Sermon for All Saints Day 2020

On All Saints’ Day, we remember the promise of eternal life in God’s kingdom. Continuing with the “back to basics” theme from last week, this week’s sermon is on keeping perspective in the midst of a pandemic and an election.

Also included in this online worship service video is the National Lutheran Choir’s recording of “How Can I Keep from Singing.” The hymn is in the public domain. Find more from the choir at their website.

This week’s Scripture lessons are from Revelation 7:9-17 and 1 John 3:1-3. I found helpful Rolf Jacobson’s Dear Working Preacher column for this week. 

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

For many years, Dave Barry was a humor columnist for the Miami Herald newspaper. Maybe you’ve read some of his books.

He’s retired now, but he continues to write an annual humor column at the end of each year looking back at all the news from the previous year.

I read his column every year, and there’s always stuff he brings up and pokes fun at that I’ve completely forgotten about, probably even moreso this year, because it so much has happened in 2020, right?

Personally, I started the year in the hospital with Micah being born, but the first 2020 news I remember was the huge wildfires in Australia – remember those?

Then Kobe Bryant died, and the Iowa Caucuses happened, and right around then the President was impeached, and we were just starting to hear about people getting sick in China from this new virus. On March 9, the stock market crashed and the Dow had its worst single day ever. Somewhere in there were murder hornets, remember them?

I have March 12 in my head as the day the pandemic became real, because that’s the day the NBA when on hiatus, then our last in-person church worship service for several months was March 15, in the middle of Lent. We had the strangest Easter of our lives, and then on Memorial Day, George Floyd was killed and people around the country protested racial injustice.

Also, there were a bunch of hurricanes and wildfires, which are still happening, and virtual political conventions, and it just goes on and on. Oh, and the pandemic is still happening. Oh, and we’re finally almost to election day!

I’m so curious if Dave Barry’s end of year column will just say, “2020. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen.”




Today as a church, we’re marking All Saints’ Day. It’s not actually the end of the church year, but today is the day we remember and name both the people in our congregation and in our lives who have died in this last year, as well as those who have been baptized.

And similar to last week’s commemoration of Reformation Day, this holiday is a good opportunity for us as the church to go back to basics, back to our foundation in the midst of the chaos and uncertainty of our world.

The basic message of Reformation Day is that we are saved by God’s grace, not by anything we do. Our Scripture readings today for All Saints’ Day give us a glimpse of what it means to be saved.

In the first lesson from Revelation, John has a vision of what’s coming in God’s kingdom, a vision of God’s people gathered together, multitudes from every nation, every tribe and people and language, gathered together to worship God.

When God’s kingdom is fulfilled, there will be no more hunger or thirst. No more death or sorrow. No more virus, or lockdown, or quarantine. No more hurricanes or fires or derechos. No more cancer or Alzheimer’s or car crashes. God will wipe away every tear.

This is the promise we hold on to. This is the promise we are given as people of God.

Going back to basics means remembering that this world is not all there is. At funerals, I like to saw we “cling” to God’s promises, because they’re like a life ring thrown to us in the midst of a storm. Sometimes all we can do is hang on.

As 1 John so beautifully puts it, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We don’t know all the details, but we know there is a promise and the one who has promised is faithful. As the Nicene Creed we’ll say together in a few minutes puts it, it was “for us and for our salvation” that Jesus came down from heaven, lived, died, and was raised again. Back to basics: God’s promise is for you and for me.

One way of looking at All Saints’ Day is that it’s similar to Memorial Day. It’s a day to remember those who have completed their course on earth and now rest in God’s presence, living forever in God’s kingdom.

I hope you’ll take some time today to remember people you know who have died, whether in this last year or long ago. And as you remember them, as you grieve—and it’s ok to grieve—remember God’s promises. Keep an eternal perspective.

Especially this week with the election, there’s a lot of uncertainty right now, anxiety and even fear. There are people in our congregation (in this room) who are going to be disappointed on Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning, or this year with all the absentee ballots maybe not until next week. But I know some of you are going to be excited about the future, and some of you are going to be disappointed.

Either way, I want to remind you today to keep perspective.

The election matters. There are important issues at stake. I don’t know if it’s exactly a religious duty to vote, other than perhaps in the sense that we’re called to do everything in our power to work for justice and love our neighbors, but voting is certainly a patriotic duty.

So, I hope if you haven’t already voted that you will on Tuesday, and I say that even knowing at least one of you is going to cancel out my vote. But don’t put too much hope in politics and politicians.

We are citizens of this nation, but more importantly, we are citizens of God’s kingdom, and it’s that heavenly citizenship which will last forever. As the multitudes of the saints cry out in John’s vision, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

By the grace of God, we are citizens of heaven. You have a home beyond this world. Beyond the chaos and bad news and murder hornets and hurricanes and fires and political divisions of this world, we have hope, and our hope is in the one who has defeated death.
In the uncertainty of a pandemic, and an election, and everything else happening in 2020, hold on to the basics. Remember who you belong to. Remember Jesus has claimed you, and that in the end, Jesus wins. As the cliche says, we don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future.

This confident hope we proclaim on All Saints Day is what sets us free to love our neighbors. As citizens of heaven living in this world, we are ambassadors for God’s kingdom.

We get to be included in God’s work; we get to live out the Gospel by loving and serving our neighbors and doing good works, not so we can be saved, but because we are saved, because God has given us grace and love.

“We are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We don’t have to have everything figured out, because we know the one who does know it all.

Our faith is in the one who was, who is, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Back to basics: You belong to God. God loves you, and God is faithful.

To wrap up, I want to share with you a quote from Frederick Buechner. I think he gives a great summary of the promise and hope in our Scripture readings today:

“The worst isn’t the last thing about the world. It’s the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It’s the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring.

Can you believe it? The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven. Yes. You are healed. All is well.”

Amen