All Saints’ Day is one of those really strange feast days.The readings are the same ones that we hear at funerals and memorial services.On the one hand we look backwards to recall in gratitude the lives of those saints on whose shoulders the church now stands but at the same time our readings look forward to the coming realm of God and so our recollections are set squarely in the hope of a future with Christ where mourning and crying and pain – even death – will be no more. All Saints Day for me takes on a whole different meaning.As a teenager I attended a girl’s boarding school named All Saints’.For the past weeks I have been engaged in an email flurry from girls with whom I went to high school.The mail has increased dramatically as we approach our reunion next weekend.One of the strings has been a series of songs that we have been trading.One went something like this: Oh, the All Saints' Family is the best family, Best family in all > Germany... > There's a Highland Dutch, and a Lowland Dutch, and a Rotterdam Dutch, > and the other damn Dutch... >> Gloria....Gloria...one keg of beer for the four of us... > HAppy is the day when the clergy get their pay and we go rolling, > rolling on...rolling on... That was one of the songs I could actually repeat without blushing.We were a rowdy lot.This time of remembering has been something of a roller coaster of emotions.All Saints’ was a place where deep, faithful friendships were made.We went through those difficult times of growing up, dating, learning how to get along in community, asking the big questions of life about who God is, imagining who or what we might become and learning about love and loss.We did not have parents and siblings beside us on these formative roads – we had housemothers, teachers, clergy, and friends.Chapel was the central part of life for us.Each day we gathered to sing evening prayer together.Each day we heard the ancient prayers of the church and heard the Word of God read.Each day we did these things or else we did not eat – supper followed EP immediately and if you skipped chapel then you also skipped supper – and if you got caught then you also got several demerits and possibly a Saturday work crew.On Sundays we gathered for Eucharist.ASES was pretty high church and so I learned the rhythm of the liturgical year just as I learned math and composition.All Saints provided a place where girls who played second fiddle to boys in opportunities for academics, sports, and the church in the secular world could come and be number 1.I am one of the very few girls my age who got to serve as an acolyte.Even though we had to wear white chapel caps on our heads, All Saints was a place where women could step outside of their traditional roles in the church. We are gathering – Saints from 1936 to 2006 – to remember our time in school and also to do something out of the ordinary.You see All Saints closed in 2006, it’s ministry was no longer relevant, in a time when young girls have opportunities to excel in public schools or in day schools close to home.There are fewer families who can afford to send their children to boarding school and many parents would not choose to do so anyway.All Saints has outlived its mission.So we are gathering to make what was once a holy place a secular place.We are going to deconsecrate the chapel – doing the exact opposite of what we will do this morning when we dedicate this altar covering.But the story does not end there because our beloved campus is about to become home to Americorps.It is to be a training facility for young men and women who have volunteered a year of their lives to serve in the ghettos and backwoods across the US providing mentorship, support, and companionship to other young people who are at risk or living on the margins.It was Americorps who came in droves to help rebuild the Gulf Coast and it is Americorps who provide the bulk of support for inner city schools and daycares.So All Saints is becoming something new, something new that has grown out of what it has been. I tell this story, partly because it is occupying a large portion of my prayer time right now and also because it comes to mind as I read and reflect on this passage from the Revelation of John the Divine.Revelation is that one book in the canon that seems to gather a lot of attention.Most people are at one of two polar opposites – either they try to interpret it literally as some sort of soothsayer’s vision of what is to come or they discount it completely as the musing of some strung out dope addict.But I think it is neither of those two. Revelation was written during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.He was a particularly vicious man who persecuted the Christians without mercy.We don’t know a lot about how the early Christians dealt day by day with the terror, but we do know that many died terrible and painful deaths.John of Patmos wrote the book while exiled during the persecution.It is a letter of consolation and comfort written to seven churches.In it he relates several visions, using symbolic language and out of this world encounters.This symbolic language and extravagant use of image is characteristic of apocalyptic literature. Our word apocalypse is derived from the Greek word for revelation.Contrary to common usage, apocalyptic literature is literature that unveils.In this text, the affairs of the world are unveiled through the eyes of God.It is much like the poetry of the prophets that we are reading about in Bible Study, it is not predictive of events, but rather is a vision of the happenings now and to come as seen from God’s vantage point.It is a proclamation of how the world as we know it runs counter to the justice, mercy, and love of God.And like the prophetic books of the Hebrew scripture it is also a message of hope. The reading opens with eviction of the world as we know it.John sees a new creation coming from God, one that is in love with God and is adorned as a bride for her husband.The old world of anger and hatred and sorrow and pain has died – even the sea, the very source of chaos and evil, is swept away in the wake of God’s new creation.And then the promise that God makes is that in this new, Holy City, God will be present among those who have suffered for so long.He will wipe away every tear from their eye and crying and pain will be no more.This simple statement of renewal and life sets the stage for the final description and affirmation of God’s Kingdom and the return of Jesus. Where our myopic vision of our lives frequently focuses on the day by day grind – the struggles and the conflicts both within the church and without, God’s vision sees the potential for transformation.John the gospel writer sets a scene where the temporal concerns of humanity, “Lord if you have only been here”, “But Jesus there is a stench” is juxtaposed against the Jesus’ proclamation that God is present here and God’s glory will be revealed through this event. Jesus is not concerned that Lazarus has been lying in the tomb, his body decaying for four days.Jesus calls Lazarus out, and he calls us out also.He calls us out of our petty arguments and disappointments.He calls us out of our anger and our sadness.He calls us out of our fear and our isolation.Jesus calls us out because God is creating something new and because God’s home is among mortals. When I am sitting with someone who has come seeking spiritual direction, I often will ask the simple question, “Where is God in all this?”This is the question that John of Patmos seems to be asking also.In the midst of such great oppression where is God.John’s answer is that God is in the midst of the struggle and that God’s omnipotent love will overcome even the darkest hour of death.I wonder what the Episcopal Church with all of its arguing over who is in and who is out, what is proper and what is not, what church icon is going to be preserved and which is not and on and on…I wonder where God is in all of that.In today’s reading, the vision of the Holy City is decked out with images of renewal and beauty, and comfort even in the midst of the pain and suffering.Where is God in our squabbles.Where is God in our struggles with changing liturgy, expensive buildings, limited resources and more limited membership.These are not just our questions – they are questions for all of Christendom. Last week Joan Brawley brought me a list of people she had known who had a vision of hope for Trinity and for our work in Haverhill.They served God and their neighbor by sustaining a place where all could be comforted by the prayers, where all are sustained by the Eucharist, and where those who are hungry can be served.All Saints’ Day is a time for remembering them and for looking forward with hope to a new future.To hear this reading from Revelation today is to hear a summons for us to stand in solidarity with all who suffer and are encumbered by fear, isolation, and hate because God stands in solidarity with us.At the end of the day the message of Revelation is this:God was with us in the beginning of creation and God will be with us going forward.Alpha and Omega – the beginning and the end.Thanks be to God.Amen.