into the neighborhood of humanity. In the joys and the sorrows, in the peaceful times and in the crisis moments, God sticks it out right alongside us.

And so, as you go about your traditions for All Saints, consider how they point to God’s closeness with us. I love beginning All Saints every year with “For All the Saints” (United Methodist Hymnal 711). Every time we lift our voices to this majestic tune, joining with all creation “Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: Alleluia! Alleluia!”—it’s glorious! Consider, though, how to pair the glory of “For All the Saints” with the intimacy of a hymn like “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” (United Methodist Hymnal 479) or “Be Still, My Soul” (United Methodist Hymnal 534). As you pray for the saints who have gone before, also pray for the saints gathered together in the worship space. If you have a tradition of listing the names of the saints the community has lost in the last year, perhaps there is also room to celebrate the saints who have joined you through birth or a move into the neighborhood in the last year. All Saints is rich with traditions for many of our communities, and it is important to observe those traditions because of the meanings those traditions build in a community. The question is, “Do your traditions emphasize God who is far away or God who is in the neighborhood with you through griefs and joys?”

Consider, too, how remembering the saints of your community can also be a time for reinvigorating and renewing the church’s commitment to continue the good work God started with and among those saints. Is there a story to share of a saint whose witness the church can continue in the community? What wisdom did your saints leave behind for the church and its members? What might it look like to crowdsource a collection of lessons and/or stories from those who died in the last year that could be shared during the service? All Saints is a time of remembering, yes, but also a time of re-membering, of reaffirming our shared identity as the Body of Christ, knowing that nothing can separate us from God or, through God, one another—not even death!