Sermon Recording:

As often is the case, the verses just prior to our Gospel passage for today set the scene for us:

[Jesus] came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.  And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

“Blessed are you…”

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus doesn’t preach from the mountaintop as he does in Matthew. He gathers people around him on a level plain. That’s an intentional image for Luke; he sets Jesus among the people, alongside them. In close proximity. They have come to him, some from long distances, hungering. Hungering for healing, hungering for the Kingdom–for the Dream of God. 

Blessed are you, he says; blessed are you whose pockets and bellies are empty, who are grieving, who are harassed, victimized, and threatened, because you are not alone and you are not unseen.

Woe to you, he says; woe to you who think you have it all together, who think you are in complete control, who think your life is all about you, because the other shoe–maybe not this day, but one day—the other shoe will surely drop, because you are not unseen either.

Jesus then offers God’s vision of a world turned right-side up by being turned upside down: He bids them see and participate in the Dream of God unfolding around them; a dream of courage, compassion, generosity, and above all love that will heal a broken world that values power over mercy and justice. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

This text could not possibly be more timely, could it? Hungry people cry out, and God is calling those with ears to hear to be a blessing to them. I am praying that we hear Jesus today. 

Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.

Blessed are you, saints.

The Feast of All Saints/All Souls that we celebrate this weekend always includes the Beatitudes that we’ve just heard. Whether from Matthew or Luke, we always encounter this entwining of suffering, blessing, and saintliness within the liturgy, prompting us to ponder what this has to teach us as we enter this tender time–All Hallowtide, as we call it. All Hallowtide begins with the Eve of All Hallows (Halloween) that has traditionally been seen as a time when spirits can traverse the boundary of life and death. It is followed by The Feast of All Saints, when we remember the heroes of the faith (I call them the Big S saints,) that we seek to emulate and who many believe intercede for us in heaven.  All Hallowtide ends with the commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls), when we remember those who we love but see no longer (little s saints). So All Saints is a time of memory, a time of bittersweet grief and gratitude; a time when our shared mortality is close to the surface. 

So now pair that with The Beatitudes, which bless vulnerability, suffering, and fragility; which highlight our need for God and for the solidarity of others; which is something most of us only really begin to comprehend when we are at those moments in our lives of—yes–vulnerability, suffering, and fragility. When the other shoe drops. 

The saints, and those in need of blessing—they are one and the same, really. They are the Communion of Saints. And at their center is Jesus.

Nadia Bolz-Weber observes that Jesus himself is God’s Beatitude. She writes: 

[Jesus says,] … You may seek power, but I am blessing all human vulnerability. This Jesus whom we follow cried at the tomb of his friend, and turned the other cheek and forgave those who hung him on a cross. He was God’s Beatitude – God’s blessing to the weak in a world that only admires the strong. 

God’s blessing to the weak in a world that only admires the strong. That’s some much-needed Good News right there.

The saints that we honor and remember on this day comprise a great gathering around Jesus, and in that gathering–more important than anything they might understand about the Dream of God—more important is the fact of their solidarity and companionship with one another—blessed and flawed alike, joyful and grieving alike—solidarity and companionship as they journey on an often hard road of life and questioning. They are blessed because they are not alone; they are gathered together. All enfolded in the love of God.

Blessed are the saints!

We are connected—gathered—by the love of God in our journey of joy and suffering and struggle; gathered with the saints among us now and the saints of ages past; what the Letter to the Hebrews brilliantly calls the Great Cloud of Witnesses who have run the race of faith, with all of its ups and downs and obstacles. And it is at the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls that we celebrate our connection with that great gathering that transcends space and time. When we talk about the Body of Christ, we are talking about something far bigger than a single parish, or diocese, or denomination. So when we baptize someone, like we will do today, we welcome them into a household, a family, that extends far beyond these walls and even beyond the boundary between life and death. 

The Cloud of Witnesses is with us at the font; with us as we make our Covenant, a Covenant that joins us irrevocably to the Body of Christ of past, present and future. Here’s what it says in the Book of Common Prayer (p.298): 

Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.

In Baptism we are marked as Christ’s own– forever.

Indissoluble. Forever. Powerful words, for a powerful relationship. It’s a relationship that is between us and God, absolutely. And it is by extension a relationship between us and all of the rest of the Body of Christ; we promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being. (One day I hope it will say “every living creature” but that’s for another time.) In other words, it is calling us to be, like Jesus, God’s Beatitudes. To be God’s blessing to the weak in a world that only admires the strong. .

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

By our hands, and with God’s help, may it be so