November 3, 2024 ~ All Saints Sunday
Rev. Beckie Sweet
Back in 1982, Alice Walker wrote a marvelous novel, The Color Purple. Maybe you remember it. It was greeted with critical acclaim, won a Pulitzer, and was eventually made into a movie. What interests me today is that soon after writing The Color Purple, Alice Walker began to dream about her ancestors. Some of these dream-visits were from people she had known before they died. Others were from people who had lived and died before she was born. People she knew nothing about began to visit her in her dreams. One night, she says, “a long line of ancestors … all apparently slaves, field workers, and domestics,” came to visit her, each one bringing some wisdom or words of support, or sometimes just a hug. When Alice woke up the next morning, she could still feel the plump hand of one of these visitors, “a dark, heavy-set woman who worked in the fields,” gently but firmly holding her own. Alice Walker goes on to say, “I get to keep these dreams for what they mean to me, and I can tell you that I wake up smiling, or crying happily … It seems very simple: Because they know I love them and understand their language, the old ones speak to me … I feel that [this dream is] not so much my dream as ours [and in it I feel sustained forever]…Since this dream I have come to believe that only if I am banned from the presence of the ancestors will I know true grief.”[i]
Why does this story come to mind? Because this morning we celebrate All Saints Sunday, one of the great festivals of the church year. Today we celebrate the presence of the ancestors. Today we are invited into the same joy that Alice Walker felt when her ancestors came to visit, the joy that everyone feels when we see through the veil that separates this world from the next, and realize that those whom we love and see no longer are with us still.
It may be an understatement for me to say that we are living in difficult, messy times. It is good to bring our ancestors to mind and to draw strength from what the Bible calls the great cloud of witnesses that surround us. (Heb. 12:1) John of Patmos, the author of today’s text from Revelation, reported on his visions of the time when the difficulties and messiness will pass away. And the faithful will have lived through the suffering with integrity, all sources of death and mourning and crying and pain will have passed away. The promise then is to experience the new heaven and new earth. Knowing that promise makes it possible to live through the difficulties and messiness. Someone should have issued a spoiler alert! We do know how this story ends for those maintaining integrity in the faith. Knowing the end of the story is key to living through all that is happening now!
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. acted on this when he delivered his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech by presenting his hearers with the image of “the bright day of justice.” ~ his version of the New Jerusalem! Within his speech, King said, “There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”[ii]
Notice that King did not say, “we hope for…” or “as we continue to work for…” the bright day of justice. Rather that bright day of justice is a given for him—a reality that he could see and that he declared for his hearers. Like John of Patmos, Rev. King knows the end of the story. Also, like John of Patmos, Rev. King describes the reality of living through the dismantling of the unjust systems.
Interestingly, the scripted portion of Rev. King’s speech was short and dominated by an inventory of his hearers’ sufferings; it contained only a brief mention of the bright day of justice. However, halfway through his scripted speech, Rev. King extemporaneously launched into his “I have a dream…” declarations. He verbally painted a dramatic picture of the vision God had given to him of a peaceful civil rights movement, because he knew that the end of the story matters to us all.
For the saints we celebrate today, and all of the faithful ancestors who have gone before us, the end of the story has been realized in Christ’s victory over death. Instead of dealing with difficulties and messiness, these are the ones who have reached the end of the story and rest in Christ’s embrace. If ever there were a time to bear witness to our faith, now would be the time, today is the day. I am so grateful for those who have traveled and lived through the messiness with faith-filled integrity, and those who faltered and were redeemed by Christ. Like Alice Walker, who woke up feeling someone’s strong hands in hers, we open our hands to the saints who have gone before us, and take hold of their companionship and support. Strengthened by that bond of love that reaches into the past, we also reach out OUR hands to future generations and commit ourselves to being good ancestors to those who come after us. Through the faithful ones, God is Making All Things New!
[i] Alice Walker, “Coming in From the Cold,” Living By the Word (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1988), pp. 67-68.
[ii] “I Have a Dream Speech” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Aug. 28, 1963