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All Saints Day (A)
November 1, 2020
Matthew 5:1-12
INTRODUCTION
By way of introduction, I want to explain briefly the Lutheran understanding of “saint.” We usually think of a saint as someone who is extra faithful, or a really good person, but Luther says something different. He says that we all become saints when we are baptized – even as we remain sinners. We spend the rest of our lives after baptism striving to live into our saintly nature, to live a life of faith. We never achieve that fully, of course, until we enter into God’s eternal glory in our death, which we celebrate for 18 specific saints today. On All Saints Day, we remember and lift up this tension of being already-and-not-yet saintly, which we will see in our texts today. First in Revelation we see what it looks like to be in a state of constantly praising God with all the saints. The Psalm echoes that sentiment, saying that God’s praise will always be on our lips. The epistle reading recalls that we are all children of God – you may recognize that first line because it is what I say after each baptism I’ve ever done – and it reflects on the hope of this children-of-God status.
Finally, in Matthew, we will hear the Beatitudes, outlining the various sorts of people who are “blessed” – though not all of their circumstances sound especially blessed! As an interesting aside, we last heard the Beatitudes read back in February of this year, just one month before everything shut down. As you listen to these texts today, hear the joy and the hope in them, but also notice how you may be hearing especially Matthew differently this time, in the midst of everything that has happened since we last heard it in February. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
As I was preparing worship for today and writing this sermon, I felt, and I’m sure you’ll agree, that All Saints Day this year is a lot more weighty than previous years, at least any previous years that I have been preaching. I would bet that everyone watching knows someone who has had Covid-19, or maybe even died of it. If not that, perhaps someone close to you has died or suffered in some other way, and you either weren’t able to be with them, or you couldn’t properly say goodbye, or you are still waiting to have a funeral. Grief this year is complex and delayed, and that’s just the grief related to physical deaths. All of us are grieving something, whether it is the loss of the big birthday party we had hoped for, or missing far-away loved ones, or worshiping together, or going to school in a normal way, or more communally, the loss of democratic norms we’ve come to expect, or, or, or… you fill in the blank. This All Saints Day we each bring immense grief to the table, not only for the saints we named this morning, but for a world we once knew. Perhaps Jesus’ words, “Blessed are they that mourn,” sound hollow to us – “blessed” is not the word that comes to mind when we’re talking about this year!
And yet here we are, singing triumphant hymns, hearing texts about eternal praise and worship of God. I notice this year more than ever before the tension of this day, as we hold in unison both the complexity of our grief, and the depth of our hope. It feels sometimes like emotional and spiritual whiplash.
So first of all, I just want to name that out loud. I know a lot of us are barely hanging on by a thread some days as we hear the news and try to go about our days. In the last presidential debate, President Trump said about the virus, “We’re learning to live with it,” and Vice President Biden retorted, “No, we’re learning to die from it,” and honestly, they are both right. Yes, people are dying, and that is not okay, and it needs to be intentionally addressed. But we are also trying to keep living our lives, even in the midst of that reality, and that tension is an everyday challenge for us right now.
The Beatitudes, the start of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount, seem to acknowledge and articulate that tension. One by one, Jesus names the struggles of this life – aching hearts, grief over a world not as it should be, hunger and thirst, immense need for mercy, the challenge of seeking peace amidst such brokenness, the persecution experienced for seeking justice – all these struggles Jesus names, and then calls each one who endures them, “blessed.” I think often we read these as a sort of promise, that these folks will be blessed, that they will receive what they need. And while that is true, and Jesus does use the future tense to describe the ultimate fulfillment of that promise, he also speaks in the present tense. “Blessed ARE,” he says, again and again. Not blessed will be, but blessed are. Now. Even in the midst of the pain. In saying this, Jesus isn’t only assuring us of some future when everything will be better, but rather, he is shifting the way we see the world right now, and going forward, even as we remain in pain.
And in saying we are blessed now, Jesus is turning upside down everything we thought we knew about suffering. But that’s sort of Jesus’ M.O., isn’t it? Jesus is always turning everything on its head. We see it first thing, when the King of Kings is born to peasants in a stinky stable. We see it when he is raised in Nowheresville, Nazareth – what good can come out of there? We see it when he surrounds himself with lowlifes and sinners. And we see it most profoundly on the cross. Nothing about Jesus is how we would expect God to be.
And so maybe, just maybe, God is using these unlikely blessings to show us that God continually moves and acts where we least expect it. Not in the glorious places we’d think to look for God – in success and good health and notoriety, in places we normally associate with blessing – but rather, in the broken, in the aching, in the grieving. Luther calls this a “theology of the cross” – the idea that God is not to be found in the glorious places of the world so much as he has shown us that his love is made most profoundly known to us on the cross, and so we can be sure that in our own suffering, God will be there with us, too, kneeling beside us in our despair. And because God is there, with those who suffer, those who suffer are indeed blessed.
It can be hard to believe, can’t it? I know when I have been in my lowest places, it can feel not like God is with me, but the opposite – that God has abandoned me. Well even then, we’re in good company – that’s how Jesus felt on the cross when he cried out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” And yet, we know that God was there on the cross, and we know that God then descended into hell to be present even there, and then that God broke the bonds of death and, bringing all of the saints with him, entered into new life, a life where we “will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike [us], nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be [our] shepherd, and he will guide [us] to the springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes.” Blessed are we.
Today is the start of our stewardship campaign, which we are calling A Season of Gratitude. We often think of gratitude in November, as we look toward Thanksgiving, and it is especially important that we do that this year. The Psalmist today boldly proclaims, “I will bless the Lord at all times.” All times. Giving thanks to God is not just for when we are feeling good; it is arguably more important exactly when you are not feeling good. It is for when we are poor in spirit, when we mourn, when we hunger and thirst, when we are facing conflict head on, when we dig down deep to be merciful even to those who haven’t deserved mercy, when we are being persecuted for seeking justice – that is when we give thanks because it is during all those times when Jesus says we are blessed.
So my challenge to you during this month, during this stewardship season, is to seek out that blessing, to name it, to give thanks for it. Don’t look only at what is going well, but at what is not going well, and find God’s blessing there. Even give thanks for it.
Here’s an example from my life: this week, some colleagues and I had a conversation about how we can be confronting race issues. It was a tough conversation, and someone I love who is more affected by these issues than I am said something that really bothered me. I did not like it. It has been stirring in my heart all week, bothering me. Rather than shut it down and dismiss it, which would be easier, I’m trying to find the blessing in her words. I’m trying to notice where God is in my reaction to it. I’m trying to be thankful for it, because it has pushed me into deeper reflection that is needed (even if it isn’t especially wanted!). Jesus said that those who are poor in spirit, and those who are pure in heart, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed, and I believe him, so there must be blessing in this… and I am thankful that I have been driven to find it.
I hope that you will join me in this challenge this month. Some days you may very well be grateful, and “bless the Lord,” for something beautiful, something that is typically associated with blessing. But I hope you will also seek to find ways to bless the Lord for some of the pain and grief as well. Where do you see God in it? God promised to be there, so he's gotta be - where is God in it? Where is our crucified Lord showing up for you, kneeling beside you in your grief, not to take it away but to be present with you in it? Where are you receiving God’s unexpected blessing? And then, what will you do with that blessing? How will it change you, and the way you give, to God and to the world?
Let us pray… As we bring our pain and our sorrow to you, O God, help us to bring also our praise and thanksgiving. Help us to bless you at all times, and to see the ways you bless us even in our grief. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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