Seasons of Grief

Sermon on All Saints Sunday by Pr. Craig Mueller + November 3, 2024

Tears. There is a lot of crying in all three readings today.

When have you cried recently? What are your own memories of deep loss? Was there healing in tears? Do you remember a time someone held you as you cried, and no words needed to be spoken?

My sister-in-law, Elizabeth, died in 2020, right before the pandemic. There were many sad moments along the way, but one I remember most vividly is walking alone into their empty mountain home. And realizing she wasn’t there, and that she would no longer be there. And then the wave of grief hit me, and I sobbed.

As a pastor, I have been in hospital rooms of members that have died in the past several years. With family members we held vigil. We waited. We knew the moment of finality would come, but when it did, it always brought holy tears and embraces.

There is a lot of weeping in today’s gospel. In the aftermath of the death of their brother, Lazarus, Mary and Martha are crying, their hearts broken. Their community of family and friends is shedding tears. And in the face of this loss and the anguish of death itself, Jesus is deeply moved and weeps. God-with-us. Weeping.

The thing about grief is that it is visceral. It is in our bodies, not our heads.  Consider this true story. Herb and Esther were married in 1902 when they were 16 and 18. They lived on a small farm outside the city, barely scraping by. They had no children. They raised a few pigs, but otherwise had no savings and nothing put away for retirement.

One morning Esther didn’t wake up, and Herb tried to wake her. But her body was cold. The pair had outlived all their friends and relative. So only a few people attended the funeral. When it was finally time for the funeral director to close the casket, Herb jumped up from his seat. He may have been wearing the same suit he wore at his wedding. And before anyone could stop him, he jumped into the casket. He lay there, clinging to his wife, sobbing. Begging, over and over, “just bury me with her.”

They say that a part of us dies when a beloved spouse, child, parent, or friend dies. But maybe it is better to say that everything we were before, dies.

One parent who lost a young daughter in a car accident says it was like an avalanche, annihilating everything in its path.

Another mother who lost a baby described the storm of grief: returning to an empty house with empty arms. A primitive howl emerged from deep within her. She remembers saying to herself: now, I understand how someone can die of a broken heart. Yet, it is the cost of love, this we know.

Grief has its own seasons. It can show up anytime, without warning. Tears, the lubricant of grief. Tears, perhaps our most honest form of prayer. Tears revealing the deep vulnerability of being human.

Honor your tears and those of others. Refrain from telling someone to stop crying. Instead, just be there. In the silence. In the emptiness--and the fullness—of that sacred moment.

In a Buddhist, story, a woman loses her son and is unconsolable. She goes to the Buddha and asks him to bring back to life her son. The Buddha instructs her to go throughout the village, and knock on each door, seeking a single mustard seed from any home where no one has died. If she can obtain one mustard seed, he will restore her son to life. But she finds there is no household that has not experienced loss. She returns with no mustard seed, but rather expanded awareness. There is a certain democracy in death. We are all bound for the same place. The trees and the wind and the birds whisper this truth, if we will listen.

Grief is our spiritual guide. Reminding us of the shortness of life. Of not being in control. Of a mystery beyond our telling. Of a truth we can barely put into words.

For grief strips us bare. Strips away certitude and cynicism. In these days before the election, when we are more divided than ever, it is our humanity, and with it, our grief, that we share in common.

For there is a helplessness in grief. The grief over the death of thousands of children in Gaza. Wars that have no end in sight. A political landscape here and around the world that weighs us down.

We will all grieve in our own way. Again, refrain from telling someone to move on with their lives, or to get over their grief. It asks a lot of us to simply be with someone. Not trying to give answers. Not needing to offer a pithy saying or bible verse. Being with what is. That is holy.

There are other tears in our readings today on this All Saints Sunday. God wiping away the tears from the eyes of the grieving. God swallowing up death forever. God providing a feast in the mist of loss. God making all things new. God restoring life in the midst of death.

I learned this past week that the Lakota people have a Wiping Away of Tears ceremony that provides comfort amid grief and loss. They call on their ancestors to help them in this ritual that unites spirits, hearts, and minds.

We gather today, to be honest. About grief. About loss. About tears. About broken hearts. About helplessness. Maybe that is one reason being in church brings tears at times.

Even when we feel depleted, God’s promise stands. To comfort us. To embrace us. To wipe away our tears. And fill us again with hope.

There is a surrender in crying. For me it is a holy moment, in which I am fully alive and fully human. Tears are not only cathartic, but are made of water, reminding us of our baptism into death and resurrection.

Sing, even through the tears. And when no words come out, let us the song of others carry you. Sing of the end of all tears. Sing of resurrection and hope. Sing of the God who weeps with us and who promises to make all things new. Sing of the great feast of victory spread before us at this table. In words we will later sing: All of us go down to the dust, but even at the grave we make our song, alleluia!