All Saints Sunday

Rev 7:9-17; Psa 34:1-10,22; 1John 3:1-3; Matt 5:1-12

Confirmation last Sunday afternoon. We do that service very well, giving it all the time it needs. Part of that service involves each Confirmand coming forward and being prayed for. We invite all those present who’ve been part of that Confirmand’s journey of Christian faith to come forward and stand with the student. All of us then place a hand on this young person and pray for them. We get 10, 20, or more people praying around a high school student with a hand on their shoulders. All people who’ve supported them, walked with them, prayed for them, helped them, encouraged them.  It’s a powerful experience, and a strong visual reminder that no one walks this faith journey alone. There are people all along the way who hold the door open for us at various times in our lives.

The impact on these kids, seeing many who’ve helped them along the journey of faith is tremendous. These kids live in this culture fully and deeply. And it is the influence of people of faith – the saints in their lives who show them Jesus – that provide them with any alternative at all. If it weren’t for the prayers and support of these saints, our kids would simply coast by without even knowing there is a door that leads to life, much less have people care enough about them hold it open for them. That’s the image for All Saints Sunday.

Saints are people who hold the door open so that others can move from death to life.

Christians live in two worlds. There’s the kingdom of this world, where the winners are always the strongest, the best looking, the most powerful. In this world you have to be strong, you have to look out for yourself, and you do whatever you need to do to stay on top. You have to fight to win. Everything we see operates in this world. Sports, politics, business, schools, and even churches live in this world. There are winners and losers; the winners climb to the top. In this world we make the decisions, we call the shots, we are in charge. To get out of this world, you have to die.

But Christians also live, at the same time, in another world: the kingdom of God. This is where God brings mercy, peace, concern for others, wholeness, completeness, full life. This kingdom is so foreign to the world that it doesn’t make sense there. In God’s kingdom there is no death, no sin, no selfishness, no prejudice or hate. Because in this kingdom God is in charge.

Saints are people who hold the door open so that others can move from death of the world to life in God’s kingdom.

Though we’re the ones who broke this world, it is still created by God, and God is at working making it new. So God entered into the brokenness and death of this world. God himself crossed the threshold from God’s kingdom and became part of the broken, dying, violent world. It is God the Son, Jesus, who became the door from violence to peace, from hate to mercy, from death to life.

This first part of Matthew 5, called the Beatitudes, is a description of what happens when the life-kingdom of God that Jesus brings clashes with the death-world in which we live.

This world of death says we can’t be dependent on each other, much less on God – foolishness! No, you have to be tough enough to stand on your own. Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

This world says you can’t be weak, people will walk all over you! Take what’s yours! Jesus says blessed are the meek (those who aren’t focused entirely on themselves), for they will inherit the earth.

This world says you have to fight for what you have coming to you. Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

With the coming of Jesus, and his complete identification with this world through death, God has brought the kingdom of life into the world of death. And the two are not compatible. Everyone lives in the world, but don’t always know there’s an alternative to the sin and brokenness we all experience.

Saints are people who hold the door open so that others can move from death to life. Saints aren’t the door, but they make the door known. They don’t create the door, but they hold it open.

We live in two worlds. We are saints. We are here as a congregation so that we can go into the world and open the door to life. We live relying on God, we receive God’s comfort when this world hurts and kills, we serve others rather than ourselves, we show mercy, we make peace. And as we stand in the doorway between this world and God’s kingdom, we are reviled, persecuted, and have evil things uttered about us.

We are not alone. Others have held the door open for us. There’s a long line of saints over the centuries who have done exactly what we do. We’re here because someone in that line held the door to life open. They lived mercifully, peaceably, they hungered for righteousness, they served others, they’ve shown us Jesus – the kingdom of God.

We are the ones in this place and this time who live in both worlds. We show Jesus to others, we hold the door, we are the saints today.