Blessed Are You

A sermon for All Saints’ Day
November 6, 2022

“Blessed are you who are poor.” Blessed are you, Mary mother of Jesus, from a backwater, forgotten town in an unimportant province of the Empire, yet called to bear the Son of God who will take away the sins of the world. Blessed are you, Mother Teresa, simple nun who devoted her life to helping those forgotten in the slums of Calcutta, showing them the love of God, even during your own dark night of the soul. “Yours is the kingdom of heaven.” 

“Blessed are you who are hungry now.” Blessed are you, John the Baptist, voice crying out in the wilderness, with nothing to eat but locusts and honey. Blessed are you, Francis and Clare of Assisi, monastics, who forsook the pleasures of the world to draw closer to God. “You will be filled.” 

“Blessed are you who weep now.” Blessed are you, Jeremiah the weeping prophet, who sees the destruction of his people and the most sacred of places, and yet speaks a word of hope in the middle of destruction. Blessed are you, Julian of Norwich, who suffered long in this life, and yet shared a vision of the suffering Christ for the world. “You will laugh.”

“Blessed are you when people hate you on account of the Son of Man.” Blessed are you, Paul of Tarsus, preacher of the gospel of Christ and the grace of God, stoned, beaten shipwrecked, imprisoned, beheaded; but fighting the good fight and keeping the faith until the end. Blessed are you, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, hanged by the Nazis, yet refusing to make peace with oppression and tyranny, and showing us that the truest life is found just on the other side of death. “Surely your reward is great in heaven.” 

All Saints’ Day is a day when we remember the victorious and heroic saints of faith, the blessed ones who show us what it means to live a blessed life. It’s not an unattainable life. Sainthood is attainable, by the grace of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit. But it is only attainable when we surrender completely to God; when we allow the grace of God to take us over completely; when we pick up our cross and follow Jesus, and leave all else behind. The question is not, is sainthood attainable? The question is, do we want it?

The choice is ours. Will we long for the kingdom of God, or for the riches of this world? Will we long to be fed by the graces of God’s goodness, or will we fill our bellies with what we can provide? Will we long for the joy of heaven, or be content with the mocking laughter of earth? Will we long for heaven’s reward, even if it means being hated and excluded; or will we seek approval from the powers of this world? The choice is ours. 

Sainthood is attainable, and we can choose it. And sainthood is the path to life, to true life in God. But it will cost us now. It costs us our pride, our plans, our will, our ways. We lay all of that down, we pick up the cross, and we follow our Lord. 

But we do so with hope in our hearts, looking for that eternal inheritance Ephesians talks about today. We do so with courage in our souls, knowing that Christ is leading the way, and as long as we follow him, we cannot be lost. We do so with praises on our tongues, because we know that he who has promised redemption and eternal life is faithful, and his promises are always sure. 

Come what may–come poverty or hunger or weeping or exclusion–we go forward in faith, following our Lord and all the blessed company of saints. We walk the path to sainthood, which is the path to Calvary, knowing that resurrection and eternal life are on the other side.