All Saints Day Revelation 7:9-17 Matthew 5:1-12

“Glory to God and praise and love / be now and ever given / by saints below and saints above, / the Church in earth and heaven.”

So concludes Charles Wesley’s venerable hymn (Hymn 305 in our red hymnal), “O for a thousand tongues to sing.” The hallowed vision of saints robed in white, genuflecting and joining together in a chorus of praise around a resplendent heavenly throne is as powerful as it is appealing.

But who, really, are the saints? Though we tend to connect the idea of “saints” with the Roman Catholic Church, we can all name a few. Almost everyone knows St. Francis of Assisi, the monk pictured with all the birds and animals surrounding him, and St. Christopher, who protects people when they travel. The Catholic Church has named these people, and many, many others, as saints. In fact there are books filled with the names of those considered to be saints, but what have these saints to do with ordinary folks like us?

Although many, if not most Christians shy away from reading and studying the Bible book we call Revelation (the full name is actually The Revelation of St. John the Divine), the apocalyptic vision of John of Patmos helps develop our vision of what that “glorious company of the Saints in light” might look like. We’re told that angels are gathered around the throne with four living creatures, falling on their faces worshipping God day and night, singing a song of praise. We’re told that they hunger and thirst no more, and that sun and heat will not strike them because the Lamb is their shepherd, guiding them to the springs of the water of life, as God wipes away every tear from their eyes. Sometimes we hear part of this passage read at funerals to remind us of the joy and glory of heaven.

And yet, as idyllic and unspoiled as this image is, it is incomplete.

John’s description doesn’t stop there. He goes on to write that the “great multitude” gathered around the throne are those “who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” It is clear that those who enjoy the place of honor in John’s apocalyptic vision have undergone suffering, and given the tone of apocalyptic literature in general and Revelation in particular, we can surmise that some have even endured physical violence.

What does all this mean for us? Most folks prefer to just skip Revelation and go on to more decipherable, or at least more pleasing, Bible books. But as wars rage on with ever-increasing frequency, and disasters continue to strike with indiscriminate and unrelenting cruelty, as the pandemic continues and as the unreliability of the global economy continues to provoke fear and anxiety, we may know more than we think about these “great ordeals” and blood-stained robes that John identifies. And on All Saints Day in particular, perhaps the Spirit is calling the Church to reconsider John’s apocalyptic witness – complete with all its harshness and unanswered questions.

In the midst of the violent imagery and visions lays this powerful word of hope: After all is said and done, after the plagues of war and famine and disaster, and after pandemics have done their worst, salvation belongs, not to the generals and the dictators and the power mongers of this world, but to God alone.

This is the great and enduring truth of the Gospel, and it comes alive on All Saints’ Day, reminding the faithful that the powers and principalities of this world will not have the last word. In fact, not only is this Good News, we hear from the lips of Jesus himself that it is a blessing.

In a dramatic reversal of the customs of this world, Jesus foretells the truth of the Kingdom of God:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The poor to whom Jesus refers are the lowliest of the low. In the Greek of the New Testament, the word for “poor” shares the same root as the word for “spit”. The poor are the “spit upon”. These people, who do not possess earthly wealth, will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.

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.” Who are the “pure in heart”? The philosopher Kierkegaard once wrote, “Purity of heart is the will to one thing.” The pure of heart seek for, long for only one thing, and there is only one thing that is truly complete in and of itself. The pure in heart long only for God, and therefore, “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.” It would be lovely to be able to say that we do not see such persecution today in our society, but we know only too well it is all around us.

Then, last of all, Jesus says, "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.

I doubt that many of us, gathered here today, can claim to have had such an experience. We might say this is largely due to the fact that we are civilized, and have come to hold higher values of tolerance and acceptance than our ancestors. But though we may not personally have suffered persecution because of our faith, we need only turn on the local news to see prejudice and violence flaring throughout Massachusetts, the United States and the world. What are we supposed to do? We aren’t Mother Teresa (who, by the way, is now Saint Mother Teresa), we’re just ordinary folks.

The good news is it is the ordinary folks to whom Jesus addresses His Sermon on the Mount. It is ordinary folks to whom He has given His commission to love, to care for each other. It is ordinary folks who speak up for those who are persecuted, stand beside them, and support them. Jesus is speaking to us!

Jesus tells us and John reminds us, that the saints are those who have suffered greatly – and some who suffer still, even in our midst – and yet praise God all the more. That is what makes a saint! The saints are those who have known the pain of grief and the sting of death, and still manage to find a way to sing, “Alleluia!” The saints are those who have been excluded and ignored by every corner of society and yet still find ways to seek and serve Christ, loving their neighbor as themselves.

Who among us has not suffered from illness, sometime chronic, from which we may still be suffering? Who has not lost a loved one? Who, right now, is not suffering from the anxieties and pressures and fears created by the current pandemic? Which of us would refuse to help someone in need in whatever way we can? Which of us would not support the rights of those who are less fortunate than we and those innocents who are persecuted? The only way we might differ from those we recognize as saints is if we fail to praise God even in the midst of our suffering, even at a time when to us our suffering and the suffering of others makes very little sense.

Wonder of wonders, if we live to praise God, if we follow Jesus commandments to us, the saints are us.

The Beatitudes are not just Jesus’ summary of the good qualities possessed by other people – they are the guidelines by which we are to shape and live our lives. One failing most of us have in common is to hear Jesus’ words as “historic utterances” instead of current commentary on our life situations. But current they are, and enlivened by the Holy Spirit we are to heed them and live by them.

There are so many, many saints. We may not know the story of every single saint (who does?), we probably don’t know the personal stories of even some of our friends, but we do know Jesus’ story. We know what He said, what He taught, what He commanded us to do. And if, for a moment, we don’t see why we owe anything to the suffering, the persecuted, the poor, we need to remember we are bound to every person in God’s creation. We are bound together in Christ.

As His followers, as Christians, we carry on Jesus’ mission of transforming the world by spreading the kingdom of God in our daily lives, even through the smallest action of love. Like those we call “saints” we have come to Jesus Christ, we are His own and remain that way, and living as He has told us to, we will join the great multitude that was talked about in our scripture from Revelation, the great company of all saints, worshiping God and singing: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!” Amen!

Let us pray:

O God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray you, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.