Revd Chris reflects - a company, wielded together into a body.

Hebs 12 1 “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…”

The Bible is full of corporate, communal images. It has lots of stories of individuals but essentially God makes a covenant with a people. Jesus deals with individuals in their various needs but he gathers together a community of disciples. It is that little word we that I want us to focus on. Today is All Saints’ Day , a day set aside for the Church to remember a much neglected doctrine of the communion of saints, something affirmed in the words of the Apostle’s Creed. Sometimes when I hear some Christians speak about a loved one who has died they often give them impression that they have gone to be with the Lord, which is correct of course, but they speak of it as if no one else will be there, just them and the Lord. This seems a far cry from those Biblical images of how well populated heaven might be. Or take Jesus’ words like those recorded in John 14 “in my father’s house are many rooms”. The fact that there are many rooms does of course suggest there are other guests there. Our loved one’s don’t go there to be alone. Like a guest house or hotel or hostel with many residents. So, I offer a bit of a corrective to some people’s thinking. The reality might be that there are those there we are not expecting. Just think of those famous words of Psalm 23- “you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”. Just think of it in this way for a minute. You get to heaven to find you are sat next to your most bitter enemy- for all eternity! It is a sobering thought.

“Since we are surrounded by do great a cloud of witnesses”, notice the plural word “we”, the corporate communal subject, “we” are surrounded not “I”. The Methodist minister and writer of numerous spiritual books, J Neville Ward, once said “you can’t have Christ without the whole catholic Church”. For as Charles Wesley wrote Christ and his members are one. I am, of course, well aware that some Christians can irritate other Christians, but such brothers and sisters are as much a part of Christ’s flock as those we find it easy to get along with because they share our views. To be a Christian is about being part of a corporate group of followers, journeying together. It is not to a solitary vocation that Christ calls us, but to live in community both here on earth and continuing in heaven. By baptism we become part of the Body of Christ, the Church and this never ends. As we used to say in the 1936 Book of Offices Service from BCP “we are very members incorporate of the mystical body of thy son which is the blessed company of all faithful people”. Not a random collection of individuals, a company, wielded together into a body. This is part of the reason why not being able to share in fellowship, as we have previously known, is so hard for many of our folk. We are a communion of saints. Some of us may recall those memorable words of Margaret Thatcher that “there is no such thing as society” which sounded quite odd, given she was raised a Methodist where up to 1976 we used to call our congregations societies with the society meeting and society stewards elected from it. She can’t have been paying much attention at Finkin Street in Grantham in the days of her youth!

So here we are All Saint’s Day 2020. And it is not quite like any other. For this particular year we have experienced mass deaths from the Covid 19 virus, the like of which none of us have seen before. Not since the 1918 influenza epidemic which claimed thousands of lives, this epidemic has claimed millions and over 45,000 deaths in this country so far. Most of us will have known people who have died from it or being affected by it. Other loved ones we may have lost, and we have been unable to attend funerals as we would have wished, with restricted numbers permitted. I lost an aunt in April and we could not go to her funeral. Many people will be grieving without the usual opportunities to grieve with a down-sized farewell of a funeral and no gathering for refreshments and conversations with family and friends, with no chance of the local community gathering to bid farewell as in more normal times.

Even for ministers the need to undertake the gleaning of information over the telephone rather than a physical visit to a family has been part of the new arrangement.

And we are not immune from loss of loved ones too. On the days around this season many churches have special services where those who have lost loved ones are invited back to remember them with thanksgiving. I have lost two aunts and one uncle this last year and a very dear friend. I miss them all, of course. And yet the text I chose reminds us that we are surrounded by such as they, as we journey onward. The imagery of the great cloud suggests something of a presence which is different from physical presence of family on friends on terra ferme but has some similarities. You might not like crowds but most of us will have been part of one at some stage. Perhaps as part of a crowd at a sporting fixture or a concert or other big event. I remember going to a Sixth Round FA Cup Replay as a schoolboy when Middlesbrough played Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux- part of a crowd of 41000. And I have been at Test Matches at Headingley when England played the West Indies with that an even larger of number and Murrayfield when England played and beat Scotland. But the biggest crowd of a non- sporting variety I remember being part of was the Papal Mass for the Beatification of John Henry Newman by Pope Benedict XV1 at Cofton Park in Birmingham. It was even bigger than the top tent at Cliff College on Whit Monday or the first Methodist Ordination I attended at The Avenue, Middlesbrough in 1983 whilst still in the sixth form, when the organist played a wrong metred tune to a hymn that didn’t fit. We had no tickets and only got in because my mother challenged the door steward with how many time’s he had enjoyed a dinner at her parent’s farm when grandad was society steward at Lealholm and he had come as a visiting preacher.

For me it is in worship that I feel closest to that cloud of witnesses that surround us. And particularly when in celebrations of Holy Communion when the communion of saints is most real to be, when the gossamer veil is removed and the thinness of the distance between heaven and earth is shortest. When we recite the Nicene Creed we begin with the words “we believe” and are one with all who profess the faith.

So, as we celebrate All Saints day today and All Soul’s day tomorrow. As we remember all those who have gone before us and cheer us on our way, like the roar of the crowd of home fans at a sports match. Like the swell of the organ and the great alleluia sounding forth from a congregation of joyful worshippers. As we used to sing from MHB “Sing alleluia forth in duteous praise, O citizens of heaven and sweetly raise, an endless alleluia”.