Rekindled at God’s Hearth Fire (All Saints'/Totenfest Remembrance)

Rekindled at God’s Hearth Fire

Matthew 1:1-17

Today we speak aloud names.

Names of loved ones who’ve died in the past year.

Names that sometimes get lost

the farther we get from their loss.

Here we honor all the “saints” of our histories,

name our predecessors who’ve led us to where we are today:

from Sarah and Abraham to Bathsheba and David

through the Babylonian exile to Mary and Joseph

to Jesus, whom we name Christ.

We remember the names in our own ancestries:

Helen and Walter who begot Alice—

Alice and Allan who begot Linda—

Linda and John who begot Sharon.

What are your names…?

At birth we receive a name, and at rebirth into new families or relationships, we sometimes take on a new name; and we do not lose those names when we are reborn into death.

I asked the listurgist to speak the long list of names in Jesus’ lineage because they clearly mattered to Matthew, as the names that we speak today matter to us.

The biblical names give Jesus a history—

the history of the Jewish people.

Our history, as Christians include the saints of the Church:

Paul and John and Mary Magdalene; Augustine and Julian of Norwich;

the names of every person a part of Plymouth since it was gathered in 1903—

and those we’ll name in a few minutes.

We tend to bring the energy down a little bit during this Totenfest service to honor the reality of  sadness that loss can evoke. And that’s necessary for us to do sometimes. Sorrow is as real as celebration.

This is one of the reasons I cherish the Psalms so much:

because they lay before God every possible human response to life:

delight, terror, awe, gratitude, self-pity, hope, rage, lament.

As liturgy professor Don Saliers puts it,

in worship we can express our “humanity at full stretch” before God.

That “full stretch” includes ecstatic joy and deep grieving.

It means being present with others

in each of those states as well.

Today we worship with whatever kind of response death evokes from us, and we lay it before God and one another. Next week we’ll worship the Holy in a different way—but for today, we honor that there is a place here for loss.

~~~

Today is also Halloween, the exact middle space between the Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice.

A holy day to many ancient peoples who viewed it as an “in-between” or “edge” time.

A time when the “veil between the worlds” of the living and the dead seemed to grow thin.

As that thinning of the veil was perceived

and people thought particularly about those who’d passed through it to the other side,

this became a day of both celebration and anxiety—

much like our own remembrances of the dead.

We enjoy our memories of them

and the ways they touched their lives.

But we also wonder what death brings…

what has become of those we love…

and what will become of us.

As you know, as Christianity spread throughout Europe, the people began to incorporate local rituals and

festivals into Christian practice, adding stories to those traditions to make them distinctly Christian.

Think of Christmas with the

“Light of the World” being born

just as Winter Solstice turns the northern hemisphere back toward longer daylight.

Historians say that Jesus was probably born in the summer sometime,

but the Church perceived the people’s need to celebrate solstice,

and so incorporated Christ’s birth into the season.

And so Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival, has merged into Halloween:

All Hallows’ Even, the night before All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day.

A significant part of the Samhain ritual was for every individual in the community

to extinguish their hearth fire: literally, the very heart of the home.

In that time and place, fire was life—

you cooked by it,

were warmed by it,

could see at night only by its light.

Fire was life,

so you tended it carefully,

keeping the coals banked

so they’d be there in each new day.

And this fire, which you’d watched and fed and waited on all through the previous winter and into this new year… you let it die.

It was a fearful prospect, letting go of that security, self-reliance, your ability to light, feed, warm yourself and your family. The heart of life: dead. Losing that flame was always a fearful thought.

But that wasn’t the end of it: the next part of this tradition led them to a much brighter flame.

On this night, the villagers came together,

each from their own individual darkness,

to the light of a large, communal bonfire.

With the fire’s shadows dancing on one another’s faces, I imagine they could almost make out the features of loved ones gone—

in cousin Joe, your grandmother’s eyes;

in uncle Will, your beloved brother’s chin.

Here in community, the life flowed, the darkness was pushed back.

And by the end of the night,

each household returned home

with a burning ember from the one fire—

so their many hearths would be warmed from one hearth,

the center and life of their community.

It was a fearful time, believing that death was so very close—

extinguishing that hearth fire reminded them of that.

But the coming together of a whole village at the bonfire gave a beautiful image of renewed life—

and this is what we do here today.

We, as individuals, come from our own homes, our own lives,

to rekindle our fire in community—from the One Flame—

God’s love—

which turns back the darkness that loss can bring.

We bring the names of those who have died into this space;

we also bring the names of those who have tended the hearth before us,

those who helped us come to the communal flame.

Not only Abraham and Sarah and Rebekah and Isaac,

but our own mothers and fathers and mentors and pastors and teachers and lovers and friends—

any person who, though our hearts turn cold or dark,

have led us back to a place of warm embrace at God’s own hearth.

The way we will honor the names you bring today is for you to come forward along the window aisle,

use the microphone to say a name, light a candle from our community’s flame, and receive a rose

representing the love of this congregation which surrounds you—

an embrace of God through this gathering of people—

then return to your seat.

I welcome you now, in this time and space,

to speak a name,

light a flame,

and may the warmth that enters your heart through God

return with you to your own hearth and home. [Totenfest ritual begins]

~~~

Let us pray:

God in community, you call us together to remember that it is through you

that we find our life, our comfort, our own spark and flame.

Christ, you lived among us to light the way and remain with us

as we tend our hearths each and every day.

Holy Spirit, you keep us moving, keep us living and keep us loving, even through loss.

Guide us all—in lament or in celebration—to peace after loss;

and help us reveal your light through our lives.   Amen.