Sermon: All Saints Sunday, Luke 6:20-31

November 2, 2025 
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

All Saints Sunday is always a poignant and meaningful day for us at Faith-La Fe for both our English and Spanish-speaking members. This is a festival day which we observe with tenderness and reverence in each language.

This year, there’s a sense in which we began All Saints last weekend with our 80th anniversary celebrations. Those who spoke at our anniversary program – former pastors and family members of former pastors – looked back on years past. It was very moving, and sometimes had the feel of shared remembrances common during eulogies at funerals and celebrations of life. 

In our parish hall, photos were displayed that included our sainted members – not unlike how photos are displayed at memorial services. The anniversary video included video clips of worship services from bygone eras in which members appeared who are no longer with us.

In short, aspects of our 80th anniversary celebrations last Saturday were offered in the tender, poignant spirit of All Saints as we gave thanks for those who have gone before us. 

Indeed, the legacy of our local saints is all around us. We see hints of the saints in the details and overall design of our campus of buildings. Those saints donated generously to make our beautiful buildings possible. The saints are imprinted spiritually on each organ pipe, because those saints often donated what they could, pipe by pipe, note by note to make possible our magnificent instrument. And the saints and their loved ones are present in each and every one of our stained-glass windows and other features of our church. In short, the saints are everywhere.

Moreover, the saints of this congregation inhabit us communally in the DNA of our congregation’s personality and identity and character – even as the saints among our family members inhabit who we are individually. We are because of those who have gone before us. And we give thanks for them. Especially today.

So, the saints are very much on our minds today. This year, on All Saints Sunday 2025, one theme associated with the saints stands out for me: ordeal. Saints characteristically go through great ordeals. The saints struggle. The saints suffer. Ordeal as a theme is front and center in my mind because of the challenges we face as a nation in a radically changing world with all the upheavals going on around us. We are enduring ordeals today.

Turning to today’s readings, ordeal is implied in today’s passage from the book of Daniel with reference to the four great beasts as four kings who make trouble for those on earth. Thus it was that the prophet acknowledged: “my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me.” Too many kings have acted like beasts throughout human history, creating ordeals for their subjects.

Then, too, ordeal is strongly suggested in today’s gospel reading, Luke’s version of the beatitudes. Luke records these words of Jesus: “blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are hated, excluded, reviled, defamed on account of the Son of Man.” These themes clearly convey a sense of ordeal.

In essence, Jesus says that the blessed ones are those who go through great ordeals like poverty and hunger and grief and exclusion. In short, it seems clear that sainthood involves bearing the heavy burdens of the weight of human sin and brokenness. 

All of this is reinforced in stanzas of the beloved hymn for this festival, “For all the Saints.” Listen to these words: “And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, steals on the ear the distant triumphs song, and hearts are brave again and arms are strong. Alleluia!” (ELW 422, stanza 4) 

The theme of facing ordeal is a common theme of the saints throughout church history. So many of the named saints are remembered especially for their having suffered martyrdom. But ordeal is often also a feature of our personal saints among friends and family members. 

I think of my paternal grandfather, who was a saintly, gentle man, but whose first wife died of complications of child birth when my father was born, and who lost his second wife to cancer. And when my grandfather was a second-time widower, he lost his right arm and had his left hand crippled in a farming accident when he was over 70 years old. Grandpa knew ordeal, and yet he persisted as a saintly person and presence despite it all. You, too, can name such saints in your lives. Take a moment to think of those who remained saintly despite their ordeals…. 

What makes people who suffer ordeal come out as the saintly ones? Well, it’s not just the bad news of ordeal that marks the sainted ones. There’s also good news. The saints also discover God’s blessing even amidst their ordeals. The prophet Daniel reports this after warning of the coming of the four beastly kings: “But – there’s so much in a simple three letter conjunction – but the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever – forever and ever.” 

And in the beatitudes recorded in Luke’s gospel, the poor, the hungry, the grieving and reviled ones are blessed. In Greek, it’s happy. “Happy are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Happy are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Happy are you who weep now, for you will laugh…. Rejoice and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven.” 

How can this be? How can those who grieve and weep laugh? How can suffering poverty and hunger have anything to do with the glory of God’s kingdom? How can being excluded, reviled, and hated be an occasion for leaping for joy? 

The answers to these questions, of course, are found in Christ Jesus. As we heard in the today’s reading from Ephesians: “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance…. In him, we were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit…. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places…. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (cf. Ephesians 1:11-23)

These are blessings the saints began to receive even in Jesus’ earthly ministry when he fed the poor and brought God’s kingdom near to them in his very person. 

And we current-day saints as believers inherit the blessings of God in Christ in the gifts of the Word and of the Sacraments even now in our life together in the church. All around us again today are all the eternal blessings of Christ our benevolent Lord and King. At this reading desk. At the font. At this table of grace.

And the wisdom from Ephesians tells us that the blessing the saints know even now in Christ far exceeds the realities of the ordeals that the saints endure. Christ is the one who delivers God’s blessing to us. Christ enlivens saints’ faith to endure their ordeals. In short, Christ makes us saints by the gift of himself. It’s not our goodness, but the goodness of Christ that makes saints saints.

And Christ does the same for us today as we are redeemed and made holy by the gift of grace, God’s love and mercy for us, known in word, water, bread and wine. 

And then, too, our faith is enlivened by the witness of the saints who have gone before us. Aren’t we deeply and richly inspired by those whom we name as our personal saints?

When we gather at this eucharistic table, Christ is present among us to be sure, but we are also surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses in the communion of all the saints who cheer us on as we run with perseverance the race set before us, upon leaving the sacramental table, ever looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith. (cf. Hebrews 12:1ff) That is to say, the saints are also present with us as and among us as we commune with Christ. In short, this is a very crowded banquet table!

And next, when we leave this table and go back out into our crazy world with Christ in us, and the witness of all the saints inspiring us, we then are able to do the work that God in Christ calls us to and entrusts to us: “to love our enemies; to do good to those who hate us; to bless those who curse us; to pray for those who mistreat us.” God in Christ and the witness of the saints inspire us, in short, to live the Golden Rule, namely, “do to others as you would have them do to you,” (cf. Luke 6:27-31).

And doing this work of God in the power of the Holy Spirit numbers us among the saints as well…. When we endure the ordeals of our own day, and offer a counter-cultural witness of love, mercy, compassion, humility and self-control to the world, we proclaim in our words and deeds the God of love known in Christ Jesus. And when we do that, we inspire others to do the same. And in that way, the legacy of the saints that has been passed on to us, we then pass on to new generations to come, as humanity and the world spiral forward into God’s promised future that is forever and forever and ever. Thanks be to God. Amen.