St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by the Very Reverend Rowan Smith in the Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr on 1 November 2009

"But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them." Wisdom 3

"let us also remember before God
all those who rejoice with us,
but upon another shore and in a greater
light whose hope was in the
Word made flesh; and with whom,
in His Lord Jesus, we forever more are one."
(Nine Lessons and Carols)

These words will be heard in but a few weeks time when we together with Christians throughout the world celebrate the service of Lessons and Carols on Christmass Eve. How fitting to be reminded of that bond with those who are on another shore and in a greater light as we celebrate All Souls. There is no doubt that some of the most stirring music is that written for the Requiem Mass and this evening we have already savoured some of that.

As humans we have been blessed with memory and the offering that we bring to God in this Eucharist is both that memory of our departed relatives and friends as well as remembering that it is also a celebration of God's love for us in Jesus Christ, a love that has overcome the old forces of sin and death. While therefore we will all one day die, give back to God life we had lived in this mortal body, we also believe, as one of our Easter hymns expresses it:

"Jesus lives! Henceforth is death But the gate to life immortal." AMR 140

or in the words of the butterfly in the story 'Hope for the flowers'

"What looks like you will die but what is really you will still live." p75 (Trina Paulus)

We know that we too will die, like those we remember here in this Eucharist at All Souls but we do so in the faith that declares:

"the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God..."

The challenge, however, to all of us is to truly live and so the gospels invite us into life by dying to our selfish, self-centred way of living; to let go of all that mars and denies our God-given humanity. For example when we are confronted with the starving children in Somalia, the wounded women in Pakistan, the tik-addicts in our city – we are confronted with our refusal to live and to love as God has revealed to us in Jesus Christ. So our Requiem is also for all those deaths resulting from our selfish and indifferent choices in life. As the poet-priest John Dome reminds us:

"every persons death diminishes me. So send not for whom the bell rolls tolls."

In the Gospel of St John Our Lord says:

"This is indeed the will of my Father that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life." 6 v 40

Our Lord Jesus is talking about the present, eternal life is the Father gift to us in Jesus Christ – through faith in Jesus we now share that eternal life and share that life with others. Our remembrance of all the faithful departed is our response to the gracious, unfathomable, transforming love of God. We experience that love every day and through our celebration of the Eucharist also express with those on another shore, our ...

"... hope in the Word made flesh ..."

and know ourselves to be united with all God's faithful departed and saints; with them in Christ Jesus "... we for evermore are one." It is that hope in Jesus, whose death has restored us to new life and whose resurrection empowers us to sing our alleluias in the face of death. In Him we not only have hope in the face of all our pain but through his life in us we have eternal life to which he now calls us each day. In faith we can sing boldly:

"Jesus lives! To him the throne
Over all the world is given
May we go where he is gone,
Rest and reign with him in heaven."

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