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Sermon for All Saints Sunday – November 2, 2025
Ephesians 1:11-23, Luke 6:20-31
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
On All Saints Sunday we need to get one thing straight right from the start: Sainthood is not earned or achieved; it is bestowed and received. Sainthood is a gift! It is the baptismal birthright of every Christian! A saint is not someone who has earned the title by being exceptionally well-behaved. A saint is not someone who has achieved this status by performing a miracle and making it through a process of canonization. What the Bible teaches us is that a saint is someone upon whom Christ has bestowed his saving grace, someone who has received this saving grace through faith. Whenever saints are mentioned in the New Testament it simply refers to those who have been baptized into Christ.
There are certain people from Christian history who have made extraordinary contributions to the church. We commonly refer to them as saints. These are those spiritual superheroes who have their own days on the church calendar. This is a good thing. We should remember and celebrate them. We can learn from them. We can be inspired by them. But they are not in a separate category. Their title of saint is not exclusive to them. In the Bible the word “saint” is simply a synonym for the word “Christian.”
We see this most clearly in how St. Paul addressed several of his letters. When Paul wrote Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, he addressed all these letters to the saints. He was not writing to spiritual superheroes in these letters. If they were already spiritual superheroes, they wouldn’t need his letters! The people he was writing to were not people who had earned any status in the church. They were not people who had achieved moral or spiritual perfection. In fact, in some cases, Paul was writing to people who were deeply messed up! Have you read 1 Corinthians? Parts of it read like it could be a script for a new series called “Desperate Housewives of Corinth.” And yet, the Apostle Paul addressed them all as saints. Why? Because they were Christians. He called them saints because Christ Jesus had bestowed his gift of salvation upon them, and they had received it in faith.
In our reading from Ephesians for this All Saints Sunday we hear Paul repeatedly refer to the saints as those who have received an inheritance. An inheritance isn’t earned or achieved. It is bestowed and received. To be precise, an inheritance is bestowed and received after someone has died. To be a saint, then, is to receive the gift of what Christ has done for us through his death on the cross. It is to receive the inheritance of salvation he has won for us through his death and resurrection. Jesus bestows this gift, Paul says, through his Word, and we receive it in our ears by faith.
Christ is bestowing this gift upon us today as he speaks to us. In the gospel of Luke today we hear Jesus proclaiming blessing after blessing. This blessing isn’t just for those who heard him back then, they are for you who are gathered here today. This is a living Word being bestowed upon you to receive and believe.
“Blessed are you who are poor,” Jesus says. “Blessed are you who are hungry.” Jesus proclaims his blessing upon those in need, whether materially, spiritually, or relationally. Jesus looks upon those who don’t have enough, whether it is money or food or hope or love, and he says to them, to you, “Blessed are you, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you, for you will be filled.” Blessed are you because God sees you. God cares about you, and in the coming of his Son, God is bestowing upon you a love that fills every emptiness.
“Blessed are you who weep,” Jesus says. This tends to be a weepy Sunday as we remember those saints who have died since last All Saints Sunday. We ache at the sound of the names of those saints who are no longer with us. They were dear friends and beloved members of our church family. They were beloved husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. In many cases, that grief is still fresh, still raw. “Blessed are you who weep,” Jesus says to us, “for you will laugh.” That laughing doesn’t have to be today. It is okay to weep. But Jesus promises us that a day is coming when death and mourning and crying will be no more, a day of restoration and reunion and, yes, laughter.
“Blessed are you are who are hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed on account of the Son of Man,” Jesus says. Jesus proclaims his blessing on all who suffer because of their faith in him. Jesus proclaims his blessing on our brothers and sisters in Nigeria who are currently being violently oppressed under an extreme form of Sharia law, with tens of thousands of them being massacred and martyred for their Christian faith. Jesus says that they, and all who suffer for their faith, can rejoice, because their suffering won’t have the last word. Jesus promises that their reward will be great in heaven.
Jesus bestows blessing after blessing after blessing. And these blessings are given to those who haven’t earned or achieved anything! These blessings are instead freely bestowed upon those who need them. They are bestowed in grace and received in faith.
There are woes too, of course. Jesus gives warnings to those who are already comfortable in this life: the rich, the happy, the well-fed and the well-liked. These aren’t inherently bad things to be. In fact, in the right context, they can be received as blessings of their own. But Jesus warns that those who are already comfortable with life as it is are less likely to see their need for a blessing from Jesus. They are less likely to receive the salvation he has come to bestow. Being comfortable now makes it very easy to be in denial about our need for the life he brings.
There was a news story that ran a week or so ago about a new study on the health benefits of walking. My wife and I are avid walkers, so it got my attention. The way ABC News described the study was to say that “walking 4,000 steps per day reduced the risk of death by 40%.” Now, whoever wrote that byline is in some serious denial, because I’m pretty sure that no matter how much you walk, the risk of death is always 100%! (If you’re curious, the story went on to clarify that it led to a 40% reduction in premature death from cardiovascular disease, which is a pretty important detail, I think.)
We may well be secure and happy and healthy now, and that isn’t bad or wrong. But it can lead to this kind of denial, this false sense of security. The reality is, we will all face times when we are poor in some way or another. We will all face times when we feel empty, when we hunger for things to be different. We will all have times when we weep at the loss of someone dear to us. And no matter how much we walk, the death rate is still 100%. And so the day will come for all of us when our name is on the list of those who have died since the last All Saints Sunday.
In the meantime, we have a word of blessing from our Lord Jesus. In the meantime, we have the promise of the inheritance our Lord Jesus has bestowed upon us through his saving death. In the meantime, we have a title which has been freely bestowed upon us, the title given to us in our baptism – the title of saint. There is nothing we do to earn or achieve this title. We can only receive it through faith, by trusting that it is ours, by trusting in Christ’s Word to us.
And when we receive this title by faith, we start to act like who we are. When we receive this gift of salvation and sainthood which has been bestowed upon us, we start to act at least a little bit like those people who have their own days on the calendar, each in our own way. Our hearts begin to soften towards our enemies. We are a little more inclined to bless those who curse us and a little less inclined to seek revenge. We begin to look forward to sharing with those in need. We start to do to others as we would have them do to us.
We don’t do this perfectly, or even particularly well. We are sinner-saints who will always struggle with this. But in fits and starts we begin to live into the identity bestowed upon us by our Lord – not because we have to, but as a grateful response to the One already did it perfectly for us. Our Lord Jesus loved his enemies, even as he was being crucified. Jesus blessed those who cursed him, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Jesus turned the other cheek to those who struck him, and by his wounds we are healed. Jesus gave up not only his cloak but also his tunic as he was stripped bare, giving up everything, even his life, in order to save us, in order to save you, in order to make you one of his saints.
Sainthood isn’t earned or achieved; it is bestowed and received. As we receive the gifts Christ won for us on the cross, given to us in Word and Sacrament, we are strengthened for a life that, however imperfectly, begins to reflect the perfect life and the perfect love of our savior. As we receive the promise of the glorious inheritance our Lord Jesus has in store for all who believe, we also live in hope. We look with hope to the day when we can once again share some barbeque with Roger, a piece of pie with Jack, some chocolate milk with Allan, some tea and cookies with Mary, some Dove chocolates with Gisela, a cup of coffee with Bob, and some ham salad with Leona. Until that day comes, we gather with them, and with the whole company of heaven, at the table our Lord has set for all the saints as a foretaste of the feast to come.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church