To Bless Is to See | The Rev. Heidi Thorsen | November 5, 2023 (All Saints)

May I speak in the name of God, who made us, who loves us, and who walks on this journey with us. Amen.

I spent a number of hours this week painting and repainting a large golden circle on a large black poster. Why did I do that, you might ask? There are many answers to that question. One of them is that I’m a perfectionist and one layer of gold simply was not enough. Another answer is that the world feels very complicated these days, and sometimes in the face of unsettling news and intractable questions, it feels good to do a simple, straightforward task. But perhaps the most obvious answer is this: I painted a large gold circle on a black poster this week—a halo, if you will—because today is All Saints Day. Today we celebrate all the saints, past and present, who inspire us with a deeper sense of who God is, and who God is calling us to be.

In addition to today being the Feast Day for All Saints (transferred from November 1), this Sunday is also the day that we celebrate the 15th Anniversary of Chapel on the Green. Chapel on the Green has been meeting just outside our doors at 2pm for 15 years. This gathering of housed and unhoused individuals comes together every week to worship God in the rain, the snow, and the sunshine, only occasionally ducking inside to the narthex in cases of challenging weather. Each week about 20 to 40 people gather around a table to pray together. Many more people come for the volunteer-provided meal following the service, which sometimes draws as many as 120 people. Several of our Chapel on the Green parishioners have been with us from the very beginning: playing the bucket drums and praying, every week, for wellbeing in the city of New Haven and the world– and praying especially for those who face hunger, homelessness, violence, poverty, and addiction. 

Chapel on the Green will always be close to my heart because it was my first point of contact with Trinity. I remember wandering into the Chapel on the Green worship circle on my first ever Sunday in New Haven, ten years ago. Five years later I became the Outreach Coordinator for Chapel on the Green, a role that led me to stay around long enough to be ordained, and eventually to be called as Trinity’s Associate Rector. I wouldn’t be here today if not for Chapel on the Green.

One of the ways that we have celebrated Chapel on the Green’s anniversary, over the past few years, is by setting up an All Saints photo booth. See– we were bound to get back to that gold circle eventually. We started setting up this photo booth in 2019, inviting people on the green to have their photo taken in front of a colorfully decorated background with a halo. This idea, inspired by a church community in Baltimore called Dreams & Visions, calls attention to the belief that each one of us is a child of God. Each one of us is holy. Each one of us is a saint in this expansive, timeless community of saints that is constantly revolving around and drawing closer to the love of God. You’d be amazed by what a difference a photo can make. People at Chapel on the Green are used to receiving sandwiches. But a photo of yourself that you can take with you, a mini polaroid that you can put in your pocket to remind you that you are part of a community; to remind you that God loves you– now that is something different. That is a gift.

Taking these photos was a spiritual experience. I still have mine from 2019, tacked to the bulletin board in my office, a reminder of how uncertain I was of the course my life would take, and a reminder of how God has always been with me. It was also powerful to look at the photos of other people in our community, outlined with a halo, and to reflect on the presence of God in their lives. Each and every one of us is made in the image of God. And each and every one of us has something to offer the world– a unique revelation of God– that no other person can offer. This has become a central part of my faith: the conviction that we have something to learn about God from every person we meet. That is what incarnation looks like. God chose to be human in the person of Jesus, and God continues to speak through our humanness. Each one of us presents a unique facet of the image of God.

And yet, so often we fail to live into this truth. It is all too easy to ignore another person: to brush them aside because they are too loud, or too quiet, or too impressive, or too uninteresting– or whatever the case may be. We spend so much of our lives walking past each other; failing to see the holiness in one another. At times this just feels like negligence. But at other times this failure to really see one another has horrible consequences. At other times our failure to see one another allows us to tolerate poverty, prejudice, injustice, and war.

I hope that All Saints Day can be an antidote, of sorts, to these kinds of sinful tendencies. I hope that All Saints Day can remind us to see every person we meet with that golden halo around them– not because they are perfect, but because they are a part of a holy family that we are all a part of, as children of God. One way we can begin to do this is by looking, step by step, and the words of the Beatitudes that we read today in the Gospel of Matthew. The refrain in this popular text is blessed. “Blessed are the poor in spirit … Blessed are those who mourn … Blessed are the meek…” and so on. I’d like to lead us on a guided meditation of sorts through each of these blessings. But first– a word about blessing itself.

We think of blessing as something that only a priest or holy person can do. I think there is a lot of merit in this tradition– as an Episcopalian, I do believe that the blessing of a priest or a bishop holds a particular kind of weight. And also, I believe that blessings are not only confined to this tradition. The Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor has pointed out that many people bless things– many people have blessed the food before them at a table, for example– and Taylor encourages people to think more expansively about what blessing can look like. I want to share some of the wisdom from her book An Altar in the World (and as a head’s up it’s quite a long passage). Taylor writes:

“Through the centuries, people practiced at pronouncing blessings have come to some common wisdom, which they have laid down for the rest of us following along behind them. The first piece of wisdom is that a blessing does not confer holiness. The holiness is already there, embedded in the very givenness of the thing…. Because God made these things, they share in God’s own holiness, whether or not they meet your minimum requirements for a blessing….

“A second piece of wisdom about pronouncing blessings, directly related to the first, is that the practice requires you to ease up on holding the line between what is bad for you and what is good. Once you get into the blessing business, you give up thinking you are smart enough always to tell the difference between the two. You surrender the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (see the book of Genesis). You say a blessing when you break a bone the same as you do when you win the lottery….

“This last piece of wisdom may be only for those who are very advanced at blessing prayers, but what most of them say is that pronouncing a blessing puts you as close to God as you can get. To learn to look with compassion on everything that is; to see past the terrifying demons outside to the bawling hearts within; to make the first move towards the other, however many times it takes to get close; to open your arms to what is instead of waiting until it is what it should be; to surrender the justice of your own cause for mercy; to surrender the priority of your own safety for love– this is to land at God’s breast.” (Taylor, An Altar in the World, 232, excerpts)

I’ll stop reading there, but there is so much more to learn from Barbara Brown Taylor’s words, particularly now. How can we bless this world that feels so messy? How can we bless things without picking sides? How can we convert our eyes to see God’s holiness in everything and everyone? The answer is, in part, to see them. The act of blessing is an act of seeing– just like the photo booth at Chapel on the Green. To bless is to look at the world with great intention and love. To bless is to witness the world, even the things that we might want to turn away from. To bless is to recognize holiness where it already resides. To bless is to see.

That is the task before us today.

I’d like to invite you into this work of blessing by moving through the Beatitudes together. With each separate beatitude, think of someone who fits that description in your life or in the world. Think about that person. Hold them in your heart. And may that act of seeing be a blessing. It may not be perfect. We may not see the entirety of who they are. But at least it is a start. Let us pray:

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Think of someone who is worn down, discouraged, or depressed today. Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

Blessed are those who mourn. Think of someone who has lost a loved one. Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

Blessed are the meek. Think of someone who is quiet, whose presence sometimes slips your notice. Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Think of someone who has been denied justice for too long. Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

Blessed are the merciful. Think of someone who has not returned evil for evil, but has instead been able to forgive. Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

Blessed are the pure in heart. Think of someone who is straightforward, honest, and kind. Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Think of someone who is trying to make peace in this world that is so full of conflict and violence. Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Think of someone who’s integrity has cost them something dear. Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

God of love, see us. And give us eyes to see. May the ways that we look for holiness in the world around us change the way that we live. May the ways we look for holiness in other people draw us closer to you. Amen.

Works Cited:

Taylor, Barbara Brown. An Altar in the World. London: Canterbury Press Norwich, 2009.