Wesley Chapel Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
All Saints’ Day (Transferred)/Year C RCL: November 2, 2025
Gospel: Luke 6:20-31
Set us free, heavenly Father, from every bond of prejudice and fear; that, honoring the steadfast courage of your saints, we may show forth in our lives the reconciling love and true freedom of the children of God, which you have given us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.[1]
In our gospel passage in the 6th chapter of Luke, we hear Jesus’ sermon on the plain. In the sermon on the plain, Jesus spoke to both a current and future reality—the current reality of the humans standing before him, marginalized and oppressed by the man-made unjust structures of the Roman empire, and the future reality of all people. The declarations put forth by Jesus to this mixed crowd consisting of his 12 apostles, disciples and people who came to hear him and be healed, would have resonated with the realities of “poverty,” “sadness,” “patience under long suffering,” and “hungering and thirsting for justice.”
Blessed are you who are hungry now…Blessed are you who weep now…blessed are you when people hate you…” said Jesus (vv. 20-22). Rarely are any of these forms of human need and suffering, from which no one is immune, considered as blessed states of being. Luke’s use of the present tense of the verb, “to be,” paired with his use of the word, “now,” emphasizes that the hope embedded in the kingdom of God is a present reality into which Jesus invited all who trusted in the Lord and whose trust was the Lord. (Jer 17:7).
In Greek, the word, “blessed,” can be translated as happy or fortunate. Substituting the word fortunate, for the word “blessed,” brings more depth to the profound message embedded in the beatitudes. Fortunate, as a state of being, implies that beyond one’s own efforts, success has been obtained by favorable circumstances, and points to God’s grace. The Beatitudes reflected the “Now-ness” of God’s heavenly kingdom already among the Jewish people through the human person of Jesus, and assured hope for the “Not-yet-fully-realized” kingdom of God to come.
While Luke’s beatitudes closely parallel those of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, found in the fifth chapter of Matthew, Luke counterbalances Jesus’ blessings with woes—the classic reversal of fortune. To the oppressed Jesus said, love your enemies, bless them, do good and pray for your abuser (6:27). Those directives, I suspect, were tough for the suffering to swallow. I admit that I have to read his words very slowly; they are tough to chew, let alone swallow and digest. But it comes down to this: Hold the line of love. Do as Jesus said. Do as Jesus did. Stay true to who God created you to be and who you are becoming by virtue of your baptism, and your reward will be great.
As I wrote this sermon, it occurred to me that this gospel reading is used for All Saints’ Day because Jesus’ sermon on the plain just might be a prescription for saintly living. Jesus’ sermon urged right conduct according to God’s will; promised liberation from unjust structures of earthly kingdoms; and the ultimate reversal of unfortunate states of being. The Beatitudes were, and are, a proclamation of hope!
Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, was a human being who walked amongst humankind. Through Jesus’ life, ministry and death, we have a blueprint for saintly living patterned by his self-giving love revealed by his death on the cross for the salvation of the whole world. Like Jesus, the saints, recognized by the Church, were also once human beings who walked amongst us. They have given us a legacy of lives patterned on Jesus’ outpouring of self in love through myriad expressions.
Anglican priest and theologian, John Macquarrie, described sainthood as, “…the focusing in a human life of the divine presence.”[2] Macquarrie’s description brings to mind the image of a light-bending prism. The prism captures the light and through its transparent material, usually glass or plastic, serves as a vehicle by which the light, as it exits the prism, is perceived by the human eye in the fullness of wavelengths—wavelengths that are perceived by the human eye as colors comprise a beam of light. A rainbow is a great example of this phenomenon of light reflection, refraction and dispersion.
The image of the prism is particularly helpful for our All Saints’ commemoration. When a beam of light encounters the surface of a prism, the light slows down which changes the angle at which the light moves.[3] Likewise, the incarnational experience of a human life, slows down the divine presence just enough for it to be reflected through a multitude of human lives across human history—living prisms who are uniquely created to reflect, refract and disperse Christ’s light into the world.
Christ’s Light is dispersed into the world through you—the living saintly prisms gathered in worship today—you who are called to feed the blessed who are poor and hungry, both materially and spiritually, now. Christ’s Light is dispersed into the world through living saintly prisms to bear hope for the blessed who weep now. Christ’s Light is dispersed into the world through living saintly prisms to love and include the blessed who are hated, excluded and reviled now.
The Communion of Saints, of which God’s faithful are all a part, is the fellowship of those past and present souls which were, and are, willing to be used by God to manifest his eternal, self-giving love through this temporal human experience. By virtue of your baptism, you are alive in Christ and are in full fellowship with the Communion of Saints.
All Saints’ Day is set aside to remember and commend the saints of God, who have gone before us, leading lives, and many who have lost their lives, in service to God and God’s people. Like Christ, saints were human beings who walked amongst their fellow human beings. Today recognizes the saints of God who walk amongst us today—the saints who sit next to you in worship today and those people who, throughout your life, revealed the love of God to you and helped you to grow spiritually. It is through us, that this dark world glimpses the Light of Christ, as we live and proclaim life and hope as Easter people in a death-dealing Good Friday world.
The question for us is whether or not we have the eyes to see them; the ears to hear them; and the hearts to receive them? Here’s the big one: Do we truly have the courage—the guts—to be like them? May God strengthen and shape our unique human prisms so that we may be willing and courageous instruments led by the Holy Spirit to boldly reflect, bend and disperse Christ’s light across our individual lives, bringing the kingdom of God near to all. Amen.
[1] Absalom Jones. Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints. New York: The Church Pension Fund, 2010. p. 220 (adapted).
[2] Macquarrie, John. Principles of Christian Theology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons), Second Edition, p. 253.
[3]Prism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prism. Retrieved on November 1, 2025.
