All Saints’ Day Year A RCL: The Company of the Broken and Blessed

Revelation 7:9-17 Psalm 34:1-10, 22 1 John 3:1-3 Matthew 5:1-12

The Collect

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

The First Lesson

Revelation 7:9-17

After this I, John, looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,”Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”For this reason they are before the throne of God,and worship him day and night within his temple,and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;the sun will not strike them,nor any scorching heat;for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The Psalm

Psalm 34:1-10,22

Benedicam Dominum

1 I will bless the Lord at all times; *
his praise shall ever be in my mouth.

2 I will glory in the Lord; *
let the humble hear and rejoice.

3 Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; *
let us exalt his Name together.

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me *
and delivered me out of all my terror.

5 Look upon him and be radiant, *
and let not your faces be ashamed.

6 I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me *
and saved me from all my troubles.

7 The angel of the Lord encompasses those who fear him, *
and he will deliver them.

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good; *
happy are they who trust in him!

9 Fear the Lord, you that are his saints, *
for those who fear him lack nothing.

10 The young lions lack and suffer hunger, *
but those who seek the Lord lack nothing that is good.

22 The Lord ransoms the life of his servants, *
and none will be punished who trust in him.

The Epistle

1 John 3:1-3

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

The Gospel

Matthew 5:1-12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

What kind of people do you picture when you hear the word saint? Most of us grew up with images of stained-glass figures with glowing halos, individuals who seemed float an inch above the floor, completely untouched by doubt, anxiety, or human messiness. We tend to think of saints as spiritual super-athletes whose lives are far too pristine for ordinary folks like us to ever match. But our collect today tells a very different story, reminding us that God has knit together his elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Christ. That knitting together does not happen with flawless, golden thread; it happens right in the frayed, well-worn fabric of our daily lives, where God takes ordinary, struggling people and binds them into an eternal family of grace.

We see this magnificent, uncontainable family burst onto the screen in our reading from Revelation. John looks up and sees a great multitude that no human being could ever count, drawn from every nation, from all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They are waving palm branches, crying out with loud voices, and singing songs of pure thanksgiving. When one of the elders asks John who these people are and where they came from, the answer is stunning: These are they who have come out of the great ordeal. They are not people who avoided pain, bypassed hardship, or lived easy lives of quiet luxury. They are people who have been through the wringer, people who have walked through grief, loss, rejection, and trial, but who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. John sees the ultimate promise of God’s heart: the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, they will never hunger or thirst again, the scorching heat will never burn them, and God himself will tenderly wipe away every single tear from their eyes. The saints are not the people who never cried; they are the people whose tears God has personally dried.

That same resilient, lived-in joy is the heartbeat of Psalm 34. The Psalmist does not say that trusting God means you will never face terror or trouble. He sings, I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me out of all my terror; I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me and saved me from all my troubles. The invitation to taste and see that the Lord is good is not addressed to people who have life entirely figured out. It is an invitation whispered to the humble, the anxious, and the heavy-laden. Even young lions might suffer hunger in their self-sufficient strength, but those who seek the Lord discover that in his presence, they lack nothing that is truly good.

This unshakeable identity is what the author of First John wants us to anchor our souls upon today. He tells us, See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. Notice he does not say that we will become children of God once we finally clean up our act, fix our broken relationships, or master our personal prayer lives. He says we are God’s children right now. What we will be in the fullness of time has not yet been revealed, but we know that when Christ appears, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is. Our hope is not based on our own moral perfection; it is based on the radical, lavish love of a Father who has already claimed us, adopted us, and called us his own.

And that brings us directly into the revolutionary opening of the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus climbs the mountain, sits down, and begins to announce who is truly blessed in the kingdom of God. If the world were writing the Beatitudes, it would say, Blessed are the wealthy, the famous, the connected, the powerful, and the completely self-sufficient. But Jesus turns the world’s value system upside down and inside out.

Look at who Jesus calls blessed: the poor in spirit, the people who have run out of internal resources and know they need God every single hour. Blessed are those who mourn, the ones who grieve deeply over the fractures in our world and in their own homes, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, the quiet and gentle people who refuse to bully their way to the top. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful who choose compassion over revenge, the pure in heart who seek God with undivided devotion, and the peacemakers who do the hard, messy work of building bridges instead of walls.

Jesus is not giving us a heavy new checklist of moral demands to perform so we can earn God’s approval. Jesus is giving us a portrait of his own heart, and he is announcing where his kingdom has already taken root. If you are sitting in your living room today feeling tired, feeling like you are mourning a lost dream, feeling the weight of the world’s injustice, or feeling like your faith is far too small, Jesus looks through the screen, straight into your eyes, and says, You are blessed. Yours is the kingdom of heaven. You are not on the outside looking in; you are standing right in the middle of the family of God.

This is the great, comforting truth of the communion of saints for our Briarpatch Congregation today. We are not gathering as isolated individuals staring at cold devices; we are gathered into a vast, vibrant, eternal communion that spans time and space, heaven and earth. We are connected to the grandmother who prayed for us when we were young, to the ancient martyrs who sang through their suffering, and to the faithful believers across the globe who are breaking bread right alongside us this morning. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have walked through their own great ordeals and are now cheering us on, reminding us that the road ahead is held securely in the hands of the Lamb.

Where do you feel the weariness of the ordeal in your own life today? What is the grief you are carrying, or the hunger for goodness that seems so hard to satisfy?

Hear the joyful assurance of the Gospel today. You don’t have to carry a halo to belong to the company of the blessed, and you don’t have to pretend you have it all together to sit at the table of the Lamb. You are a child of God right now, washed in his mercy, held in his peace, and knit together with a multitude that no one can number.

Let’s lift our heads and taste and see that the Lord is good this week. Walk forward with courage and humble joy, loving your neighbors, making peace where there is strife, and rejoicing with the saints of every age, confident that the one who began this good work in us will shepherd us all the way home to those springs of living water, from this time forth and forevermore.

Amen.