All Saints Day
Luke 6:20-31
November 2, 2025
One
truth that the Lutheran church holds dear –
the
primary doctrine of the Reformation –
and
what Luther said he would not give up on,
even
on the threat of death and exile.
Is
that God comes down to us.
For centuries, the Church told people
that if you just prayed enough,
went to church enough,
of course gave enough money,
you could work your way up to God.
One of my seminary professors used to
illustrate it
with a ladder with God at the top.
The church taught, in essence,
that we could climb our way up that ladder
to God.
Just try harder, do more, be better,
and then God will love you,
and call you righteous, and get you
into heaven, and all that stuff.
But Luther said, No. The
Scriptures don’t say that,
and that’s not how God works.
We don’t climb our way up to God
God comes down to us.
In Jesus Christ, God descended the
ladder
to meet us where we are.
Now, originally, All Saints’ Day
was a day to commemorate
the people who were thought to have made
it up the ladder—
the saints who had attained spiritual
prestige
mostly priests, monks, and nuns,
and martyrs and other spiritual superstars,
who were believed to be just a few
rungs below Jesus himself.
For those of us who grew up Catholic,
we might remember hearing about these
saints
in glowing terms on All Saints Day—
stories of extraordinary holiness,
courage, and self-sacrifice.
I remember as a girl hearing about
Elizabeth Seton,
the first American saint. She was
canonized in 1975.
so I was seven and they really talked
about her a lot.
They talked about her incredible
devotion,
the children she cared for, the home
she founded,
even the miracle she was credited
with.
(cause every saint has to have a
miracle)
She sounded perfect.
The stories of the saints were
supposed to inspire us,
they told us often we could work towards
being like them.
Be like Elizabeth Seaton.
But I wasn’t inspired.
As I listened, I thought: I could never be that good.
And I really didn’t want to do any of those things she did.
I’m never going to be that holy or
serious or selfless.
And when they got to the miracle part,
I tapped out completely.
That was out of my league.
I knew was never going to be able to
work up to that rung of the ladder.
So instead of being inspired, I just felt left out.
And I don’t think I was alone in that.
Luther wasn’t crazy about that idea of saints either.
He didn’t think some people achieved
special powers or higher spiritual
status.
He didn’t believe they had climbed
up to God.
He didn’t believe that anyone could
climb up to God.
Instead, he said we are ALL
both saint and sinner at the same time
not because we’ve earned it, but
because
God has come down to us in Christ.
That’s what makes a saint: not perfection, but grace.
Not personal achievement,
but being touched by the love of God.
So the day turned into a day to
remember all the saints
all loved by God, and whose love
touched us.
Look at Jesus sermon on the plain that
we hear today:
“Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the
hungry.
Blessed are those who weep.
Blessed are you when people hate you,”
The
people listening must have been confused.
Even
the poor people listening must have wondered.
The
poor were seen as unclean, cursed, hated,
even deserving
of their lot in life by some current or past misdeed.
They
didn’t look “blessed by God”.
Blessing
was supposed to look different:
wealth,
warmth, full bellies, security, popularity,
respect
from the community at large.
But Jesus
says blessed are the poor.
Blessed
are the hungry.
And
these words of Jesus 2000 years ago,
And
this selection of the readings by the lectionary committee
60 or
so years ago, are still so relevant to us today. Of course.
(I’d
sometimes like a break from acute relevancy,
but I
guess I don’t get a choice.)
Right
now, millions of people across
our
country are facing the suspension of SNAP benefits -
the federal
program that helps
the
poorest among us put food on the table.
So people
who are already choosing between
rent
and medication are potentially now
having
one of their precious lifelines taken away.
And yet, instead of sympathy, many people,
including media and politicians are
responding with hatred and scorn:
“Why
don’t they just get a job?”
“How about they work for their food like I do?”
“They’re
all just scamming the system”
It’s like the theology of the ladder:
It’s
as if we believe people can just climb their way
out
of poverty by sheer willpower.
If
it’s any consolation, most cultures
and
times have had a hatred for their own poor.
The
poor are stark reminders of our nations’ failure,
It’s
easier to blame them for their situation than to look at
our
own shortcomings and privilege and greed, and bad policies
that
all work against their mere survival.
Unless
something is in the news,
most
people try to pretend poor people don’t exist.
We
shut them out of gated communities,
we
try to remain outside of their circles.
We shrug
our shoulders at vagrancy laws, fees, fines,
and other
rules that stack the deck against them
and
prevent them from getting ahead,
and to
let them know in no uncertain terms
that
they’re not welcome in our world.
And we
insinuate that if they just worked harder,
they
could climb that ladder.
(But,
by the way, we’ve greased the rungs and cut
most
of them in the middle)
But
if you keep trying, you could be like
us up
here with our many blessings.
But Jesus says otherwise.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the hungry.”
Not because poverty is holy—
but because God is present with them.
Because God comes down to where the need is greatest.
Jesus is turning the ladder upside
down.
Blessed are the poor.
And “woe to the rich”.
“Woe to you who are full now”
It’s not a condemnation, it’s a warning:
Don’t believe the lie that financial success
and earthly blessings and security
means you’ve climbed closer to God.
Don’t think blessing is something you
can earn or hoard.
Don’t look for God on the top of that
ladder.
Because God is already here—on the
ground,
with the poor and the grieving and the broken and the hungry.
God has come down to us and calls us to do the same.
If
you want to work your way to God, come down the ladder.
That’s
where you’ll find God.
The
good news is that along with all the cruelty and the
callousness
erupting against the poor,
there is also an eruption of compassion and caring.
An outpouring of concern, love, food and gifts
from
people to help people that they don’t even know.
Our
pantry shelves are fuller this week
because
of that compassion.
And that’s what All Saints’ Day is really about.
Not about a few people who managed to be perfect.
But about all the ordinary people—past and present—
through whom God’s grace has shone.
The ones who prayed for you,
who taught you faith and cared for
you,
who forgave you when you didn’t deserve it.
The ones who sat next to you in church,
who made casseroles for funerals,
who gave food to those who were
hungry,
who showed up for others quietly and faithfully.
The ones who didn’t try to climb the ladder,
but simply let God’s love come down to
them
and work through them.
All the saints.
There is no ladder to God.
There’s only Christ—God with us and
God for us.
All of us.
The blessed and the woeful,
the accomplished and the struggling.
The sinners in heaven,
and the saints still stumbling here on
earth.
We are not loved because we are saints.
We are saints because we are loved.
