"Blessed and Beloved Saints of God" - Sermon for All Saints Sunday 2017
Sermon:
Text: Matthew 5:1-12
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who is with us.
Sarah and I have a room in our house we call the project room, pretty much a combined office/craft/etc. room. We have our gift wrapping stuff in it, both of our desks, extra storage for bedding. And we also keep all of our Baptismal sponsor certificates in it. I was writing this week in there and looked over at them all, and in an odd combination of events came to a realization, I think All Saints Day and All Saints Sunday is one of my favorite liturgical days. It encapsulates everything about Christianity in one day.
So, here is what was all going on, and why it puts everything together. Nov 2nd would have been my dad’s father’s 105th birthday, and that accents what is often seen as All Saints Day’s purpose, to remember the dead and give thanks for their life. As we put it, to acknowledge that they are saints that have gone before us. I think of all of my grandparents this day, Norris and Joyce my dad’s parents, Alfred and Elsie my mom’s. I think of an Uncle I only knew as a baby, John my Aunt Julie’s first husband who died from Cancer when I was one. I think of my Uncle Leonard who died just a few years ago. I think of my friend Ben. And I’m sure you all have people you remember and think of this time of year, and on this day. During the lighting of candles we will be lighting three new ones, Emma Ballinger’s, Betty Decker’s, and Marcella Lavonne Benson’s. During our Wednesday Youth Group Gathering I held a brief service with the High Schoolers where we lit candles and rang the chime for those in their hearts. Some of them lit one candle, others two, a few three or more. We each have people who we miss. This day is to remember them, that in God they have been claimed and cared for, they are saints, they taught us life, the faith, they were people who we loved, who brought so much to us, who made us who we are. This day is a day full of remembrance of them.
The next thing I thought of are all of my godchildren. Sarah and I have 6 Godchildren, Matthew and Andrew my friend David and Kristi’s twin boys who are 5, Gunner, my cousin Brian’s son also 5, Micah my friend Corrine’s son who is 4, and finally Lydia and Mollie our twin nieces who just turned 2. I think about that this Sunday is also about them being saints as well. All Saints Sunday has at its core the idea that runs through Lutheranism so well, of Already and Not Yet. We have not yet reached heaven, and yet we have already been promised that we will be welcomed in. We already are invited to the foretaste of the feast to come and we sing of that in our Offertory Song today, Grace our table with your presence and give us a foretaste of the feast to come. Our communion meal is in fact that, it’s a full meal, that little bit of bread and that little bit of wine is filling for us in Christ, but they are also a promise of the greater feast awaiting us. We see that already and not yet in our baptismal liturgy, In baptism we are claimed by God, we are promised in that moment that eternal life is ours, but we also see in Baptism that in those waters we die and are raised already. We are made new then, we die then, and are raised then. In those waters we drown and are reborn. That is the moment we become saints.
If we become saints in that moment, it really asks the question what does it mean to be a saint?
I like to look at the ten commandments, which we happened to be going over in confirmation right now, and also the beatitudes which we read every All Saints Sunday. Many people will say that a saint is someone who follows all the of the Ten Commandments. But as the confirmation kids will tell you and most of you remember from that time, we aren’t very good at following them. In fact, we are very bad at doing so. So, that can’t be it, then we look at the beatitudes, well, maybe being a saint has to do with being blessed, and well, I think it does. But then I think well, what does it mean to be blessed?
The most common way I see blessed used now days is all about having stuff, getting stuff, having good things happen to you, and especially for what I watch on tv, winning sporting events. I see athlete’s twitters full of “God has blessed me” after victories.
But, when we look at the beatitudes it’s rather different isn’t’ it? Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who feel alone essentially. blessed are those who mourn, The grieving? blessed are the meek Who others push around, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Who are on the wrong side of justice? Those don’t seem to be anything like what blessed means. It’s more seems like curses. You certainly don’t have it all if we think of blessed in the world’s standard way. Why are these people blessed? It’s because those are the ones to whom God comes and God is with.
In the beatitudes Jesus is standing on a hillside, his disciples beside him, and as he teaches he can point down at the crowd and tell the disciples, those poor in spirit there, they’re blessed because I am here, those who mourn? I will comfort them. Those meek? I’ll stand up for them. Those who need righteousness? I will change the world. I will flip justice on its head.
Being Blessed has nothing to do with having stuff, or winning things, or things going your way. It’s all about God with you. Being a saint is not about being perfect, it’s about God’s presence in your life, about God claiming you in the waters of baptism, feeding you in feast here and the feast to come. It’s about God calling you beloved Child.
People of God, God is with you. God blesses you. In God you are a saint. In God you are freed from the power of sin and death. To be sent into the world to be God’s hands, to be God’s hands for those poor in spirit, those who mourn, for the meek, for those who thirst for righteousness. In that we are blessed, in that we are saints. Amen, and may you know God is with you indeed.
Text: Matthew 5:1-12
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who is with us.
Sarah and I have a room in our house we call the project room, pretty much a combined office/craft/etc. room. We have our gift wrapping stuff in it, both of our desks, extra storage for bedding. And we also keep all of our Baptismal sponsor certificates in it. I was writing this week in there and looked over at them all, and in an odd combination of events came to a realization, I think All Saints Day and All Saints Sunday is one of my favorite liturgical days. It encapsulates everything about Christianity in one day.
So, here is what was all going on, and why it puts everything together. Nov 2nd would have been my dad’s father’s 105th birthday, and that accents what is often seen as All Saints Day’s purpose, to remember the dead and give thanks for their life. As we put it, to acknowledge that they are saints that have gone before us. I think of all of my grandparents this day, Norris and Joyce my dad’s parents, Alfred and Elsie my mom’s. I think of an Uncle I only knew as a baby, John my Aunt Julie’s first husband who died from Cancer when I was one. I think of my Uncle Leonard who died just a few years ago. I think of my friend Ben. And I’m sure you all have people you remember and think of this time of year, and on this day. During the lighting of candles we will be lighting three new ones, Emma Ballinger’s, Betty Decker’s, and Marcella Lavonne Benson’s. During our Wednesday Youth Group Gathering I held a brief service with the High Schoolers where we lit candles and rang the chime for those in their hearts. Some of them lit one candle, others two, a few three or more. We each have people who we miss. This day is to remember them, that in God they have been claimed and cared for, they are saints, they taught us life, the faith, they were people who we loved, who brought so much to us, who made us who we are. This day is a day full of remembrance of them.
The next thing I thought of are all of my godchildren. Sarah and I have 6 Godchildren, Matthew and Andrew my friend David and Kristi’s twin boys who are 5, Gunner, my cousin Brian’s son also 5, Micah my friend Corrine’s son who is 4, and finally Lydia and Mollie our twin nieces who just turned 2. I think about that this Sunday is also about them being saints as well. All Saints Sunday has at its core the idea that runs through Lutheranism so well, of Already and Not Yet. We have not yet reached heaven, and yet we have already been promised that we will be welcomed in. We already are invited to the foretaste of the feast to come and we sing of that in our Offertory Song today, Grace our table with your presence and give us a foretaste of the feast to come. Our communion meal is in fact that, it’s a full meal, that little bit of bread and that little bit of wine is filling for us in Christ, but they are also a promise of the greater feast awaiting us. We see that already and not yet in our baptismal liturgy, In baptism we are claimed by God, we are promised in that moment that eternal life is ours, but we also see in Baptism that in those waters we die and are raised already. We are made new then, we die then, and are raised then. In those waters we drown and are reborn. That is the moment we become saints.
If we become saints in that moment, it really asks the question what does it mean to be a saint?
I like to look at the ten commandments, which we happened to be going over in confirmation right now, and also the beatitudes which we read every All Saints Sunday. Many people will say that a saint is someone who follows all the of the Ten Commandments. But as the confirmation kids will tell you and most of you remember from that time, we aren’t very good at following them. In fact, we are very bad at doing so. So, that can’t be it, then we look at the beatitudes, well, maybe being a saint has to do with being blessed, and well, I think it does. But then I think well, what does it mean to be blessed?
The most common way I see blessed used now days is all about having stuff, getting stuff, having good things happen to you, and especially for what I watch on tv, winning sporting events. I see athlete’s twitters full of “God has blessed me” after victories.
But, when we look at the beatitudes it’s rather different isn’t’ it? Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who feel alone essentially. blessed are those who mourn, The grieving? blessed are the meek Who others push around, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Who are on the wrong side of justice? Those don’t seem to be anything like what blessed means. It’s more seems like curses. You certainly don’t have it all if we think of blessed in the world’s standard way. Why are these people blessed? It’s because those are the ones to whom God comes and God is with.
In the beatitudes Jesus is standing on a hillside, his disciples beside him, and as he teaches he can point down at the crowd and tell the disciples, those poor in spirit there, they’re blessed because I am here, those who mourn? I will comfort them. Those meek? I’ll stand up for them. Those who need righteousness? I will change the world. I will flip justice on its head.
Being Blessed has nothing to do with having stuff, or winning things, or things going your way. It’s all about God with you. Being a saint is not about being perfect, it’s about God’s presence in your life, about God claiming you in the waters of baptism, feeding you in feast here and the feast to come. It’s about God calling you beloved Child.
People of God, God is with you. God blesses you. In God you are a saint. In God you are freed from the power of sin and death. To be sent into the world to be God’s hands, to be God’s hands for those poor in spirit, those who mourn, for the meek, for those who thirst for righteousness. In that we are blessed, in that we are saints. Amen, and may you know God is with you indeed.
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