All Saints Day (Year B, RCL)

At our first outdoor procession, I felt awkward. I’d led liturgies before, but my church life and my real life didn’t usually intersect so publicly.

How can Paul navigate the choppy waters of a pagan environment, with its idols and temples? The obvious place to start is the Shema.

Many churches, including mine, will mark All Saints Day this Sunday. Of course, politics will also be on everyone’s mind. At first it seemed to me that the two have little in common, but then several connections occurred to me.

Near the end of serving my last church, I helped a family bury their 44-year old brother. But he was also son, husband, father, and grandfather. Let’s call him Sam. One of eight children, Sam met and married his wife when they were teenagers. Soon, they gave birth to two daughters. And the daughters had children.

Many at the funeral were under 50, and quite a few were parents with kids. Throughout the service there were bursts of giggles and sudden loud cries. For the children, a sanctuary was unfamiliar, even unsettling.

While Christian scholars have long questioned body-soul dualism, it remains common in church circles. This may finally be changing.

In the Gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus is the cause of Jesus' death.

How far had Lazarus traveled along the way of clarity, truth, and reality in those four days?