In 2023, my two grandmothers died within six weeks of each other — January and February. During that time, I found out a dear friend had cancer. After Easter, she told me her cancer was terminal and she wasn’t interested in pursuing additional treatment. Her church hosted a celebration of life for her over Memorial Day weekend, which also happened to be Pentecost, and she got to experience it in the front row with her friends and family coming in from across the country to celebrate her amazing life. A week later, she died, present with her beloved family.
That year, All Saints Day took on a different meaning.
Kate Hanch
I always had clung to the “Great Cloud of Witnesses” metaphor in Hebrews 12 and the “faithful hall of fame” in Hebrews 11. But that year, there were a few more who joined that great cloud, that communion of saints.
All three women shaped me for who I am today, and I carry their memories continually.
My maternal grandmother taught me the importance of creating adventures out of the ordinary and to continually seek joy — like playing volleyball with your grandkids at 84.
My paternal grandmother taught me how you can change your mind and still hold fast to your faith. She invited me to preach at her Southern Baptist church — the same church where I was baptized.
My dear friend showed me how to faithfully follow God’s calling even when things turn out differently than you expected. She dove into her ministry as a public school teacher while serving as pastor of a church in rural Missouri.
As this year’s All Saints Day approaches, I’ve realized how much our Protestant-leaning United States culture avoids both talking about death and the communion of saints. Celebrities will be remembered for a few days before we go on with our everyday lives, representing collective moments of grief. Mourning rituals tend to be personalized, and grief, because it causes discomfort, is discouraged.
“I’ve realized how much our Protestant-leaning United States culture avoids both talking about death and the communion of saints.”
Because of this, we are left wallowing, unsure of our own histories that shape both who we are and who we believe God to be.
We could learn from other cultures, including our own.
In Mexico, the Day of the Dead includes both a celebration and collective mourning, as observers create ofrendas, putting out photos with flowers to honor their deceased loved ones. When I took students to a Jewish synagogue, they recited the names of each person who had died in that week and those since the synagogue was founded. They recited names of people they didn’t remember but who had shaped that congregation. My paternal grandmother told stories of picnicking at the graves of deceased loved ones, honoring their memories. At first, it struck me as odd. but I realize the gift of remembering our loved ones connects us to both the past and the future.
Baptist theologian Richard Kidd remarks in Baptists and the Communion of Saints: “I am struck by the measure to which people, most of whom for much of our lives have remained largely forgotten, are very much “alive” and in some sense “at work” within us. It is though the impact of their past encounter, however brief … has been come incarnated in us … so that secretly they continue to live within us and through us.”
As many churches prepare to celebrate All Saints Day this Sunday, we as Baptists can lean into the biblical metaphor of the great cloud of witnesses as the communion of saints. We share with one another and with the church our griefs and hopes. We realize through the resurrecting power of God those whom we have loved and have lost continue to accompany us. And, as the writer of Hebrews infers, may the promises they clung to be fulfilled with us.
Kate Hanch serves as director of the Baptist House of Studies at Perkins School of Theology at SMU. Her first book, Storied Witness, explores the theology of 19th century Black women preachers in the United States.