Memorial Sunday: Remembering Those We've Loved and Lost; Sermon, November 26, 2017

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Psalm 90

Matthew 25:31-46

Memorial Sunday; Remembering Those We've Loved and Lost

One of the oldest and most known images for Jesus, and for God in general, is the image of the shepherd. Indeed, it is comforting to take root in all the metaphors that the symbolism provides; like a shepherd who keeps watch, God is a ‘keeper’ who keeps the flock fed and keeps the flock out of danger.  Like the shepherd who searches for a lost sheep, Jesus is a searcher looking for good pastures, looking for the lost, and looking for the injured to restore them to the herd and to whole health. Shepherds are also accountants because they are held accountable for the nourishment of the sheep and the resources of the land, and for keeping count of the numbers in the flock.

At times of great stress or great grief, knowing that God is our shepherd can be a great comfort.  That is what is happening here in Ezekiel; God is offering a word of comfort to God’s people through the prophet in a time of great stress. Having just found out that the temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed, God speaks through Ezekiel to the Jewish population in exile with a reassuring word; that God will personally take charge again and shepherd his people.  Ezekiel gives voice to the fact that God is with us; that God searches for us, and keeps watch, and accounts for our well-being – even when we are wandering.  Even when the turns of life cause us to question everything.  Even when it feels like life is crumbling around us; God cares for us as a shepherd cares for his flock.

Because, as the psalmist says, in Psalm 90 today - God has been our dwelling place for generations – before the mountains were brought forth – and will be our dwelling place for generations to come.   God is our refuge, and strength, for generations, and such a home is a divine gift.  We can rest and relax, assured that we are held by the Creator for all time, despite the brevity of human life.

Today we honor the people of our lives, those dear and those departed, those every-day saints, and in a spirit of thankfulness think about how they touched our lives.  For while our lives are but a blink and a passing thought in God’s eternal sight, those people we encounter, those experiences we have with them, the love and perspective they pass to us are what we build our lives on.  While we may take comfort in God’s shepherding, we take companionship from those who share the journey and make our life rich.

Whether it is a sister with whom we shared childhood and maturity; elementary lessons and minor missteps; adolescent pranks and adult laughter; broken bones or maybe broken hearts; sharing the joys and milestones of life side by side, like marriage and childbirth and child-rearing and parental care and mourning; is a lifetime of building memories like the walls that house our hearts. Today we celebrate that person’s memory.

Or whether it is a parent, someone who both provided the roof over our head and was the metaphorical roof that we took shelter under; the person who provided the lessons and the love, the coddling and the challenge, the nurturing and the necessary punishment; but also the foundation of our values, the windows to our traditions, and the door that was always open.  Today we celebrate that person’s memory.

Or whether it is a child, one who lit up our lives and hearts and home with their birth, and mischief, and learning, and smile; one who pushed and reinforced our foundation; one gone from our lives much too fast but leaving behind a deep treasure chest of joys and experiences that never wear away.  Today we celebrate that person’s memory.

Or whether it be a partner in this life, through marriage or through friendship, someone whom we happened upon during this journey and whom we are always grateful for; someone who helped shoulder the burden in hard times and conspired in laughter in good times; someone who added beauty and understanding and insight to our daily routine.  Today we celebrate that person’s memory.

For all of those mentioned and all of those unmentioned, today we thank our Creator for putting them in our life, and forever in our hearts. As the song says,

The world is bright with the joyous saints 

who love to do God's will. 

You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, 

in church, by the sea, in the house next door; 

they are all saints of God, whether rich or poor, 

and I mean to be one too.

When Jesus says, in our gospel lesson today, that the sheep will be separated from the goats; both the people moved to his left side and the people moved to his right side are surprised.  “When did we see you, Lord?” they each ask.  Neither is certain of their value.  Neither side knows when they were, or could have been, the embodiment of an answered prayer.  How many saints are in your life that would also be surprised to know what they mean to you?  That they were there in your life when you felt hungry, or weak, or needed them?  Today, while we give thanks to God for those saints who have left us, we should also seize this moment of gratitude with our cherished loved ones.

The psalmist asks, “Teach us, O God, to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” For although a thousand years in God’s sight is just like yesterday when it is past, God still wakes us up like grass that is renewed in the morning; each day is a new moment to be thankful for those who make our life rich.  If, as we count our days, we are also counting our blessings, then we will be living as God intended. And though the days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, of only toil and trouble according to the Psalmist; and are too soon gone themselves, those with a wise heart will know that God satisfies us each morning with the steadfast love from those around us, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 

This is our plea to God, for the wisdom to be able to reflect on life in all it’s glorious brevity, and inflate each of those moments to its fullest. Joy, satisfaction, and gladness are not things we can purchase, own, or hold onto.  They are temporal and as fleeting as the sun set at the end of the day.  But those joys are given to us with every new morning, and we must gather those memories while we can.  God gives us the joy of the work of our hands, the fruit of our relationships, and the memories of our loved ones. 

With every day of our lives, we live to the fullest to give thanks to them, these saints of our lives, and to God for placing them in the path of our life.  Though the heart may ache in their absence, we give thanks for where their presence has built upon the structures of our hearts.  And knowing that our lives constitute merely a minute in the generations under God’s keep, human beings are still the image bearers made for fellowship with the creator and one another. Each of us, by virtue of our humanity, represents God on earth and therefore follows in the footsteps of the creator’s desire to be in relationship with each of us, and for us to be bringing joy to others through our relationships.

Wendell Berry, a novelist, poet, and farmer from Kentucky, puts it this way in a poem called Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

Practice resurrection.

For it is with every day of our lives, lived to the fullest, lived with resurrection, that we truly give thanks to the saints of our lives, and to God.  I pray that, with each morning God grants us, we too learn to practice resurrection as a way of being grateful for the presence of love in our lives.