What a strange universe it would be if we had no circles. Would it even be creation as we know it if there were no circles? A drop of water falls and it splashes in a circle. Everything from the planets and the shape of your iris. A universe with no circles would seem to be, at least I what I know of what we know of the universe, impossible. Impossible is one of those words that perhaps should only be uttered by God. Circles are symbols of unity and timelessness and potential. A circle is a never-ending sequence of points, if it is large enough, it can seem like a line from your limited point of view. But instead it just goes around and around, never-ending. Never-ending is also one of those words that perhaps should only be uttered by God, like every, and full, and forever, and ALL.
Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, ‘God has put all things under Jesus’ feet, made Christ the head of all things, that the fullness of God fills all in all. In the ancient Greek the letter was written in, this word for all is pas. Pi alpha sigma. All begins with PI. Not the edible one, but the mathematical concept. The symbol that looks like a shelter. That never-ending number that is the ratio of the measurement of every circle. It is in mathematical terms both irrational, as in we don’t understand it, and transcendent, as in it seems to be everywhere. Every unbroken circle, everywhere we know of. All in all, there PI is. Pi is a constant. It is in the shape of bread as it rises and the rim of the chalice. Pi is as profound as the most holiest ideas we can hold and as mundane as something we encounter each and every day.
Which is rather like the communion of saints. That irrational transcendent idea, of how faithful people everywhere, across time, dwell together somehow. We who walk the earth now, those who walked with Jesus, the descendants we can barely imagine, and every lover of God in between. ALL somehow here in the prayer of the faithful, and the mystery of the sacraments, we are somehow ALL living together in the body of Christ. Perhaps it is like a SACRED CIRCLE. Shoulder to shoulder, with one constant: the shape of Christ in our lives. Jesus is clear on this one. This constant is how we are bread for neighbors, how we pursue clean water for the thirsty, how we listen to the abused. How we ask hard questions and how we live into hard answers. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas speaks of this hard-pressed saintliness this way, “Only by growing into Jesus’ story do I learn how much brokenness I have stored in my soul, a fragmentation which is not about to vanish overnight, but which I must continually work to recognize and lay down.”
If the constant shape of God is roundedness, then we have to make an effort to grow a square watermelon, or bake square bread. Those are not wrong per say, but where in your life do you resist holy roundedness, constrain God’s wholeness with a box? Where do I deny the neighbor who stands by my shoulder? It is my resistance to God’s way that scrolls past the suffering of the world. Lately it has been harder and harder to pay attention. The darkness and chaos seems absurd and terrifying. But the word from Jesus isn’t to step aside. It is to tread with the saints, to live through tough times, and strive with whole hearts.
Here in this sermon on the plain, Jesus makes his mission and our shape plain. God's path and shape and redemptive work will be recognized in its fullness from the underside. We can spiritualize the beatitudes, we can be poor in spirit, but the more we do spiritualize Jesus demand, the poorer in spirit we become. We may find ourselves in deep sad darkness, but God demands that we never ignore that we have neighbors whose darkness is as concrete as the circles that fill the universe. We have promised in baptism to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for human dignity. Engaging with the suffering of the world is not a new promise, it is the fulfillment of the first one. There is hardship and bloodshed in the company of the faithful. Facing our challenges head on is taking our stand within the sacred circle.
So today we celebrate the feast of All Saints. We remember the circle of witnesses, the daring superstars and the mundane folks that fill God’s loop. We are a part of a story that is like PI, both unique and ever repeating. Our version may be needy and at times unjust, fearful and lost; it may also be hopeful and brave and true. Yet it is in God’s completeness that we are being drawn back into the HOLY and sacred circle. Jesus’ direction is ALL: it is inclusiveness and equality, both of which are symbolized a by a circle.
The communion of saints is a sacred circle across the ages, hand and hand or shoulder to shoulder. It is you and me and stories we can barely imagine. Jesus’ life and teachings they outline possibilities that ARE defined as impossible by human insecurity. But we are wrong because impossible isn’t our word to use, it is Gods. Our wholeness, like the story of every saint of every age, it is outlined by the way in which it is filled and stretched to be God’s story in our story. So I offer two questions to ponder: What shall we change so that we can to live into the sacred circle? And, how shall we make Jesus’ story our ‘pi’?
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/HolyDays/AllSaintsC_RCL.htmlAll Saints (transferred)
RCL C
November 6, 2016
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Walla Walla, Washington
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