In the second act of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods, the four remaining lead characters – the Baker, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack – come together to sing the show’s penultimate number called No One Is Alone. After the long, arduous journey they’ve been on, each one having experienced tremendous heartache, they try to understand the consequences of the things for which they have wished throughout the show, and they begin to decide to place community wishes over their own. The song itself serves a dual purpose: first, to show that each of the characters’ actions – and by extension our own – are not made in a bubble and that no one is guaranteed to be the protagonist of their own story. And second, the song demonstrates that even when life throws its greatest challenges at us, we do not have to face them alone, that there are still people who love us, believe in us, and are cheering for us.
I would add, even when we cannot see them. For that is what the Feast of All Saints is about, the companions we have had along our journey through the woods of our own lives, those who showed us the way, who may have gone on to glory, but whose lessons, whose love, whose spirits live on and inspire us to keep going and remember, to borrow the last line of that song: things will come out right now/we can make it so/someone is on your side/no one is alone.
Most of y’all, I suspect, are familiar with the Paschal Triduum, which are the three sacred days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. They are the holiest days in the Christian calendar, marking Jesus’ passing over from death to life. This springtime Triduum of life is mirrored by a Triduum of death in the fall of All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day, which happen on October 31, November 1, and November 2, respectively. They teach us that death is every bit as sacred as life – two sides of the same coin. All Hallows Eve was the day when Christians remembered that death doesn’t have the final say, and thus is not something to be feared, so they dressed up and mocked demons and devils to their faces. All Saints marked the celebration of the apostles and martyrs, confessors and doctors of the church, the big deal folks who have stained glass in their honor and stuff named for them. All Souls, then, was the day to remember everyone else, all the faithful departed. Over time, though, and because All Saints is one of the few major feast days we can move to the following Sunday, All Saints and All Souls got conflated and merged together, while All Hallows Eve became an almost entirely secular holiday that a lot of Christians, if you can believe it, even openly opposed.
Which is where most of us found ourselves in our churches this pat weekend. All Saints Sunday is not just about remembering the big deal folks, but all those who we love but see no longer. Personally, this day always takes me back to little All Saints Episcopal Church in Norton, VA, a place where the directory is the front and back of one sheet of paper. This place baptized me – along with my mother and sister – they confirmed me, and ordained me – and later my dad. And while they didn’t have a staff or lot of programs, they have lived into their name. Saints that worshiped there included Joe and May Straughn, who sang in the choir, and were the kind of old couple that made you ask, "How are they together?!" but who were madly in love. Frances Herndon, the cantankerous yet faithful altar guild chair who insisted I preach her funeral even before I was ordained. The Rev. Fran McCoy, the finest priest I have ever known - who was so good that I didn't even know men could be priests! - and the one person most responsible for me being one today. And my mother, Susan Mitchell, who I still see in the crowd every place I preach. They are just some of the saints, the companions on the way, the ones who reminded me and many others that none of us is alone, even if now they do so on a far greater shore.
And that is what the saints truly are to us, our companions. That word is taken from the Latin com, meaning “together or with,” and pan, meaning “bread.” Our companions are literally the ones with whom we share bread. And just as your closest companions are the ones you invite to share bread at your dinner table, at the holy Table, Christ brings us together – he who himself is the bread of life, the bread of heaven, the bread that feeds and sustains us. We share this Bread with each other, yes, but when we come forward and reach out our hands we do not do it alone. None of us is alone. The heavenly banquet that we know our loved ones are sharing right now is nothing less than the Eucharist itself. In the great prayer of the Church we hear Jesus’ words to his apostles, echoed through eternity for all the saints, “Do this for the remembrance of me.” Remember. We do not partake in this holy meal to simply recall an event in history, no. We re-member; that is, we become a member again, we reconnect with Christ and with all the saints who partake in this Communion. We reaffirm our place in the communion of saints by the Communion of Christ’s own body and blood. With those words of his, the lid is blown off of time. The past is brought into the present, and the eternal is now. We are tied to all who have ever offered this prayer before us, bound together with all throughout history who have shared the bread and cup. We are united through the future to the heavenly banquet, where the feasting never ends. In the midst of that celebrating, while moving beyond time, we are joined by the saints of God right beside us. Our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, grandchildren, and dear friends. They are here with us. We named them on Sunday. And each time we come to the Table we share with them in what Saint Ignatius of Antioch called “the medicine of immortality.”
No one is alone. Salvation is not something we achieve on our own – contrary to popular opinion, we do not go out and “get saved” by ourselves. We pray, we break bread, we study, we grow, we fail, we fall, we repent, we forgive, and we keep moving closer and closer to salvation together. The lives of the saints remind us of that fact. They remind us that no one is alone.
Sometimes I’m asked why we Episcopalians pray for the dead; after all, they’re fine now because they’re with God. There’s two reasons, really: 1) to remember that, as the prayer says, in death life is changed, not ended, and that those we love are still alive in the presence of God, and 2) because they are praying for us. On that side of the Kingdom is the Church Triumphant, those who have finished their earthly course and have found their triumph and bliss with Christ, and it is their ministry to pray for us here in the Church Militant – a term we use for us here on earth who are still in our struggles. We pray for them because that relationship is not over because it is rooted in love, which is the very nature of God – because if it ain’t about love, it ain’t about God, right? I am fond of reminding folks that love is the most powerful force in the whole universe, it cannot be destroyed by time or space. Love never dies. Love is what unites us, the living to the dead, and reminds us that we are not alone. This day is all about love.
For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blest. And let the church forever say: Alleluia! And Amen.
