All Saints Sunday—the Sunday following Halloween—is a day of remembering. Like the Day of the Dead in the Latino/a culture (November 1), it is a day of remembering those who have died.
All Saints Sunday remembers “those who have gone before”—before us in death, but also before us in life. We remember those from the generations before our own—parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, ancestors. We remember those through whom we came into existence, without whom we would not be. Some we knew; most we did not. Most are only names our parents and grandparents named from their memories of growing up, names in our family tree. If they are in our family tree, they touched our lives though we never actually knew them.
In addition to calling us to remember them, All Saints Sunday calls us to remember their touch on our lives—how they shaped how we think and the attitudes with which we live—their influence in shaping who we are today. All Saints Sunday calls us, in our remembering, to give thanks for them and for their touch on our lives. It calls us to identify how God touched us through them.
In calling us to remember those who have gone before, All Saints Sunday sometimes brings to mind unpleasant, painful memories. Those who have gone before were—like every person who has ever lived—flawed. Although they were adults, they were not necessarily mature emotionally or spiritually. They had their own emotional wounds from those who shaped their lives, their own unresolved issues inherited from those who went before them. (Until our emotional issues—our emotional wounds—are recognized, named, and addressed, they remain unresolved. They govern how we think and live. They get passed on to the next generation.) Predictably, their unrecognized, unaddressed, and unresolved issues got dumped on us. As a result, their touch on our lives was sometimes a wounding touch. All Saints Sunday invites us to recognize and acknowledge the wound we experienced from them so it can be healed—resolved rather than passed on. It invites us to say three things so that healing can come. It invites us to say “Thank you,” recognizing the gifts we received from their hand. It invites us to say “I forgive you,” recognizing how they failed in their relationship with us because of their own emotional wounds and emotional issues. It invites us to say “I’m sorry,” recognizing and acknowledging how we failed in our relationship with them. Working through our pain so that we can say these three things frees us to not pass our pain on to the next generation. It stops the flow of pain through the generations. Such is one of the many gifts of All Saints Sunday.
In addition to remembering those who have gone before, All Saints Sunday calls us to face the reality of our own mortality and the inescapable reality of our own death. It reminds us that we too will die, our names will be called in an All Saints Sunday service at some point (if we are so blessed). It calls us to recognize and treasure the gift of life we enjoy in each day. It calls us beyond the autopilot-way we often go through a day, responding to the demands and commitments of our schedule, moving from one task to the next. Specifically, All Saints Sunday calls us to recognize and treasure the people who are a part of our lives. It calls us to be conscious of and intentional about how we touch their lives. It calls us to recognize and address the emotional wounds and issues with which we live so that we do not pass our pain onto others, so that our touch on their lives is not a wounding touch.
Finally, All Saints Sunday calls us to remember who and whose we are. We are beloved children of God (1 John 3:1-3). We are called to be followers of Jesus, partnering with God in bringing the kingdom into reality on earth as it is in heaven. The Spirit lives in us, transforming us into the likeness of Christ, engraining the character of God within us, empowering us to live the ways of God Jesus taught. As beloved children, we are growing up to be like Christ as the Spirit teaches us to think with the mind of Christ—thinking shaped by the character of God and the ways of God (1 Corinthians 2:16). As we intentionally pursue growing in the likeness of Christ, the Spirit will lead us to recognize, address, and resolve the emotional pain and the emotional issues that produce the unhealthy ways we react to others.
All Saints Sunday is about remembering—remembering those who have gone before, remembering the inevitable reality of our own death, remembering who and whose we are.
Remember and be grateful!
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