“Beloved”
November 5, 2017 Solemnity of All Saints
(Year
A; transferred from Nov. 1; with All Souls' Prayers for the Dead)
Homily
preached at Trinity Parish Church
Ashland,
Oregon
The
Rev’d Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
8:00
a.m. spoken Mass, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Mother Mary Piper in her All Soul’s Day homily
at the Thursday Healing Eucharist this week challenged us to tell each other
stories of our beloved departed. It
made me think of my father, Alonzo Hutchinson, and my mother, Grace Warr. They were both devout Mormons, but also free
thinkers who valued pursuing a reasonable and moderate rule of life. They had met in elementary school, and fell
in love as teenagers. With several
months left in high school, they secretly eloped and then continued living in
their respective parents’ homes until after graduation. It was still a source of pain for my
grandmother decades later, although a source of secret pride for my
parents.
One moment in particular tells of how my father
transmitted his values to me. One day,
when I got home from classes at high school, my father was waiting for me and
asked if we could talk privately. He
explained that earlier in the day, he had come home from work to pick up an
item he needed. Then, unexpectedly, the
newspaper delivery person rang the bell and asked for payment for the month
that was ending. “I was short a few
dollars and wanted to pay him in full right then, so I went through jackets in
the front closet to see if anyone had left change that would make up the
difference. I am sorry I went through
your things. But this is what I
found.” To my surprise and horror, he
held out a small pouch containing a pipe redolent with a rich aroma that was
not tobacco. My friends and I had been experimenting for a few months. I thought I had left it in my locker at
school. “What is this?” he asked
gently. Totally flummoxed, I stammered
out a tale of how the day before there had been a police sweep at school, and
one of the known “problem kids” in my class had approached and asked me to hold
this pouch for him, since tobacco products were forbidden on campus and the
cops would surely not even search me, given my goody-two shoes reputation. “I took it as a favor for him and was going
to give it back at the end of the day.
But he had left campus and I forgot about it. Why, do you think I shouldn’t have done that
to help a friend?” My father was silent
a couple of moments, and then said quietly, “Son, I think this may be drug paraphernalia. Your classmate was just trying to not get
arrested. But if the police had found
this on you, you are the one who would have been arrested. Here
it is. Give it back to him as soon as
you can and don’t put yourself at risk like this again.” I was so relieved. I was and am not a very good liar, and here
my father, world-wise in so many ways more than me, swallowed my story, hook,
line, and sinker. But it bothered me
that I had lied to my dad. Later in the
year, as I read Mohandas K. Gandhi’s autobiography, I came upon his story where
he tells his father similar lies to cover for his own disrespect of Hindu
dietary laws to curry favor of British classmates at school. Gandhi said this hurt his conscience so badly
that he vowed he would never again do anything he would have to lie to his
father about. I felt all the guiltier: I
had not felt even a wisp of guilt when I had lied to extravagantly to my
dad. In the next weeks, I tried to pray
and meditate to help figure out if there was something broken in me. Soon I had a deep religious experience that
helped me get order and direction back into my life.
Years later, talking to my dad, I asked him if
he even remembered the incident and said I couldn’t believe how he could have
been so gullible and believing in me. He
smiled and said gently, “Actually, I knew you were lying.” “Why didn’t you confront me then?” “I realized that if you were willing to lie
to me to cover up things, you were not ready at all to have what was going to
be a difficult conversation. So I
allowed you the dignity of thinking I believed you, knowing that given who you
were, a time would come when we could be honest about it.”
My father knew to wait until people were ready
to talk about the things that matter most.
He had the confidence that no matter how uncontrollable things might
look now, in the end, all would be well.
I believe that we must have confidence and hope
that all will be well for our beloved departed, and not just for those who died
in the embrace of the Church. This hope is the basis for our praying for the
dead. It is also why we celebrate both
All Souls’ Day right after All Saints’.
C.S. Lewis, in his great work Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, writes this:
“Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age, the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to him?“I believe in Purgatory. Mind you, the Reformers had good reasons for throwing doubt on the ‘Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory’ … [but T]he right view [is] … in [John Henry] Newman’s “Dream [of Gerontius].” There … the saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment longer ‘With its darkness to affront that light’…“Our souls demand Purgatory, don't they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, ‘It is true, my [child], that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy’? Should we not reply, ‘With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I'd rather be cleaned first.’ ‘It may hurt, you know’ – ‘Even so, sir.’“I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don't think the suffering is the purpose of the purgation... The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much.“My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist's chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am 'coming round',' a voice will say, ‘Rinse your mouth out with this.’ This will be Purgatory. The rinsing may take longer than I can now imagine. The taste of this may be more fiery and astringent than my present sensibility could endure. But . . . it will [not] be disgusting and unhallowed.”
Since it is impossible to know what is
inside the human heart, in practice many of us remember and pray for all the dead, confident that God wants
to save all his creatures. God is love,
and love draws us all on. I am hopeful
that, in the end, God’s love will overcome all our human crankiness and
resistance. Perhaps, just perhaps, all
the departed will one day be faithful
departed since the faithfulness at issue is God’s,
not ours. And washed and scrubbed, dried
with large soft towels and dressed in comfortable fresh clothes, we will be
welcomed to the royal banquet, not as permitted strangers, welcomed from
outside, but as family members who belong there and without whom there could be
no party, beloved all.
Blessed and beloved: All Saints and All
Souls. But also all of us here: Blessed and Beloved.
Each week we say “Therefore we praise
you, joining our voices with angels and archangels, and with all the company of
heaven.” Mary reminded us on Thursday
that this includes the beloved
departed. We may not see them, but we
hear them in our praises: a communion of saints indeed.
Together
with Mary, I invite us all to think about a loved one who has died, whether one
of the great saints of the Church, or a dear friend or family member. Tell others their stories. Pray for them, and ask them to pray for
us. Think of what they prayed for when
they were here. Wonder what they might
be praying for now, in that great company of the Blessed. If they weren’t churchy, and it is hard to
imagine them praying, ask what their hopes and fears were, and what their
hearts yearned for, especially when they were at their best. For yearning is prayer. And then find a way to start working for
that. I know my dad wants me to listen
better to others, and recognize when people are ready to talk.
In the name of Christ, Amen.
This is a sweet story and before I read the last line, I found myself thinking "Hmmm - that's where he got it..."
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