The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls) C ~ "A Cascade of Love" ~ Rev. Richard Eslinger, Ph.D.

The Gospel Lesson we hear today is imbedded in the “Bread of Life” discourse of the 6 th Chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus has already fed the 5,000 with the barley loaves and little fish and has come to the disciples as they huddled in their frail boat during the storm on the sea. The crowd continued to pursue Jesus and when they gather about him, he announces, “I am the bread of life.” Now comes a lengthy commentary on this claim. But as the Lord takes up this pronouncement, he speaks to us today on this All Souls Sunday. So it is right, just, and fitting that we hear these words as we prepare ourselves and all things for this Holy Feast with the Bread of Life.

The first words we hear are all words of action. “The Father gives me everything, and it will come to me. I came down from heaven and will do the will of the one who sent me.” There is a cascade of Divinity here, between the Father and the Son. A sending and a receiving, a giving and receiving, a conveying of Divine will and an obedience to the Father’s will. It is like a mountain stream, cascading over the heights and pouring down. The Father is the cascade, a torrent of love and a waterfall of Divinity. Jesus, God’s beloved Son, receives this cascade of love and welcomes it into his being and his ministry. The Father sends the Son, and the Son lives out the will of the Father. St. Bonaventure spoke of God as “a fountain fullness of love.”

The two images flow together. At times we receive such an abundance of Mystery and blessing that it is like standing at the base of a cascading stream. On other occasions, we wade into a more modest fountain of God’s love. Either way, there is love and we are surprised by such abundant blessing. It is as if that cascade of Divinity splashes into every baptismal font and every earthly body of baptismal water. This cascade has been poured out upon us, bringing with it the constancy of Divine love and Godly purpose for our lives. That is at the heart of the relationship between the Father and the Son; with the Spirit, an eternal flow of love.

Now the holy mystery of the Father’s will is given prominence in Jesus’ words; the Son “came down from heaven… to do the will of the one who sent me.” The Lord came down from heaven not to do his own will but that of the One who sent him. And at the heart of that Divine will is the gift of the faithful people who are the baptized. It is this Body of Christ that Jesus lauds, and vows that he will not lose. It is not likely our way of thinking of ourselves, but here, in the midst of the Bread of Life discourse, it is celebrated that the Father makes a gift of us, yes, you and me, to God’s only Son! Quite centrally, then, it is we ourselves who offer gifts back to

our God, bread and wine, and the sacrifice of our praise. The Core Gift is that of the sacrifice of our Lord upon the cross for our redemption and the redemption of the world. Beneath that “Core Gift,” though, is this primal “Core Gift” of our God’s work in creation,…of the entirety of the universe and the grace through which our God has called a people into being, the covenant people of God. And now, Jesus testifies that he has not lost any who have been given to him. So, our own faith and devotion to the Lord are among the gifts that are offered at the Holy Eucharist.

This is why, in the early church, the newly baptized at the Easter Vigil were among the first to present the Gifts at a Eucharist during the Great Fifty Days of Easter. There is a mystery here, in this juxtaposition of Christ’s offering for us, in his life, his Passion, Death upon the Cross, and glorious Resurrection along with the humble gift of our life together in Christ. We are, in some profoundly gracious way, marked with mystery, the Father’s gift to the Son.

Now if we are, in some unknowable way, a people who have been gathered and offered to the Son by the Father, this also means that our relationship with each other is marvelously distinct. We the baptized have enormous responsibilities for each other. On one hand, this certainly means that we will not be about words and actions that lead to anyone being “lost” as Christ’s people. Our Lord proclaims that every one of us is among those the Father has given him and that “I should not lose anything of what he gave me.” This revelation shifts the way in

which we view ourselves along with the community of the faithful. Beginning with ourselves, this wisdom of the Lord means that we are not to perennially put ourselves down or use any substance or ideology as an addiction! Our God intends us, first, to be those who are free to love, and to be about the healing of the Holy Spirit. On a more communal note, this revelation of ourselves as a gift to Christ means that we will be about building up his body, the church. Of course, any abuse or misuse of power stands against our Lord’s declaration that he will not lose any one of us. We will, in the words of the 34 th Psalm, “seek peace and pursue it,” within ourselves and among the faithful in the church and in God’s world. Our vocation as those baptized in Christ begins with our faithfulness to him. With all the saints and all souls, we give glory and praise to our Triune God.

The icons for All Saints and All Souls, both Orthodox and Catholic, have several commonalities. First, these icons are crowded with the faithful and the saints. Saints and all souls, they seem innumerable. They usually reflect the ethnic and national contexts of the icon writer. But they also share this in common, every icon you read: The risen and triumphant Jesus Christ sits or stands at the high center of the icon. It is in his Name that all saints and all souls are gathered from every nation and every people! But here at (Name of Parish), our vocation as the baptized is also to discern among each other the gifts of the Holy Spirit that have been bestowed to each member of the Body. (The homilist is invited to highlight

programs and liturgical occasions within the parish that are focused on such healing and serving ministries.) Called to servant ministries of the church? We are alert to such sisters and brothers and support these ministries with our prayers and our service. Gifted for ministries of outreach and prophetic witness? We join in discerning and supporting these baptismal gifts as well. Gifted and called to the priestly or diaconal ministries of the ordained? Here, too, we are honored to support and cultivate these members of our community in Christ. Of course, this also means that it is right and salutary for us to invite some friends in Christ to join with us in our self-assessment of those Spirit-gifts that become our calling. All of these activities are on behalf of our Lord’s insistence that not one be lost. This is our new vision on All Souls Day.

The baptismal waters run deep through the rich meanings of this Festival Day. We remember those who have fought the good fight and now rest from their labors among the saints and souls in glory. We dig more deeply into our calling to be a gift from the Father to the Son. And we consider all of the ways in which we encourage each other to more deeply discover and affirm our baptismal gifts and, therefore, our calling in Christ. With all the saints and all souls who hold to the faith with conviction and courage, we join in our unceasing praise of our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.