Tomorrow we celebrate All Saints Day, although technically the festival of All Saints was November 1. We Lutherans are not very good at going to mid-week services, so we postpone the celebration until Sunday. This year the list of our congregation’s saints who have died and entered the “church triumphant” is especially long. In fact, it is heart-rending. We will read their names in our prayers of the church and a bell will toll after each name is read. The bell tolls deep. We miss their faithful presence.
In my last two posts here and here, I have written, reflected and wrestled with humility…or the lack thereof. I told you I would let you know if I found it. I have.
On October 30, a congregation member died suddenly. Over the past few days I have been preparing for the All Saints Day message in which I have reflected on the gifts of the ten brothers and sisters who have died in the Lord this past year. But I have also begun preparing for the funeral of this faithful and beloved sister in Christ who has most recently departed and whose name will be read last tomorrow. It is fair to say that I have been humbled.
There is a tendency for many to say only good things about the one who has died as if we have to prove that they are worthy of God’s notice. As if we will jinx their future or dishonor their memory if we admit some of the ways that they may have failed us. What short shrift we give God’s graciousness and forgiveness!
Nevertheless, I am humbled when I hear of the gracious things my departed brothers and sisters have done that I have known nothing about. When I discover that they, quietly and behind the scenes, have been serving their neighbor (and therefore the Lord) in ways that few people know about, I can only describe my response as humility. How much they had to teach me and I didn’t know. Perhaps I didn’t know about it because I wasn’t listening carefully with enough of my own humility. I also suspect, though, that they didn’t care about the “left hand knowing what the right hand was doing.” There is something about many in the passing generation that doesn’t need to be praised, that knows we do what is right and loving because we can (by God’s grace), not because anyone is looking.
And so I now name humility as a frequent part of the generation that preceded me. If that is true, then I only have a few more years to learn from them. Or perhaps humility is the final stage of development for any generation that is entering their last years. Maybe I too will do things with humility by the time I am 85. Nevertheless, I know this: I still have a lot to learn about walking humbly with one’s God. And every time I preside at a funeral, the more I realize time is running out for what I have yet to learn.
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