All Saints Sunday, Year C (November 6, 2022) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

All Saints’ Day, Yr C (2022)                                                 

Ephesians 1:11-23                                                                    

Luke 6:20-31

In the name of the one, holy, and living God:

in whom we live, and move, and have our being.  Amen.

Jesus went out to the mountain to pray,

and he spent the whole night in prayer with God.

The next day he came down the mountain 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. 

“…all in the crowd were trying to touch him,

for power came out from him and healed all of them.” (Luke 6:12, 17-19)

These are the circumstances of Jesus’ “sermon on the plain.”

Hordes of troubled and hurting people came to Jesus,

trying to touch him

        so that they would be healed.

They brought with them their brokenness and vulnerability.

And Jesus came down the mountain

to meet them where they were!

Jesus then speaks to all those who have gathered to follow him, not just the twelve:

“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.

“Blessed are you who weep now,

            for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you who are hated, reviled, excluded, and defamed on account of your faith,

            for your reward is great in heaven.”

What a word of hope for weary, anxious, and hurting people!

New life and healing are in store for those who know their pain and brokenness.

These days as I listen to the news regarding world events

and our own country’s violent clashes and deep needs,

     I hear stories of hordes of people who are troubled and hurting,

all longing for healing and hope.

On this day we celebrate All Saints Sunday,

            the day that we honor those saints who have gone before us,

       bearing the Light of Christ in their lives.

As I think about the Saints,

            it strikes me that none of them set out to be Saints!

Sainthood was not the goal;

            the goal was to meet people in their places of vulnerability

     and serve as vehicles of Grace, love, healing, and hope.

For example, Constance and her Companions – the Sisters of St. Mary –

arrived in Memphis, TN in 1873 to start a girls’ school. 

Five years after they started the school, Yellow Fever swept through the city. 

Over half the city fled,

but Constance and the other Sisters stopped their teaching

to tend to the needs of the sick in the city. 

As a result of tending the sick, all the Sisters contracted Yellow Fever and died.

So, you see, Constance and her companions did not set out to be martyrs.

 They simply responded to the needs of the sick around them,

       and they gave their lives to do so.

I recently read a striking story about a man living out his faith in the 60s.

It is the story of an African-American man who was sitting at a diner during the Civil Rights movement.

As he was sitting there, a man walked up to him and told him that if he did not leave the diner within seconds, then he would stab him with the knife that he was holding.

The African-American man responded,

saying that the man needed to do what he thought was right,

and that if that was to stab him,

then this man would do his best to continue to love him.

The man dropped his knife and walked out the door.

At the risk of death,

a word of love had been spoken into the depths of a man

filled with anger, fear, and hatred.

A few years back I remember reading a story in a local newspaper of a modern-day saint:

“Martha Lee Thomas lives in a rickety cottage along a ramshackle row in downtown Memphis.

“The 70-year-old cleaned houses for decades.

“Now she uses the grocery cart parked in her sloping living room to collect cans for money. 

“It helps her make it through the month after her Social Security check is gone.

“Thomas sounds like a good candidate for the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association’s Meals on Wheels program.

“But instead of getting a daily lunch plate brought to her,

she delivers them to those who need it more.

“Thomas, who lives around the corner from MIFA’s headquarters,

walked there and asked if they needed help.

“That was 25 years ago.

‘I serve God by helping out my fellow man,’ said Thomas.

“Illiterate and mostly alone, Thomas says she doesn’t really need a MIFA meal. 

She cooked a big pot of greens at home –

she’ll eat those all week.

“The meals, she points out,

are for people too sick or fragile to cook for themselves.”

The saints abound…

            in all times and in all places!

In today’s reading from Ephesians,

the writer celebrates the ongoing,

world-changing,

redemptive action of God through the lives of the hearers.

These words might as well be addressed to us:

“In [Christ] you also…were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit….

“I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints….

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…

may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him,

       so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened,

you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…

      and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.”

You see, God’s future,

even now,

       rushes forward to meet us –

reclaiming and realigning every present joy or sorrow,

failure or achievement,

within God’s glorious intent.

God’s holy reign is already at work in us!

And we are sent to be ordinary saints in the world –

            just like all those who have gone before us –

    to be agents of God’s healing mercy,

forgiveness,

reconciliation,

and hope in a broken world.

Jesus went out into the world,

addressing the deep needs of the people who came to him. 

He offered words and touches of healing to all:

the rich and the poor,

Israelites and Gentiles,

men and women,

       sinners, the outcast, leaders…

       anyone who would listen.

As the writer of the Letter to the Ephesians says,

we set our hope on Christ,

       praying for a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we come to know Christ.

The saints from ages past set their hope on Christ.

So, today, as we leave this place,

 let us go forth in the Spirit of all the saints who have gone before,

                        living as witnesses to Christ’s love in a broken world,

       meeting people right where they are!

Amen.