St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by The Reverend Bruce W. B. Jenneker in St George's Cathedral in the City and Diocese of Cape Town on All Saints Sunday, 1 November, 2009

I have been struck by the hype about Halloween that seems to have gripped us here at the tip of the African continent. In the shopping malls, on radio and television and in people's conversations, Halloween has been full front and centre. This seems a new thing for Cape Town. I don't remember Halloween being a prominent date and occasion when I was growing up. It's an American import, I am sure, although All Hallows Eve is faithfully observed in Europe and in Latin America – albeit in not the same way as it grips the American imagination.

I read in the New York Times that Americans spend more money on Halloween than on any other celebration except Christmas. What is it about this ancient commemoration that so captures the post-modern mind? What about it speaks so eloquently to old and young, believer and agnostic, that everyone is out there dressing up their lawns with stand-up, light-up ghosts and other monsters, hanging painted sheets from their windows, dressing up trees with ghoulish decorations, stretching fake spider webs across their hedges and doorways, painting their faces and wearing weird and frightening outfits?

While I am sure that the pernicious effects of globalization and the imitation of things American have much to answer for in our new interest in Halloween, it is true that in every culture and in every religious tradition there is a ritual occasion like Halloween. They keep it in the mountains of Tibet and on the plains of the African lowveld, they celebrate it Brazil and Venezuela, in Spain and in Italy. It's about lowering the lights, it's about fears and horrors, and dark corners and tricks and treats. It's about ridiculing the things that scare us and making fun of the fear of death, our ultimate horror. And all of it is nothing less than looking evil in the face and laughing it down. It is nothing less than confronting every ghastly horror and terrifying dread, and rolling over in an hysterical fit of giggles. For what folk have done with their Day of the Dead festivals down the centuries is confront darkness and all its terror, stand face to face with evil and all its power, come eyeball to eyeball with death with all its annihilation – to hurl the humor of the human spirit at them. In the face of our laughter their terror is a joke, their power is a farce and their annihilation a lie. And so we laugh, and play and laugh and play.

Death has no dominion over us, we say, life is unconquerable. For one brief moment we draw our collective strength together, name what threatens us most and laugh it to scorn. The power that inspires this bold foolishness and wild craziness is the confidence that the human spirit is unquenchable, the assurance that time is an aspect of eternity, the conviction that the universe, the fragile earth and I are safe in the hands of the Creator who holds all things together. But Halloween is just the beginning of a complex celebration of the vitality of life, the confidence of faith and the assurance of hope. Halloween launches the three-day festival of All Hallows Eve (the proper liturgical name for Halloween), All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

On Halloween we laugh death in face and conquer its dread with all our arsenal of humor, comedy and revelry. On All Saints Day we remember and name with gratitude, pride and joy, those heroic Christians who lived that confidence every day of their lives. On All Souls Day we remember and name with solemn faith all those who have died, claiming in solemnity before the altar of God what we shouted in carnival revelry on Halloween: that death has no dominion over us, that life is immortal and love is eternal and death is only an horizon, and life everlasting in the light of God is the seal of the victory of life over death.

Have you ever heard yourself say that so and so is someone you wouldn't be seen dead with? Well, on All Saints Day, and on All Souls Day we name the dead folks we want to be seen alive with. They are a double parade, first there is a grand march of heroic men and women whose witness is so bold that hundreds of years after they lived we still remember vividly their deeds and words. They are All the Saints we celebrate today. Alongside them, in a simpler procession, come the unknown women and men who followed and served, witnessed and sacrificed, each in the small corner of their lives. Their song is Alleluia and their cry is Amen. Saints and Souls, all of them dead folk we want to be seen alive with.

It is their blessedness that makes us want to haul them up from the realms of death, take their hands in ours and walk the life of faith with them. They are the blessed ones, those who lived beatitudes. Blessedness is a double gift, for in it we are made both holy and happy. This is what makes the saints so irresistibly appealing: that they are both aligned with God's purposes and filled with a happiness words cannot describe.

The blessed ones are those who, knowing that they had no power and few resources, lived life abundantly and risked its possibilities. They found a happy blessedness in that poverty of spirit. There was no arrogance there, or boastfulness, just a happy recognition of their need and a blessed openness to God's grace. Aware of our own poverty, we want to walk with them, these blessed poor ones, and in walking with the saints, become saintly.

The blessed are those whose hearts can ache when loss robs them, rejection shatters them and failure undermines them. When the bottom is falling out of their world, a happy blessedness bubbles up in their spirit, for it is the hand of the Lord that caresses them in the loss, it is the voice of the Lord that speaks affirming words in the midst of rejection, it is the strength of the Lord that picks them up, dusts them off and empowers them to start all over again. In pain because of our own losses, we want to walk with them, these blessed mourners, and in walking with the saints, become saintly.

The blessed ones are those whose confidence in what is right and good and true is unshakeable. They stand up for what is right no matter what the cost. In darkening world of deceit and corruption, a blessed happiness is theirs because the see the light and live by it. They serve what it good even when everyone else is cynical. They value only the truth; no lie can deceive them and for them falsehood has no currency. Eager ourselves for a world we can trust, where what is right reigns, goodness shapes our living and truth is our guiding light, we want to walk with them, these blessed righteous ones, and in walking with the saints, become saintly.

The blessed ones are those see into the heart of humanity and are merciful. Where offence and sin abounds, their merciful forgiveness brings reconciliation; where abuse and violence reign, their merciful compassion turns the world upside down. Broken and wounded ourselves, often choosing badly and acting wickedly, we want to walk with them, these blessed merciful ones, and in walking with the saints, become saintly.

The blessed are those who make peace, pouring oil on troubled waters, building the bridges that span our selfish fears and embrace our apparently conflicting hopes. They beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. When enmity comes naturally and rage breeds hatred, the found the happy blessedness of making peace. Making our way in our world wracked with prejudice and xenophobia, violence and war, we want to walk with them, these blessed peacemakers, and in walking with the saints, become saintly.

Today we swell that march of happy blessedness. We gather at this font to reaffirm our commitment to this march of saintliness and to enroll new Christians in this pilgrimage of blessedness. As we march in step with all the saints, let us leave clear footprints of blessedness for those who join the march, that they may tread where we have trod, marching the happy road of blessedness.

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