November 2, 2025

All Saints Sunday

Luke 6:20-31

Epiphany, Winnipeg

In a few minutes we’ll remember the names of a few people in our prayers. Some of the names are of people from this congregation who have died in the past year, and there are few more names that some of you asked to be included – these are the names of people in our lives who have died and we have said goodbye to this past year or even years before that. Today we make a point of remembering them because they are saints, made one with us in the waters of baptism and sharing their lives with us. We miss them.

We started the day by singing For All the Saints. Five verses, and there are two more we cold have sung as well. Seven verses, lots to say, and if we put our heads together we could probably write seven more, and more on top of that, because words cannot say everything there is to say about people we have lost. All the verses of song could not contain all the saints, the whole communion of saints gone before us yet still with us, but we try. All these saints we remember today are not a handful of special people, super-nice, well-behaved, deeply devout, or miracle workers. The saints as we remember them today are all those who have been named by God as holy, chosen, beloved; people like us who are born in this baptismal water. You are saints. I’m a saint. So many saints in every time and place. A gathering of candles at the altar rail here will remind us that All the Saints gather to dine with us today.

But today for a few minutes we’ll be a little more specific. We will name names and gather up memories that are close to our hearts. My list that I scroll through on All Saints Day every year includes grandparents I’ve know and not know, a few uncles who never made it past their own second or third birthdays and a lot of uncles and aunts I did know. There are professors who taught me about faith and the Lutheran Confessions and music and how to wax skis and even one beloved seminary prof who lectured me one day about how to make pour-over coffee just the right way. I’m lucky that I have only lost a very few close friends, but I know that their time will come, and my time will come.

Take a minute to think about the saints you remember today…. I’ll give you some time. If you’re comfortable, say their names out loud. If you’re comfortable with that.

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Luke tells this story of Jesus, preaching out in the country to a crowd. We might know it as the Sermon on the Mount, but the way Luke tells it it’s the sermon on the plain, the open and wide flatlands. It’s the Manitoba version. Jesus rhymes off this list of the ones who are blessed – you who are poor, or grieving, or hungry or persecuted. And then he rhymes off another list – Woe to you who are rich, or laughing, or full, or well-loved and respected. It sounds like he’s making two lists of two different kinds of people, and there’s a good list and a bad list. Kind of a Santa Claus thing.

It all rings a familiar bell these days, maybe today more than at other times we’ve known. In politics and in life on our streets and in so many places throughout the world the lines seem so clear. Who are the ones who are poor, or hungry, or filled with tears? Who is reviled and persecuted by the ones who hold all the power and who seem so rich, or satisfied, or laughing and strong? Jesus holds up the ones who are poor and hungry and who will be fed, and then he speaks to the ones who are wealthy and filled and who will weep and become poor. It all sounds like the song Mary sang when she was carrying Jesus around inside: God brings down the powerful ones and lifts up the lowly.

The lines are so clear.

But I’m never sure how all that fits on All Saints Day. Are the saints just the ones on the Blessed Are You list, and the un-saints are the ones on the Woe to You list?

Over almost nine years I’ve heard stories from you about the saints that you remember; those ones who are no longer with us who have made a difference, or been important, or just had some kind of impact on you in your lives. Most of your memories and stories have been positive, with stories about beloved saints who are family or good friends or acquaintances. Good memories. But woven into those stories there have been a few times when someone has said something like, “She was not easy to live with,” or “He wasn’t always such a good person to have around,” or “they, well, you know…they were not good to us at all.” Those few little stories, which were also stories of saints, reminded me that the Saints are not people from a good list or a bad list. They’re just the saints. All The Saints.

Some day you and I will be named in the prayers for All Saints Day. Maybe we’ll be remembered in this place; a familiar place for some. The pastor or pray-er or someone will name our names among others as the service begins, or maybe during a special pause, or else during the prayers themselves. Our names will be spoken. Some day you and I will be on the list of those who have died in the past year.

Maybe you will be remembered some day in an ancient cathedral in a European city, or a temple in a village in Thailand. It probably won’t be a special service or ceremony. Instead, a traveling relative or friend might drop a coin into an offering box and then light a little candle in a side chapel while they whisper your name and stand quietly for a moment. Later on that day someone else will come by and although they don’t light a candle they will look at the warm glow of your light and all those lights in that sacred place and will find it a lovely sight, and the saints will bring some beauty and stillness in a world that can be so full of noise sometimes.

Maybe you or I will be remembered in someone’s prayers in a little sacred corner of someone’s house, something like a shrine, but even then the saints, including us, are all being gathered. We’ll be remembered in that place where one or two or three or a dozen people gather to worship in some simple way in someone’s home, with all the saints.

Some of us will be remembered as poor-in-Spirit or just plain poor, or as ones who always grieved because you don't just “get over it.” or we’ll be remembered as ones who suffered sometimes or so often didn’t feel at home or seem to fit in. And we will be called blessed.

Some of us will be remembered as rich in things, or rich in soul or abounding in money. Some will be remembered as ones who laughed all the time and always had a smile or whose lives just seemed…charmed. We too will have experienced our woes as we realized that a charmed life never stays charmed for long. And we will be called blessed.

Most of us, if enough stories are told, will be remembered as a hodge-podge of the lists of the bless-ed and wo-ed. And we will be called blessed.

Some day you and I will be ancestors and be remembered on All Saints Day, and the simple fact of our living and dying will teach those who come after us that anyone who has known all the good things won’t know them forever. The things we might value or long for won’t always be there. We know this. Or we will. And we will teach those who come after us that maybe they don’t need to try to cling to everything so tightly.

Some day we’ll be remembered on All Saints Day and we will be ancestors. The simple fact of our living and dying and our living again will teach those who come after us that poor doesn’t last forever, and grief will give way to laughter. We will teach those who come after us that in the realm of God that is here now, the ones whom the world sees as cursed or forgotten or victims or left out are in fact blessed and treasured.

We will all be ancestors some day. We will be remembered. And when we are gathered up in peoples’ memories and in the memory and love of God, when we are gathered up with the saints who have died and those who still live, we will find that All Saints actually means All Saints.

Here’s the thing: Jesus doesn’t turn to one part of the crowd and say, “Blessed are you who are poor, or hungry, or weeping, or hated,” and then to another part of the crowd and say, “But woe to you who are rich or full of food or laughing or of impeccable reputation.” He just looks at the crowd, at these disciples, these ones who follow him from all over, and says “Blessed are you” and “Woe to you,” and maybe it’s never quite clear whether he’s talking to me or to you or whether all of that changes for all of us from one minute to the next, because we’re all kind of blessed and kind of wo-ed, yet we’re all gathered into the one Body of Christ.

That’s the thing about this baptismal water that we gave thanks for today. In that water saints are born, saints are healed and divisions are healed; saints are brought together and no longer separated by politics or ideas or time and space. All those clear lines that might keep us apart just turn fuzzy, and less clear, and then they disappear. All that’s clear now is that all the saints – all of us – are gathered up together. Because All Saints means All Saints.