All Saints Day
The Gospel of Luke 6:20-31
Preached at Bethlehem Lutheran Church (Askov, MN)
November 6, 2022
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Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, Christ the Liberator, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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It is such a joy to be with you here at Bethlehem Lutheran Church on this daylight-savings morning – worshipping, praying, and taking intentional time to remember All Saints Day, holding especially in our hearts those who died in the last year.
I find All Saints Day to be particularly compelling from a Lutheran standpoint – since our faith affirms that we are all sinners, and all saints, today we remember not only canonized saints like Francis, but all of the ordinary saints in our lives. Family, friends, strangers, who just like us were trying to live their lives in a way that responds to God’s grace and presence. We are connected to them, and they are connected to us.
In seminary I had the great privilege of being taught by the late Rev. Dr. Gordon Straw of the Brothertown Indian Nation. Because of his teaching, I pay attention to Creation in scripture – not as background information, but as an active part of the story.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus has spent the last night in prayer up on a mountaintop, and has returned to the level place, to the crowd. It is here, on the level plain, where Jesus will give what we call his Sermon on the Plain, a series of blessings and woes that envision the Kin-dom of God. In Luke, the Kingdom of God is now. Not in the future, in some yet-to-be-seen time, but emerging, growing, breaking through.
We meet Jesus here, on a level plain. A place of blessing, and a place of warning. A crowd presses in, messy, interconnected, interdependent. Sharing food, sharing mistakes, sharing space. I’m drawn to this level place that Jesus and the crowd are on. The dirt under their feet, our feet, supporting our lives and movement is not separate from us. The earth isn’t a dead afterthought – it reveals God’s creative glory. The very land that Jesus and the crowd are standing on can give context to the blessings and woes.
Before diving too deeply into what are often called the Beatitudes, it’s important to name that this text has done harm. It has been used to glorify suffering, to uphold the very gaps in wages, healthcare, food access, and quality of life that the Kin-dom of God levels. Yes, God is with you in grief, in suffering, in pain – but God doesn’t want that to be your life. Yes, God blesses those who are oppressed, who are on the margins – but that doesn’t mean God wants oppression to exist. Yes, God has a preferential option for the poor, but that doesn’t mean God wants anything less than flourishing for all of Creation.
This text also might be uncomfortable for those of us who hold power, or powerful identities, even as we can also hold marginalized identities. Because this is a text of interconnection. Our actions and inactions have real impact on each other, and on our communities. Which means that if our actions or inactions uphold harm, and uphold systems that were designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many, whether we are intentionally harming others or not, this text serves as a warning. Jesus is inviting us to turn away from broken and sinful systems and towards God, towards a new way of being.
What this text is doing is painting a picture of the interconnected, level Kin-dom of God, and allowing us to find our place in it.
The Kin-dom of God is a place where blessings overflow.
A place where there is enough food for all, that doesn’t need to be paid for, or fought for, food that we don’t shame or judge ourselves for eating.
A place where there is space for our grief, so that it may settle into our bones and leave room for joy.
A place where those who have been oppressed and outcast for singing the truth, for daring to dream of living differently, who prophesied a liberating God, are blessed.
The Kin-dom of God is a place where we are asked to stretch and transform.
A place where hoarding money, exploiting labor, and acting for your own benefit without considering the interconnections, will bring you woe.
A place where not sharing abundance, where feasting while others hunger, where letting food rot in the fields, will bring you woe.
A place where laughing at those who mourn and feel deeply, or at those who say that a joke isn’t funny, but it hurts them, will bring you woe.
A place where being spoken well-of, being respectable instead of authentic, respectable instead of faithful, will bring you woe.
These blessings and woes are not set in stone. I like to read the woes as warnings – if you do these things, they will bring you woe. They can serve as a gut check, as a reminder that we are all interconnected – that our actions and inactions affect more than just us.
Because at its core, Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain is a sermon on interconnectedness. We are not separate from each other, from our neighbors, from Creation. We are meant to take these blessings and woes seriously. To take them to heart, and let them guide our prayers, our actions, to trust that we are beloved and blessed by God, even when we are entangled with harmful systems.
Trusting that we are supported by Creation, that we do not have to live in competition and scarcity. That there is enough for us to give away abundantly and not ask for anything in return. We can relate to each other grounded in prayer and community, which leads to transformation. Which leads to blessings. Which leads to being treated with the same kindness and care that you give.
We are being invited to look around at this level plain where we meet Jesus, wondering what else could be leveled for the sake of God’s Kingdom. That might mean sharing what we have so all have enough. Reimagining what we hold dear and important to us. Remembering those who came before us, their gifts, their challenges, their blessings, and their woes. Allowing their lives to weave into ours, remembering them honestly, and carrying their memory on.
On All Saints, it might be tempting to remember those who came before us only as saints. Remembering only the good things. The easy things. But they, like us, were simultaneously sinner and saint. Those saints were loved by God, just as they were, and were beings of transformation, responding to the presence of God in their lives, as we are. We can live our lives in honor of the good in their lives, and in honor of God, while also learning from the places they fell short, or harmed others, repairing and growing.
On All Saints, a common ritual is reading the names of those who have died in the last year, which we’ll do during the prayers of the people. Right now, I would ask you to take a breath.
Take a moment to remember the communion of saints that you are surrounded by.
Whose lives and memories live on through you.
And I would invite you, in a moment, to speak their names out loud. This might feel like a risk for you. But I encourage you to lean into the truth that we are all connected – to each other, to God, to Creation, and to the saints. And so this moment of speaking their names out loud is simply calling that truth into this worship space.
Who are you remembering today? Please speak their names now, aloud or in your heart.
Thank you.
This time together, in worship, provides comfort in times of grief and change. It lets us practice being community together, even for an hour. It challenges us, as we wrestle with the truth that each of us is utterly beloved by God, right now, just as we are, and we are each beings of transformation – responding to the presence of God in our lives.
As we remember the saints who came before us, may Jesus’ words from the level place comfort those of us who need comfort. May they challenge those of us who need challenge. May they give us each the strength to honestly reflect on the ways we are living into God’s Kin-dom, and where we are being invited into growth, surrounded by the communion of saints, and held in God’s love. Amen.
Reed Fowler 