Nov. 6, 2022
All Saints’ Sunday
Text: Luke 6:20-31
One traditional way of explaining the Beatitudes is to say that only Jesus embodied all of them perfectly. And while this might be true of the Beatitudes found in the Gospel of Matthew, which speak of spiritual virtues like meekness and purity of heart, in Luke the Beatitudes are something else altogether. To state the obvious, it is not hard to find people who are poor or hungry or grieving or hated, or even all of the above. And then there are those “woe unto you” lines that would seem to stop us from any comfort we might want to take from this passage. Small wonder, then, that most people prefer Matthew’s more spiritual and less overtly challenging version of the Beatitudes over the ones we have before us today.
I recently came across a story in Willa Cather’s novel Death Comes for the Archbishop that may help illustrate what these four Lukan Beatitudes can look like in real life and how they might actually lead to blessings for all of us, if we let them.
Written in 1927, the novel was rather progressive for its time in its portrayal of Native Americans as people with their own valuable cultural and religious traditions who were brutally mistreated by the settlers. The protagonist, Jean-Marie Latour, is a missionary bishop in New Mexico, sent there shortly after the territory came under American control. He is consistently portrayed as a kind and compassionate figure, trying to do the right thing under difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances.
In this particular episode, the narrator reveals that Bishop Latour often experiences periods of deep doubt and spiritual coldness. One winter night he was “unable to sleep, with a sense of failure clutching at his heart. His prayers were empty words and brought him no refreshment. His soul had become a barren field. His work seemed superficial, a house built upon the sands.” Something made him decide to go into the church to pray, at which point he stumbles across a poor bedraggled Mexican woman crouching in the doorway and “weeping bitterly.”
This woman, named Sara, was being kept as a virtual slave by an American family, who mistreated her badly. For Sara, the worst part of her situation was not the physical suffering and privation she endured but rather that she was forbidden to go to mass or even have friendships with other Catholics. That cold, snowy night she had run away, not seeking freedom, but just wanting to spend a few minutes in the presence of inside the church, which she had not seen for 19 years, to seek the solace of her faith. The bishop immediately gave her his cloak and led her inside to pray. Once in the sanctuary, Sara was so overwhelmed that her miserable weeping turned into tears of joy. She threw herself down at the base of a statue of the Virgin Mary and kissed her feet, thanking the bishop profusely for this comforting gift of presence and encouragement.
Looking back on that night, the Bishop realized that never before had he witnessed “such deep experience of the holy joy of religion, as on that pale December night. He was able to feel, kneeling beside her, the preciousness of the things of the altar, to her who was without possessions: the tapers, the image of the Virgin, the image of the saints, [and] the cross, that took away indignity from suffering, and made pain and poverty a means of fellowship with Christ.” In fact, he recognized finally, “This church was Sara’s house and he was a servant in it.”
Luke’s Beatitudes could have been written about Sara. She was poor, hungry, weeping, and reviled. The people who kept her enslaved and refused her even the comforts of practicing her own religion were, on the other hand, were rich and well fed enough. And, more to the point, so was the Bishop. He was not a bad man. Some even thought him a saint. He has endured hardship and suffering for the sake of the Gospel. But his faith did not hold a candle to this poor, oppressed woman’s blazing love for Jesus.
At the end of his life, when death is coming for the bishop, now an archbishop, he finds himself spending hours remembering his dear friend Joseph Valiant, a humble priest who never rose in the hierarchy because he was so devoted to spreading the Gospel across the frontier. Fr. Joseph went into debt in order to care for the needs of his people and was often in trouble with his superiors back in Europe. The novel leaves it to the reader to decide which priest chose the better path, or if the world needed both men and the different gifts they had to offer.
Scripture, however, is pretty clear about where we are to stand. It is in solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the grieving, and the oppressed that we will find Jesus, because that is where Jesus chose to be. If we are people who have enough food, enough money, enough well-being, it is not an adequate response to the poor to simply think about what extras we can give them, how we can alleviate a little bit of their suffering. That is a start, certainly, and a good one. But if the balance of power remains at the status quo, if the systems that perpetuate poverty and oppression remain unchallenged, then the demands of the Gospel have not been met.
It seems to me that part of what keeps the story of Bishop Latour and his encounter with Sara from being a merely sentimental story, is that it allows us to see the bishop’s own brokenness and need of faith, not just Sara’s. However brief, their encounter is one of relationship and mutuality, not mere helping. Her faith strengthens and ignites his own, every bit as much as his cloak helps keep Sara warm on that bitter cold night. And both of them are reminded of their dignity and worth by casting their eyes on the Cross, the symbol of a God who loves them equally and considers them both his precious children.
On All Saints Day, we remember and celebrate those people who have risen to the challenge of the Beatitudes and tried to meet the demands of the Gospel. They have not settled for cheap grace, or a charity that leaves their own wealth and power untouched. The true power of solidarity, the genius behind so many saints, is the recognition that there really is more than enough in the world to go around. Our wealth, our food, our well-being and high status, must not come at the expense of others. And in the world the way it is currently structured, there is almost no other way for us to have enough, except if others do not have enough. And that is the system that Luke’s Gospel is calling us to change, to reverse, to overturn, from the moment when Mary first recognizes the miracle that God is doing through her in the incarnation of his son..
The Gospel truth is that there is always enough and more than enough, if only find ways to live in solidarity and deep relationship. We are all servants in God’s church and are all equally called into fellowship with Christ and one another. That fellowship can lead us from strength to strength, even as it gives us the courage to take up our cross and follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Amen.
