My heart is heavy this morning. The past few days have been difficult at Edgewood as we have had to say goodbye to several members who have died. Betty Garlick died just two weeks ago. Mary Crimmins died this past Friday. Marion Detjen, Marg Gingras, and former longtime member Gwen Stewart died this week as well.

In the moment it seems we are surrounded by death, by grief, by the waves of sorrow and anger and fear and anxiety that death brings in its wake. And that is just the past couple of weeks. This year we have also lost others dear to us at Edgewood: Jean Fickett, Bill Heater, Don Devendorf, Pete Van der Waals and other. And Kari and I, and some of our other Edgewood retired clergy, have presided over memorials for community members connected with Edgewood: Bear Pross, Larry Haigh.

Death is a reality in our lives and in our world. Out of the social justice consciousness of our tradition, we strive to lift up the deaths of so many around the world who die due to war, poverty, starvation, drought, violence, and inadequate health care.  But those deaths, even in our remembrance of them, stay somewhat at a distance.

And then death comes to sit on our doorstep, in our pews. Then we cry out--

            Why?

                        What do I/we do now?

                                    It’s unfair

                                                I hurt.

Death evokes in us so many primal emotions, and so many questions. Facing death, our own, our loved ones, our church members, we lean heavily on our faith, on the traditions of the church, on the wisdom of those who have gone before, to lead us forward from the places of despair, exhaustion and grief.

Our Bible, the texts of our tradition, can be really helpful in death. The Bible is a distillation of all the thoughts, feelings, hopes and fear of our ancestors and our scripture has a lot to say about death.

From Isaiah: the prophet praises God for God’s faithfulness, particularly to those in need and then offers of vision of what the coming of God’s kingdom will be like. A wonderful banquet. A gathering of God’s people. And the swallowing up of death forever.

No more death. Don’t we crave that sometimes? Or perhaps not no more death, but no more dying. We spend a lot of time in this culture denying death. Denying that we will die. Covering up the signs of aging so that we look young. We are afraid of death. Deathly afraid, we might say. We can expend a lot of energy pushing against a reality we cannot change, that maybe even God can’t change.

Sherwin Nuland writes in his National Book Award book, How We Die:

“Mankind for all its unique gifts is just as much a part of the ecosystem as is any other zoologic or botanical form, and nature does not distinguish. We die so that the world may continue to live. We have been give the miracle of life because trillions upon trillions of living things have prepared the way for us and then have died—in a sense, for us. The tragedy of a single individual becomes, in the balance of natural things, the triumph of ongoing life.”

I exist, you exist, because others have died before us in this closed system we call earth. We have to die or the system crashes, the resources are used up, and the planet dies. Death is natural. And yet it seems to us many times the most unnatural, cruel thing imaginable. And we resist it.

Before his death in 1981, American writer William Saroyan telephoned in to the Associated Press this final, very Saroyan-like observation: "Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"  (Today in the Word, April 11, 1993.)

A swallowing up of death, the end of death--it does sound like heaven. But in the absence of that, now what?

We deny death. But on a deeper level we fear death.  What happens when we die?  We know our bodies shut down. Anyone who has ever been with a person in the moment when they died, experiences that transition when the loved one’s central essence is gone. Even at funerals when we view someone in a casket, we know that they are not “there” But gone where?

As humans, our “whereness” is important to us. We want to know where things are. We want to locate them, place them. Death confounds us on this. We can’t know “where” when it comes to death.

We have lots of ideas about “whereness” handed down from years of Christian life and practice. One can go to Heaven, a wonderful place where we get to sit around in luxury all the time.

Or we may become one with God—the idea of drop of water joining the ocean

Or we might end up in Hell described as eternal separation from God or a place of awful eternal punishments—which sounds horrifying for us, but just about right when we contemplate the “bad” people “getting what’s coming to them.”
In death we come up against our fears. We are:

            Afraid that something awful awaits us

            Afraid of the unknown

            Afraid haven’t been “good enough” and  God will punish us, be angry with us

Or we fear that nothing awaits us. We live. We die. That is it.

Paul writes in his letter to I Corinthians: “Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

Death is scary because we don’t understand it; we can’t understand it. We truly won’t understand it until we get there ourselves, when we die. It is a mystery. And in the meantime, all we have are the promises of faith, the words of Jesus, the promise of God’s faithfulness to lean on. And sometimes that doesn’t feel like enough.

Leo Buscaglia has a children’s book called The Fall of Freddie the Leaf. It is a poignant reflection on death that speaks to children and adults alike. At one point, as autumn comes and Freddie faces his own death, he speaks with the wise leaf Daniel on the neighboring branch we is also about to die. Freddie asks about what happens next--

Does the tree die too?

            Someday. But there is something stronger than the tree. It is Life. That lasts forever and we are all a part of Life.

Where will we go when we die?

            No one knows for sure. That’s the great mystery.

Will we return in the spring?

            We may not, but Life will.

What happens to us in death? We don’t know. That’s the great mystery. Do we return? We don’t know but Life goes on, and I would easily substitute the word God for Life.

We can be assured that nothing is lost. Jesus says “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that God has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

Nothing is lost. No one is lost. This is what we are promised.

Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian mystic and prophet wrote: "Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come." 

Or as former president John Quincy Adams said while meeting with Daniel Webster, “I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in upon by the storms, and from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair.'"  (Today in the Word, April 11, 1992.)

But the promises of God are sure and dependable. Jesus’ words are for us. We will not be alone. Our loved ones will not die and be lost. We are creations in the image of God and our selves, our holy inner parts, will not be lost.

We also resist death because life is joyous. It is hard and we struggle. But we don’t want to let go either. Because life is sweet and when we die we have to release our hold on this world and all that is: loved ones, sunrises, walking the dog on cold crisp night under the stars.

Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favorite authors. Her books helped guide me over a rocky adolescence and her deep faith and ability to capture it in words guide me now as an adult. She shares this story:

One evening while my children were doing homework, I was sitting at my desk writing, when one of our neighbors, a young man in high school, came in demanding, “Madeleine, are you afraid of death?”

Barely turning, I answered, “Yes, Bob, of course.” He plunked himself down on a chair. “Thank God. Nobody else will dare to admit it.”

Death is change, and change is always fearful as well as challenging, but until we can admit the fear, we cannot accept the challenge. Until we can admit the fear, we cannot know the assurance, deep down in our hearts, that indeed, we are not afraid.

God came to live with  us as Jesus, to show us how to live, and to die, and that gives us assurance of the Resurrection, and of life in eternity – that is, of life beyond time and all that is transient, in God’s love forever. (Madeleine L’Engle, Be Not Afraid, viii)

This Sunday we celebrate All Saints Day which is Nov 1st on the church calendar, followed by All Souls Day on Nov 2. Bruce Epperly notes: Traditionally, All Saints' (November 1) celebrates those who have received their heavenly reward; All Souls' Day (November 2) remembers those who are still in process, once described in terms of the purgatorial journey. I would suggest that both All Souls' and All Saints' celebrate persons in process, whether living in our world or sojourning in God's everlasting realm. All Saints' and All Souls' days are about connection: this whole earth is a "thin place" in which everlasting life and day-to-day existence are joined in God's holy adventure. Our prayers of gratitude or blessing for saints and souls testify to the interconnectedness of life: not even death can separate us from the love of God or our loved ones. (Bruce Epperly, Patheos.com)

Today we take time in worship to remember those who have died, both long ago and over these past few days. We offer thanks for their bright light that shone out in the world. And we tell the stories of our faith, repeat the assurances of our scriptures, affirm that death is not the end. That Jesus came to earth as our companion and teacher, even to the point of experiencing death himself and returning to us to proclaim the promises of God are true.

It is right to grieve. It is right to mourn. It is right to be angry in the face of death. To yell at God and ask why. To question God and say what now? To sit in the quiet of an empty house where a loved one is gone and ache. This is what happens when someone dies.

But our faith offers strength. Our faith offers the promise of hope. Our faith assures us we will not be left alone, we will not be abandoned, and at the time of our own death, we will be surrounded by God and be given eternal life—whatever that mystery turns out to be. No matter what, ultimately, we will be held in love.

And so, today, we grieve. For the recent deaths of our friends and loved ones. For old deaths that still hurt. For our own death which is assured just as the inexorable turn from fall to winter. But we also take heart for we are created and held love, and Jesus Christ witnessed to the power of resurrection. And we, like generation upon generation before us, have faith in the promises of God that transcend even death. Amen.