Honoring Our Deceased Loved Ones

in Recognizing their Full Humanity​

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This year, November begins with All Saints/All Souls, and ends with Reign of Christ Sunday (November 22nd), and, as often happens in these holiday times, I am losing track of how long it has been since certain beloveds have died.

Only one year? Two, already? Was that only this year? Granted, for someone who is involved in every day life with a loved one, the first year of holidays without them is a very noticeable thing.

How will we face these days when the world we know is so completely different to what it was before? On the flip side, how will we build a love and a life for those who may be left behind after our time has come? Every life touches and impacts so much more than we tend to realize, even our own. 

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This season is not just for mourning those who have died, it is also for reflecting on what they have taught us, how their example can inform our choices, the ways their love continues to surround and support us. 

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There are many traditions around the world that take seriously the work of ancestors, called saints by the Catholic Church, as guides, still present in many ways, though physically they have returned to the earth. Whether that be through naming children after grandparents, carrying on an old world family recipe, music, language, making offerings of incense or lighting candles, or retelling a particularly memorable joke or story, we have many ways to keep beloveds near us in our daily living. 

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Sometimes, though, we keep a bad habit of a generational practice as our tie back to our roots, teaching shame or continuing harm because it was our primary connection from childhood, and we don't want to think less of our ancestors, lest that reflect poorly upon we ourselves. 

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But being honest about the full humanity of our ancestors is how we honor them, making them neither less nor more than they were, trying to understand how they did the best they could with what they had at the time.

Sometimes we honor our past by learning from it what not to do, taking stock of the consequences and choosing a different path, thanking our ancestors for all the lessons we have learned from them. 

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And at the end of the church year, Reign of Christ Sunday, we celebrate the hope we share with our ancestors, that God in Christ makes all things new, brings life out of death, heals our hurts, and leads us with compassion and understanding.

There is no fear of eternal punishment for us or our beloved dead because of the free gift of Grace given to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God in Christ does not rule over us as an authoritarian, but joins us in our full humanity, in the soil of the garden and in the dirt of despair and in the everything in between. 

                                                                                                                              Grace and Peace,

Pastor Andrew Tobias Nelson