Tomb & Womb

“And God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that shrouds all people, the veil that veils all nations.”

Well, good morning, St. Margaret’s... It is truly a privilege to be with you as we celebrate the feast of All Saints this morning—with the sacrament of holy baptism. 

These appointed readings we’ve just heard have something to say to us about what it is to truly live. And there is indeed a lot happening...

For one, the scene described in Matthews’ Gospel sounds like the beginning of a horror film: tombs that have been long-sealed are opened up and the undead begin walking around. And then—presumably with shrouds used for burial unraveling from their faces—these Zombie Saints go and “appear to many” like a parade of trick-or-treaters. Which I’m sure was terrifying.

This telling of the Gospel sounds like something from the mind of Alfred Hitchcock or perhaps Jordan Peele. All of this strangeness though is set into motion when the curtain that separates what is common from what is sacred is torn in two. The veil surrounding the Living God is pulled back, so that all might be invited to know life.

And that is just what brings us here today.

This Allhallowtide weekend also marks Dia de los Muertes, or the Day of the Dead—which many from Mexican heritage, along with our friends from parishes around the diocese, make a custom of observing. It is a tradition of remembering our loved ones who have died.

And it is believed on this holy day that whatever mystery separating the living from the dead becomes thin, even permeable—as is so beautifully depicted in the Pixar film, Coco.

From the surface, this is an animated story about remembering family ancestors intended for children. But it is, of course, about much more. Coco grapples with the gritty realness of our lives: the joys and pains inherent in family stories, generational trauma, the challenges of faithfully following the path each of us must walk to become truly ourselves—and in all of it the possibility of healing and becoming whole. 

Like so many Pixar films, Coco draws you in with the promise of a comforting feel-good plotline, and then at some point amid all the bright colors you realize you’ve somehow stumbled into what feels like a psychotherapy session with a Jungian analyst.  

On the Day of the Dead, the young boy at the center of the film—who is desperate to be unshackled from the burdens of family members who have gone before—learns to embrace the power of living in a shared story. After claiming his own life and passion for music, he is able to then take his place in his family. But he does so on his own terms, as someone fully alive—which creates ripples of transformation throughout his family.

It captures in such a moving way the words of the great mystic Howard Thurman, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Now, there are as many different customs and rituals for remembering those who have gone before as there are different cultures and religious traditions.

In Balinese spirituality, the festival of Galungan [Gah-loon-un]—which is ongoing through the month of November—is a celebration of someone’s life and the return of their spirit, that the joy that is felt by the living community might free their souls in the afterlife. And in much of the spirituality indigenous to this land, deceased ancestors are turned toward for guidance, wisdom, and protection in times of need—which is not too dissimilar from how one might pray, “Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”     

The most common language we use for all of this in the Christian tradition is that of “A Great Cloud of Witnesses.” All Saints Day affirms that we are at all times surrounded by the witness of those who have gone before us in this journey. And so we turn to the lives of the faithful past and present, because their gifts uphold us.

I give thanks for my maternal Grandma, Constance Abbott, whose love was at all times unconditional, and who also had this way of winking with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. There are many others who have taught me about how to live. I give thanks for saints like Thomas Merton, Denise Levertov, James Baldwin and my dear friends, Dan and Jessica.

I wonder this morning: for which saint in your life—someone who animates for you how to live well—do you give thanks? [And I invite you to lift their names, silently or aloud] 

… Thanks be to God.

Now, we also mark the event of baptism today—both renewing vows and making new ones. And what a truly remarkable day for this rite of entering into life within the Body of Christ. So that we can get on with the good stuff, I’ll offer just a few words here toward conclusion…

It is really no coincidence that there is so much overlap in symbols of life and of death in the sacrament of baptism…

Many early baptismal fonts in fact resembled a tomb. Some were large enough to enter fully, with a set of stairs that one descended down, below the surface of the earth: as though one was entering into a grave. When a person was then immersed underwater, it was as though they were being buried underground at the time of their death.

Those same tomb-like structures though, often had a yonic shape and were adorned with symbols of birth. Because like a womb it is the place of one’s rebirth. So, after burial, the newly baptized are resurrected as they are raised up from those living waters.

All of this calls to mind words from the Sikh activist, Valerie Kaur. She asked, nearly a decade ago now, as great fear was spreading across our country in November of 2016: “What if this is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?”

We need little reminder that we face difficult realities in our lives. Whether it is the rubble in Gaza or the wake of disruption that wreaks havoc on our neighborhoods here in Washington, the presence of destruction and death remain with us. So, I think the response to Valerie Kaur’s question, through the lens of holy baptism, is that these troubled times we live in are both: tomb and womb.

In baptism, in the days of the early Jesus Movement as in our own, we willingly enter into this reality. And there we are immersed in troubled waters, which move and swirl around us, until we are transformed by God’s Spirit: that we might continually rise into a new way of being.

This is just the way it has always been. It is far more than merely inconsequential symbolism. The words of the baptismal covenant, which we will hear and profess in just a moment, have to do with how we will live in the presence of circumstances we did not choose.

They invite us to enter into God’s death-destroying work—that what veils all nations might be removed between us. Each of us is invited to die: to isolation, to the loneliness and lies of self-sufficiency, to violence done against our neighbors and ourselves. 

And this is only the beginning of the story. 

Being faithful in this way beckons us to protect the sacredness of life, and to delight in it.

To laugh, to play, to break artisanal homemade bread together. 

And in the midst of all of life’s seriousness—trusting that God is indeed working to “swallow up death forever” as promised through the Prophet Isaiah—saintliness looks like taking ourselves just a little less seriously. Much like a newborn baby, held and resting in the knowledge of their belovedness, even but for a moment. This is how we live.

Today, as beloved little Chenzo takes his place in the Body of Christ, we welcome him in. And just as we surround him as a great cloud, we too are assured: we do not walk through these days alone. 

Thanks be to God!